This piece of disclosure by StarHub CEO Terry Clontz, which I wrote about in an article in the Business Times on StarHub’s fourth quarter results earlier this month, seems to have gone unnoticed, so I am hoisting it up again: Google G2 phones – the qwerty keypad-less guise of Google’s open source operating system-based phone – could be in Singapore by June.
Besides StarHub, MobileOne is also thinking second-generation when it comes to Google’s shiny new toy. Earlier this month, the Straits Times reported that M1 was talking with HTC about bringing in the vendor’s G2 phones “soon”. That phone might well be the HTC Magic (pictured above), which the Taiwanese smartphone vendor unwrapped at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month.
There is no news yet from SingTel, which launched the G1 HTC Dream phone in a glitzy affair here last week, on its G2 phone launch schedule.
My brief hands-on encounter with the HTC Dream left me impressed. The Dream’s operating system by Google – called Android – feels zippy and intuitive, while the phone’s keypad feels, well, nearly as good as my Nokia E71. The touch screen is nicely responsive, and the Dream’s form factor, while bulkier than the average candybar smartphone, including the E71, is still comfortably pocket-able. The Android’s notable extended home screen, too, is no gimmick, effectively tripling the real estate of the phone’s desktop area.
Furthermore, the doing away of a qwerty keypad means that the next wave of Android phones will be even svelter than its G1 brethren, and closer in demeanor to the iPhone.
