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50+ Android Phones Expected In Near Future

wiseandroid writes "It's not even a year ago that the HTC Dream G1 became the first Android enabled phone to be released publicly (on October 22nd, 2008) and now we have listed more than 50 Android phones expected in the near future." Of the 51 phones on this list, 12 (from nine manufacturers) are currently available.

16 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. Any have a decent Camera? by thefirelane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously. Why do Android phones seem to ignore the camera? I'd really like to see one with a very good camera, something like an Android version of the N86

    1. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by WhiteSpade · · Score: 5, Informative

      The newly released (in the US) HTC Hero has a 5 megapixel camera (http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/specification.html). I just got the Hero and it takes surprisingly good pictures in low light too. The screen lags quite a bit behind what the camera is seeing, but I'm told that Android 1.6 is supposed to fix that (whenever HTC gets around to releasing the update). ---Alex

    2. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by ircmaxell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm running the official version of 1.6 (HTC Dream Developer's edition phone), and I must say WOW. SOOO much smoother and more responsive. The new camera interface is eih, but the display is much better with it (A lot faster and smoother)...

      --
      If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
    3. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by japhering · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As someone who frequently has to be in secured areas.. I hope at least some of the models never, ever have a camera, as is it a pain to either have to lock my phone in the car or to hand it over to some $10 an hour security guard prior to entry or have it confiscated by the same guard on the way out if I forget to hand it to him on the way in.

    4. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by dingen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is no such thing as a decent camera on a phone. Seriously, I'm not trolling. It doesn't matter if it offers more megapixels, auto white balance or a Zeiss lens. Compared to any decent camera out there, pictures from a phone will always look like crap. I rather have fewer megapixels, so at least the crap consumes less disk space.

      --
      Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
    5. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by LordVader717 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Photographing documents is always terrible with phones because they have no variable focus. So they use a pinhole camera for infinite focus, but it fails at less than about 3 meters.
      I always thought that a camera specifically for scanning documents would be great on a phone. They could have two cameras, one with infinite focus and one for photographing documents up-close.
      You could attach an apropriate lens in front and get the same result I guess.

    6. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're barking up the wrong tree if you want a "very good camera" in a mobile phone, it just can't be done, the optics aren't good enough.

      For reference though, an 8MB camera in a phone is likely to be *worse* than a 5MP one, which in turn will be worse than a 3MP one (which is about the optimum).

      More pixels in such a small area == less light falling on the pixels == higher sensitivity pixels == worse signal to noise ratio.

      The result of that is that phones with high resolution cameras have to apply a noise reduction filter, which is essentially just a blur, and none of these cameras can manage a sharp focus.

    7. Re:Any have a decent Camera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The best camera is the one you have with you.

      There are many, many photographs out there that don't rely on specialized optics or super-nice sensor specs for their artistic value. Often, the value in a photograph is just managing to capture a moment in a way that communicates the meaning of the experience. There's nothing about this that precludes using a cell-phone camera to take the picture.

      Look at it this way: our expectations for good photographs haven't changed much in the past 20 years. Sure, new things have become possible that we hadn't seen back then, but ultimately the human eye sees the same as it always has, and Ansel Adams or Cartier-Bresson are still legends for the work they did even though they didn't have a tenth of the technical sophistication we now enjoy. So, even though standards have stayed more or less the same, the capabilities of even our worst cameras have increased by orders of magnitude. At some point, even a cell-phone camera is good enough to do what needs to be done, and any more technical improvement is just for dick-waving and specialized cases.

  2. Just 50? by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will take time till Android matches the market share of IPhone that way.

    1. Re:Just 50? by schmidt349 · · Score: 4, Funny

      See, it's funny because if there were only 50 Mac users then their average contribution to Apple's revenues for the last fiscal quarter would be $245 million. In case you were wondering, that will buy you 245,000 entry level MacBooks, or one seriously decked-out Mac Pro.

