Until recently, if you bought a Chinese manufactured smart phone, you had only a couple of selections; a cracked, illegal edition of Windows Mobile or not mainstream custom operating system made in China (for example SmartNX). However it ended up you were using an OS (operating system) which at best was illegal, and at worst would have no support for common apps and upgrades.

Fortunately with the emergence of the open source Google Android, things are beginning to evolve. Open source code means that Chinese manufactures finally are able to launch a mobile phone OS that is actually capable of being used worldwide and is mainstream at the same time (regarding the phone’s internal code by the way, not its exterior or its icons).

The original phone to sample with Google Android was the infamous Sciphone Dream G2. Although the designers didn't have the means to run the full Android operating system, they put together a simulated version...hey, have to start somewhere.



The G2 phone is running a custom made lookalike version of Android. This is because the phone is lacking sufficient CPU speed (a phone needs at least 64MB of NAND open to make Android work with any functionality and the G2 only has 32MB on board).

This is just the beginning though. As new editions of the MTK series of chips are released (the most common chipset in Asia, and with the current hot model being the MTK6235), processing speed and on board NAND will grow letting phone makers actually use the open source Google Android OS. And for the best part? All the eclectic and practical applications made for a Google Android phone will be at your fingertips at a little piece of the cost of a brand name smart phone, will be totally unlocked, and there won't be major shipping (customs) holdups as we experience now with the Windows Mobile devices. The future for smart phones in China appears bright indeed.

Please follow this link to see the G2 for yourself

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I've just downloaded the latest unreleased build of Google's Chrome OS and will see if it installs on anything. (It's license should be quite open, so I don't think there's any risk if you can find it on such sites which offer such things :niceone

I love my iPhone and was initially not excited by Chrome OS or Android talks.

With the REAL Android-based smart phones rumored to be coming out very soon from China and flooding the market, I am starting to get excited.

The more worthy competition, the better.

As far as I can tell, the current fake Android phones run crappy Java based OS's like those on the phoney iPhone knock-offs

You are right, but there are two new phones just released in China that are truly running Android (v1.6) and have the processing power with which to do that.

The only reason we haven't added them yet is they do not come with Android Market (and as far as I know, you can not download that online anywhere). We are still considering adding them to our site with it clearly stated that it does not come with that, but it still puts a damper on having a OS like Android where you can't download apps (the funny thing is that other Name Brand Android phones are also lacking this as well ).

The good news is that we are talking with several sources about getting it with Market included. Once that is sorted, the floodgates should really open.

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Quad-Band-Phones.com. Your Source For Branded And Unbranded Mobile Phones.