Vodafone announced today a new Android phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Called the HTC Magic, the touchscreen smartphone features a 3.2 Megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, and GPS, but no slide-out keyboard, unlike T-Mobile’s G1, the first Android phone launched in September. It was also made by HTC. The HTC Magic has a proprietary headphone jack.
The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones tries it out (video).
The Magic goes on sale to Vodafone customers in the UK, Germany, Spain and France, and non-exclusively in Italy. Users will be able to access the Android Market, which boasts 800 downloadable applications, most of them free. It will also feature new Android firmware, known as “Cupcake”.
The big telecom show in Barcelona this month was expected to see the launch of several Android-based phones, but the Magic is as yet the only confirmed release. Pricing will be done locally in each territory and Vodafone has opened pre-registration the device.
In other news, a “Universal Charging Solution”, using micro USB as the charging interface, was proposed by 17 leading mobile companies. AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile, Vodafone and others all proposed a standard charger interface.
Maybe they could work on headphone jacks, next.