  3. More choice means more flexibility by TwistedGreen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is one of the biggest ways that Android and the iPhone differ. With the iPhone, you have one phone, and one OS. With Android, you have one OS but many different phones. While the iPhone already has a huge number of apps available for their one device, not everyone wants a big touchscreen for a phone. Appealing to a broader audience by letting people choose their phone with a broad range of prices and features could be the most effective way for Android to compete. Smartphones are still only used by a small percentage all mobile phone users--it's still a growing market. It seems that Google is using this opportunity to make smart phones more accessible and more affordable. I think this is a far more sustainable strategy than Apple's one phone philosophy.

    1. Re:More choice means more flexibility by Zebedeu · · Score: 4, Informative

      The new Android SDK attempts to solve this problem by allowing developers to specify screen size profiles. Check out the blog post.

  4. On a related note... by keatonguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...I saw the Android TV ad last night. I think it's the only time seeing an advertisement for something has make me verbally cheer.

    It lampooned the Apple ad format, complete with the black text on white and indie music listing off stuff the iPhone can't do, then making a sharp cut to an android logo with a URL.

    I really hope to see more well-coordinated advertising like this for OSS! This is the first, maybe the second time in my memory that any OSS has had any kind of TV spot, and this one was really solid.

    --
    If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention.
  5. Re:After BlackBerry Storm I am ready by KlaymenDK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Regarding speed, you will find Android on the slow side as well, especially if you let your SMS app become bogged down with hundreds of old messages (to show previous chat log), and when your calendar and phone book get lots of entries. I'm not saying it takes *several* seconds, but it's a damn cry from being instantaneous.

    Regarding battery life, expect one full working day, or two whole days TOPS, from *any* modern device.

    If you want fortnight-long battery life, grab a Psion Series5 MX Pro and have it refurbished (yes, I'm being serious). If you want instant application starts, grab either that or a Palm Treo and have that refurbished. For *phone* capability, forget the Psion, that's "just" a pda (in quotes because it's a damn proper one).

    Do NOT expect an Android device to be a pda. It's a smartphone.

  6. Re:Why? by jhfry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't understand what is happening at all.

    Right now there are 100's of phones on the market, all running some sort of OS. Each of them appeal to different audiences, with different features, reliability, and carrier compatability.

    Essentially, some of those 100's of current models are being replaced with models running Android. Android is an operating system, it does not define the device it runs upon. Just like I can run Linux using just a tty interface over a serial link, or I can run it with a 3d desktop across multiple screens; Android can be similarly used for different phones.

    The advantages of Android over existing phone OS's are threefold:
    1. cost... there is no cost to the manufacturer of the phone or the carrier.
    2. compatibility... applications for Android will be compatable with other manufacturers Android handsets, so different manufacturers will compete on quality of their product rather than the amount of software available.
    3. features... Android was developed to be very feature rich, of course manufacturers can disable features but if they want them it is trivial to enable them. If the public begins to demand additional features as ideas change, then Android can be upgraded to include those features.

    Essentially, there were no phone OS's that manufacturers could even purchase that would result in a product so refined that it could compete with Apple and Blackberry, and neither of them were licensing their code. Android changes that.

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
  7. Re:Top Spot by jhfry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, Android will never have #1, because it free.

    I know what your trying to say, but I have to disagree. I fully expect to see an Android phone take #1 in the future. Why? Because once these 50+ phones are out, and the 100's that follow, there will be far more users of Android phones than phones running the Mac or RIM OS.

    At some point, the public will consider Android phones to be equal to the iPhone in features and capability, but they will have choice (Querty keyboard, carrier, camera, form factor, size, screen, cost, etc.). To many people that freedom, coupled with the features and usability they want, is more than enough to keep them away from iPhone.

    For Android to compete with RIM, it needs to get serious about business. The good news is, that because Android is open source, and most contributors have real jobs, its capabilities in business will quickly surpass the Blackberry. Honestly, I have been with several companies that standardized on Blackberry, and other than mail and policy managment, the phone is a waste. If Android 2.0 gets the mail part right, RIM should be worried. If they introduce a policy management server... then RIM is in trouble.

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.