Techno Uptodate: HTC Magic launched in India

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC has launched India's first smartphone that will run on Google's open source Android operating system. HTC Magic, popularly called G2 or the second generation Google phone, has Bharti Airtel as its exclusive carrier. The phone is priced at Rs 30,000 approximately.

The company has tied up with Bharti Airtel to sell the unlocked HTC Magic Android phone. The exclusive deal spans six months, which means a consumer will have to buy the phone from Airtel even if he wants to run it on a different network. Incidentally, HTC has tied up with Vodafone to sell G1 and G2 in most other regions, including the entire Europe.

G2 or HTC Magic is the successor to the first Google Phone, G1. The device is a sleeker version of G1 sans keyboard.

Touchscreen

HTC Magic is the latest entrant into the Android touch screen smartphone line up of HTC.

The phone has a 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen display with 320 x480 resolution. HTC Magic weighs 116 gms with battery and comes with onscreen keyboard.

Size

The vital statistics of the phone is 11.3 x 5.56 x 1.36 cm. There is a trackball for scrolling screens with Enter button. Other features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mini USB and GPS. In addition to accelerometer, HTC G2 has one G Sensor. There is also an MP3 player that supports major audio formats like AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MP3, WAV and MIDI.
Apps on board

Being based on Google's Android platform, the phone offers Google apps, including search, Gmail, GTalk and Google calendar. The Android interface allows users to mark Gmail messages and assign them to a label or delete them.

Google Android is based on the open source platform for mobile devices. Using these smartphones, a user can download a wide number of utilities and productivity applications from Android App Store, both priced and for free.

Camera

The HTC Magic sports a 3.2 megapixel with Auto Focus. There's no Flash. HTC G2 supports only video formats like MP4 and 3GP which are slightly less when compared to the current standard of Android mobiles. The phone's video recording capabilities allows users to post videos directly on You Tube or share videos with friends via email or MMS.
Connectivity

HTC Magic has an HSDPA connectivity with speeds as high as 7.2 kbps. It also has a Wi Fi connectivity as well as GPS. The phone has an internal GPS antenna. The speed of GPRS is 32-48 kbps. It supports Quad Band GSM Networks and Dual Band 3G.

Battery life

HTC Magic offers 512 MB ROM and 288 MB RAM. The phone has an expansion slot for microSD. The rechargeable Li-ion battery with 1340 mAh offers talk time of upto 240 minutes and standby time of up to 120 hours.

Airtel bonanza

For Airtel customers, HTC Magic allows free data download of 100 MB per month for a period of 6 months. Airtel customers can also avail several utility-based applications such as Portfolio Manager, Hello Tune Manager, Weather Channel, Mobshare, In-mobile search and City Search on the Adroid phone.

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