In a show where new gizmos stare at you from every corner, HTC this morning just launched what looks like the best phone here at Mobile World Congress, with a Hero-like Android phone called the Legend.

I say ¨Hero-like¨because it is shaped like a Hero, but has a new aluminium unibody that is sleek yet strong enough to withstand knocks (the HTC folks did a drop test at the launch here). What´s more, there´s a new version of HTC Sense thrown in, so the user-interface is actually more friendly than Google´s Nexus One.

A quick walk through the yearly Mobile World Congress – the biggest mobile phone show around – and you’ll realise you are actually gazing at a crystal ball that shows what people will tote in their hands in the coming months.

Here in Barcelona, as this year’s phone extravaganza kicks off today, the power is clearly with Google’s Android. With Sony Ericsson, Motorola and China’s Huawei showing off world-beating Android phones this week, it’s easy to think 2010 will be the year of the Google phone OS. (HTC has also launched two hot numbers in the Legend and Nexus One-lookalike Desire).

But very clearly, rivals are not going away quietly. Microsoft, Samsung and Nokia all have their sights aimed at the emerging powerhouse OS.

So you have ripped apart your DHL package and started messing around with your spanking new Nexus One from Google.

Wait a second, I hate to spoil your party, but this “Superphone” needs a lot of extra fiddling with for you to get the absolute best out of it. For example, getting MMS to work with it – especially on StarHub – is still something of a mystery to many users. Trying to call someone requires you to scroll through the Contacts list.

Well, we don’t want that! After playing with my own Nexus One for over a week, I’m glad to have found ways to get around these little irritating moments in an otherwise excellent phone.

Here’s an all-in-one guide to get you quickly off the blocks:

Just a day after we got our claws on the Motorola Dext, we managed to slime up the screen of an upcoming Motorola Milestone with our first hands-on with the much-awaited Android 2.0 phone.

Yes, folks, the slide-out keyboard gizmo touted as a step up from the Dext is coming to Singapore within the next couple of months from StarHub.

How do we know? The phone was put on demo today at StarHub’s launch of its new mobile TV service, and the much-awaited Moto Milestone was among a list of devices that will roll out with the service the latest by March.

Whether or not StarHub has got an exclusive deal on this device, the folks here today were pretty coy. But it’s interesting that SingTel, while launching the Dext yesterday, mentioned nothing about rolling out the Milestone themselves.

We also don’t have any pricing details for now. But we can say, from a quick hands-on, that it will be one of the few phones that can really challenge the current “it” phone – the Google Nexus One.

My first impression is that Motorola’s Milestone is a well-made phone, in the sense that the feel is solid. The keys also seem like they can take a pounding from compulsive SMS and e-mail users.

A nice “plugged in” social media phone. That’s how I’d view the new Motorola Dext, which is being put on sale by SingTel  this Saturday (Jan 23).

One of Moto’s “comeback” phones featuring the now-hot Google Android OS, the Dext comes with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard as well as an ample 3.1-inch screen offering a not-too-shabby 320 x 480 resolution.

SingTel is the first to bring the phone to Asia, as part of an exclusive deal with Moto that will last at least six months. According to Spiros Nikolakopoulos, Motorola’s vice-president and general manager for Asia Pacific and international distribution, this exclusivity can be up for renewal.

This means SingTel will have, for a while, one of the best Android devices, sans the Google Nexus One, of course.

What of the hands-on experience? First off, the keyboard, with the “popped up” keys, are easy to type on, especially if you really don’t fancy learning how to type SMSes on an on-screen keyboard.

After all the talk, we are finally getting the Google phone – the Nexus One – out in the open and there’s even better news for Singapore users: you can buy this nifty ‘Droid phone immediately over the Net.

Yes, we are one of four countries in the world to get the phone at launch, along with the United States, Britain and Hong Kong. Cost? US$577.31 (S$806.65), if you factor in the power charger and shipping through DHL.

Made by Google partner HTC, the Google-branded Nexus One is the first to run the Android 2.1 OS. It has a number of goodies packed into a light 130g frame that is as slim as 11.5mm, or a mere few credit cards stacked together.

Techgoondu is heading down Thursday morning for an announcement by Google and the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

What could it be?
According to the media invite teaser, I am guessing it could well be a data blend between LTA’s live traffic update and Google Maps’ routing feature (that thingamajing which tells you the route to take from point A to B).

Google Maps already employ a crowdsourced solution in certain US states which tracks (anonymously, or so Google says) the movement of mobile phones when users opt in to the My Location feature and aggregates this data into an average representation of prevailing traffic conditions.

Will Singapore’s Google map be a mix of LTA’s data and big G’s crowdsourced solution? Would there be more stuff like SBS Transit’s Intelligent Route Information System (iris) which estimates arrival time of buses from a bus stop built in?