HTC Magic Google G2 mobile phone (White) (Vodaphone - Unlocked)

I've been hearing the word 'Android' a lot over the past few months. Not because i've been watching some 70's science fiction movie, but because people have been discussing the new mobile operating system Android. It seems that Taiwanese company HTC has decided to ditch the Windows Mobile 6.1 for a bit and stick Android in their newest handsets instead, in this case it's the HTC Magic.

The result is nothing short of fantastic in user friendliness, customization and personalization. Google has upgraded its Android operating system to 1.5, known as the 'Cupcake', and this makes the 3.2 inch 320x480 pixel touch-screen experience much better. The touch-screen is a capacitive screen that senses electrons from your finger tips allowing you to lightly stroke the screen rather than press down as on a resistive screen.

The home screen is made up of three sections and accessing them is as simple as using your finger to literally 'pull' the next screen into view, rather like closing a window blind only sideways if that makes sense. This means you have bags of room to play with your widgets. Sounds a bit rude but your phone is now like a Windows desktop where you can place application short-cuts and icons and widgets such as digital clocks, working battery indicators, talking analogue clocks and sticky note pads anywhere you like. Just touch, and hold, then drag it away and pop it down somewhere else, or take it off the screen and drop it in a virtual dustbin.

The ever-growing Android Market is a place where you can download literally thousands of free applications for your phone. Some are as useful as a chocolate teapot and some are very useful such as battery indicators with percentage readings, a spirit level which uses the accelerometers in your phone to move a virtual bubble and give you a very accurate reading of a surface, maps, alarm clocks, a working compass, dictionaries, and some are just absolute fun such as turning your mobile into a Star Trek tricorder using the sensors in your phone for the readings, jungle animal sound-bites, Transformer sounds, George W Bush sound-bites, and my favorite, the Android Lightsaber that turns your phone into the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Move your phone and it hums like a lightsaber. It even turns the screen a neon red or blue or purple if you're Mace Windu, and power up and down sounds are included. It's all nonsense really but it's Star Wars so it sort of gets away with it.

The camera is 3.2 mega pixels and it takes pretty good pictures for me. It has auto focus but no flash. If you want cracking pictures, buy a camera. You get a 2GB card to support the very sad 192MB of included RAM. The handset can support up to 8GB so that's plenty of room to store your stuff that you'll undoubtably download.

The phone is buttonless almost apart from a BlackBerry style rollerball, send and end keys, a back key, a menu key, a home key, volume rocker and a magnifying glass key which brings up a Google search box. The keypad is on-screen and there is a virtual keyboard which i find unresponsive sometimes and a bit on the small side for fast texting. Turning the phone horizontally makes the screen roomier and the keyboard slightly bigger but my spacebar key is very unresponsive in this position.

There is no 3.5mm headset port, only HTC's own headphones can be used which sound terrible and feel uncomfortable. Still, i use an iPod for music with my own quality cans and would never really use the HTC with a headset. Bluetooth is of course included as is Wi-Fi and mini USB.

I have very little to complain about with the HTC Magic, apart from the virtual keyboard, and it's one of the best phones i've ever used, and i've used literally hundreds. I have the Nokia N97 and it blows that out of the water in many ways, despite the fact that the Nokia has an actual keyboard built in, and it's useless. The HTC is premium quality with a shiny white finish which thankfully doesn't show the fingerprints too much. Remember too that this phone uses no stylus for input so don't go looking for it in the box coz there ain't none!

Android is the best mobile platform i've used EVER and i'll never look back at Symbian again now i've looked forward. With much more Android on the horizon it's gonna be hard to ever look back again.

Unlike all the other reviews you'll find of this phone, I am unable to compare it to an iPhone because I have never had an iPhone. Nor have I had an earlier Android-based phone or even a Blackberry. I did have a Palm Pilot a few years ago, so that is my only point of reference.

So! I can tell you that this phone works very well. It does what I want it to do with two limitations, both founded in my earlier experience with Palm: it doesn't synch to your desktop and it's harder to input information.

The Palm Pilot has a desktop application to facilitate synching. However, I use Google Mail, Calendar, Reader, etc., so most of my synching is over the Internet and that means I don't HAVE to dock to a particular desktop. All my info is in ... well, whereever it is out there on some server.

You have to go through a short procedure to access the device from your desktop, but it's fairly easy and all you have to do is copy and paste the files you want. I use iTunes to subscribe to my podcasts, download them to a folder in My Documents, and then copy and paste them into my device. Not elegant, but not difficult.

If you want to edit spreadsheets and Word documents, you will have to buy an app for that. It's only a few pounds, but it's not free.

Inputting information via the touchscreen may be difficult for people who are either used to a Blackberry-style keyboard or using a stylus. I happened to love using the stylus on the Palm, and I'm sad that it's no longer an option. However, the screen on the Magic is not pressure-sensitive. It responds to the electricity in your fingertip. So, a stylus wouldn't do anything to it. This is good in the sense that I can put it in my pocket with no worries.

But, yeah, the touch screen keyboard is not easy to master. Turning the device sideways prompts a switch to landscape view, which makes the keyboard bigger, but not that much bigger. Since the screen is smaller than an iPhone or iPod Touch, that means the keyboard is also smaller. Just a warning.

There is one final fly in my ointment, and I hope that it won't be there for long: there are far fewer apps available compared to iPhone. Don't get me wrong: there are many more than you're ever going to actually need. But, I am currently wracked with jealousy because I have friends who can access things like Catholic devotions, the Missals of several liturgical rites, all sorts of books, etc. If you have a particular field of interest, you may be sad to see friends with dozens of apps on their iPhones that you can't have. I do hope that that will change as more people develop for the Android OS.

This is a great phone for the money! Don't expect the same performance as a HTC Desire HD/HTC Wildfire or an iPhone because you will be unpleasantly surprised.

However, what you can expect is a great little Android phone that will do most of what you want it to and more, with great connectivity, responsive touchscreen and an all round great feel to the phone.

The track ball works great with the Opera browser app available from the Android Market as it acts a miniature mouse! (Great for clicking those tiny links that yours fingers are too big to click).

I would certainly recommend this product to anyone!