Ever since HTC released the first Android device, the HTC Dream also known as the T-Mobile G1 on 22 October 2008 they have come a long way in improving their devices. Android in general has improved quite allot since the now almost 1 year that the device has been out. The current devices are running on android 1.5 (all users can upgrade over the air). The goal of this article is to inform the reader of the different android devices available at the time. And hopefully help making a choice, in this soon to be crowded market.

HTC Dream

HTC Dream

As said earlier the Dream was the first android device released by HTC and available to the public. It features a 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen, 3.2 mega pixel camera with auto focus and a sliding qwerty keyboard. The CPU a MSM7201A ARM11 that can run at 528mhz but has been under clocked by HTC (perhaps to increase battery life which was not a strong part of this phone).  The phone is still loved by many in the android community because of the qwerty keyboard and many hacks that allow you to overclock the CPU, lets you run applications from the SD card and install custom firmware. However the device is allot thicker then the other android smart-phones that HTC has released. The Dream is also the first “google experience” phone on the market. The google experience means that there are no shells installed on the device by the creators (like HTC did with the Hero, don’t worry we will come to that later on). The google experience stand for full google app integration like Gmail, google documents, and many more.

HTC Magic

HTC Magic

The HTC Magic also know as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G is the second android phone HTC released. The specs are almost identical to the HTC Dream, in fact the specs of nearly all the HTC android phones are close to identical. The same processor is the heart of this device but this time they did not under-clock it and runs at the same speed. The Magic like the Dream is a google experience phone. The Magic was released with google android 1.5 (the build that added the on-screen keyboard). The on-screen keyboard was of course necessary as the Magic does not have a qwerty keyboard nor a keypad; it’s a full touch screen device.

HTC Hero

The Hero, HTC’s first non-google experience android device. HTC has it running their Sense UI, proudly presented as the counterpart to windows mobiles devices that run TouchFlo 3D. The Sense UI will be running on many upcoming HTC Android devices including the recently announced HTC Tattoo.  They market the Hero as a real HTC-Smartphone experience. The interface includes a search function that searches your contacts, twitter, e-mails and more. Next to the 3,2-inch capacitive touchscreen the hero has a 5 mega-pixel camera, GPS, digital compess, motion sensor and a 3,5mm jack so you can hook-up any headphones to the device. The Hero is the top of the line android smartphone that HTC has to offer.

HTC Tattoo

The Tattoo als know as the HTC Click is a new upcoming android device from HTC. The device has lesser specs compared to the HTC Hero, Tattoo will feature a 320×240 resistive screen. In the touch friendly categorie this is usualy considered to be the lesser brother in comparison to capacitive touchscreens where the most well known device is the iPhone line-up. The selling points of the HTC Tattoo are the fact that it runs HTC’s Sense UI, has removeable fronts – hence the name Tattoo as in – you can change the look like tattooing your body. The pricing range of the Tattoo will be alot lower then the other Android phones. HTC is hoping to bring Android to the masses.