Attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) taking place in Las Vegas week are getting a chance to look at what just may become the first smartphone to run on Google's new Linux-based Android platform. The phone in question, from China's Wistron NeWeb, is called the GW4.
The GW4 at CES is actually a prototype that doesn’t actually leverage Android as its operating system. Rather, it is using a more basic version of Linux, MontaVista Linux 2.6. A Wistron spokesperson told PC Magagzine the GW4 would be running on Android by March, however.
Although specifications of the GW4 include a modest 216MHz processor and a mere 64MB of program memory, the smartphone performed admirably in person, according to PC Mag. Wistron attributed the low specs to the efficiency of Linux.
Additional GW4 features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, a 2 megapixel camera, and a 2.5-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) resolution touch screen.
picks of GW4 @ CES from PC Mag
The GW4 is said to be pretty lightweight for QWERTY smartphone.
There's no word on exactly where or when (probably later this year) the Androidized version of the GW4 might ship. We’ll keep you posted.
Expect to here a lot more about Android at next month's 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Rumor has we may even see some gPhones (smartphones running on the platform) at the show.
Google is just one (very important) member of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of over 30 manufacturers, carriers, and developers looking to leverage Android as the foundation for a new type of mobile ecosystem—one not based on proprietary hardware and software, but on open standards..
The point of the OHA is to help speed up innovation and deliver a more user-friendly and flexible user experience to consumers; an experience that may feature applications and capabilities currently not available in the wireless world.
The open source nature of Android, which was introduced in November, is supposed to help drive development. A software development kit is already available and in the hands of interested developers.
