HTC were first out of the gate with their Android phone – the G1. The second wave of Android devices is almost upon us including G1 follow up, the HTC Magic. It won’t stop there, though – HTC bosses have confirmed that at least threes new HTC Android phones will be released this year.
HTC were one of the companies that worked closely with Google during Android’s development – thus giving themselves something of a head start in bringing an Android handset to market. No surprise, then, that they have been busily working on more ‘droids.
The keyboardless HTC Magic is due out here in April on Vodafone, but HTC CEO Peter Chou recently gave an unexpectedly frank response to the question “How many more Android phones can we expect this year?”
Speaking at a Merrill Lynch technology conference in Taipai, Chou told the questioner that hTC would be launching “at least three” new Android devices.
We assume that this includes the HTC Magic, but that still leaves at least two unnanounced phones. Will HTC go for different form factors – having already tried the pure touchscreen and the slider keyboard – or are we going to be looking at focused feature sets for music fans, business types, etc.? Maybe the time is right for a line of budget Android handsets…
