This month sees the launch of a new wave of Google phones in Australia. Most run the much-improved Android 2.0 OS.
First in Android's new wave is Motorola, which hopes its Google phones will spur a return to the glory days of the stylish, slim RAZR and, a decade before, the original Star Trek-style flip phone.
This week sees the launch of the Motorola Dext and Backflip on the Optus network.
Both complement the now-mandatory touchscreen with a compact QWERTY keypad. The Dext is a more conventional slider, while the Backflip uses a hinge to position its screen at a lean-back angle suitable for watching videos or even using as a bedside alarm clock.
Despite using a mid-range 530MHz processor and running last year's Android 1.5 operating system, the Dext and Backflip are snappy performers with their own appeal beyond the Android OS itself.
That's because both sport a customised interface known as Motoblur. This puts the social networking services of Facebook, Twitter and MySpace right on to the phone's home screen.
Instead of having to log into individual apps for each service to read messages, post updates and browse uploaded photo galleries, widgets on the Motoblur home page provide live feeds that are updated constantly over the 3G network.
Motoblur also integrates messages from these social networking sites, plus emails and SMS texts, into a single view.
This month Telstra will release its first Android smartphone, the HTC Desire, which will use its Next G network. The Desire ticks every box on the techno-lust list. There's a powerhouse 1GHz processor, the over-fresh Android 2.1 operating system, a five-megapixel camera, FM radio and a brilliantly crisp 9.4-centimetre AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) screen. Unlike the iPhone and some other smartphones, the Desire supports Flash, so you don't have to miss out on most of the streaming video clips on news and entertainment websites.
HTC has also planted its own Sense user interface onto the Desire. Sense comes with dozens of classy widgets, integrates each contact's Facebook and Twitter details into your address book and includes a Friend Stream app that combines feeds from Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
Also sitting on the Android launch pad is Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10, which will arrive on Vodafone and Three in early May.
The Xperia X10 matches the HTC Desire with its 1GHz processor but ups the digital camera to eight megapixels, with snaps and video clips shown to best effect on the 10.2-centimetre screen.
Sony Ericsson's Timescape user interface ties together social networking updates with emails, phone calls and text messages but it's more akin to the Motoblur home screen than the top-to-tail experience of HTC Sense.
By mid-year we'll also see the palm-sized X10 Mini, which has a 6.3-centimetre touchscreen and, in the X10 Mini Pro version, a tiny slide-out keyboard.
Also poised for a likely mid-year release is Samsung's second-gen Android handset, the Galaxy S. This is another phone packing a 1GHz powerplant and a 10.2-centimetre screen but the enhanced Super AMOLED screen has to be seen to be believed. It's not just brighter but the colours have more density and punch, while also less reflective of sunlight and drawing less power (which means longer battery life).
Things are really starting to heat up!
