fugly

The pantsability of the second device is seriously in question.

And that question is

Pants. Now. Please?

i'd take that beast over some of motorola's new phones...

I am not impressed. Is it just me or does this look archaic?

@yoshi: The cellphone in the video, the interface, or the huge circuit boards? I personally thought the interface looked decent (more navigable than WM as far as I saw), while the cellphone looked meh, but the point is to put it on different phones in the first place.

It's not made to take to the club witch you, Lucy.

It's a prototyping rig.
This "real shit" is often not pretty, but without it and stuff like it in the hands of talented developers your shiny toys wouldn't get made and you'd be at a pay phone somewhere.
OOPS! THOSE were prototyped at some point TOO!

In the interest of perspective I will invite those willing to imagine for just a moment the size and aesthetic quality of THAT prototyping rig by comparison.

So you see that doing the work of making these things is not pretty, however it is entirely essential.

(-and indeed to some has a unique beauty of it's own.)

Partying like it's 1999.

Haha, when you said "beast" before the jump, I thought you meant the phone in the vid. But that "thing" in the pic is a BEAST!

@REILAOS

All of the above. Sorry but I just don't see it.

I will always give Google the benefit of the doubt. They have deserved it. Until I see a final product, I'll do my best to refrain from making any type of judgment. All that being said, I wish this wasn't Android that's being presented here, if that makes any sense. It's quite disappointing, to say the least.

(Typo in the original text: "didn't had enabled")

@yoshi: Sometimes being simple is the best design. Frankly, it looks just like my Unlocked Treo 680 which is the best phone I have ever owned.

I get the same feeling looking at this fugly phone I get when older ladies go modelling nude calling it art.

That is - by far - the futt-fugliest fuglyfone I´ve ever seen, it almost makes me want to pay NOT to receive it.

i thought phones wer supposed to be getting smaller?

This looks like.... the Android emulator running on a fugly ass device. Pffft.

Do we really need people commenting on developer models as if they are commercial offerings? They're showing off a platform, not hardware.

Relax.

that looks pretty crappy to me. hey, great, there's a slider which only shows 5 icons at a time. hope you don't have more than 5, or lefty/righty on that scrolly wheel will break at some point just choosing applications.

and again, there are people with bad eyesight. get rid of the mountain screensaver, and make the icons bigger!!!

@mmr:

If that's the case then the iPhone offers the most simplistic design and usability.

Those that enjoy sausage and admire Android should observe neither being created...

@izim1: Test mule sports cars are fugly too, as indicated by the spy shots you can check out in Road & Track, or Car and Driver, but the finished product usually looks better.

I for one like this interface. It doesn't have much razzle dazzle, but it looks solid and pleasing to the eye. I'd go for it.

The second picture is an advance shot of the new Bat Phone.

I just hope the size of the phone shrinks with time.

Fools. That second picture is obviously the mainboard and controller set for the flux capacitor assembly.

It's a pretty nice gui, have it running on a Zaurus. Looks better than the crap Nokia gui.

But...where do you put your ear?

Looks primitive just yet. Keep it on, f..k monopoly.

Well heck, I think it looks pretty good. The HTC GUI, that is.

For all the iPhone's brilliance, it's still a bitch signing your life away to AT&T or whoever for two years to get service on one. If Android can bring about a functional web-interface alternative to Safari on the iPhone, and farm it out to every provider under the sun at different price points, I'd be more than happy to gobble it up like the lemming-syndrome consumer I am.

uhhh that's not all that impressing... its more BLAH!

Goog doing phones is so stupid, it could only be explained by millions of mindless CEO worshippers investing all their money in Goog just to build up a modern day pharoah.

the ui in the device seemed fast enough - and that's supposed to be on a low power system? what do they qualify as low power?

Who cares what the non-production development phone looks like??? In the end you will have many models to choose from so you choose the model with the best style and feature setup for the cost you are willing to pay.

And who cares what the basic OS flow looks like in its prototype state? Anyone in s/w development will tell you the fancy bells and whistles are added in the final 5-10% of the development cycle. Even the basic setup of the shipping OS is not likely to show off the real potential of Android IMO; Firefox is a mildly superior browser in it's basic form, but with the vast customization of an almost endless array of open-source (free) plugins it is significantly superior to anything else available since you customize it to your personal needs, work-flow and preferences and that is something a closed platform will never be able to deliver to any degree.

Once Android has a sufficient number of initial plugins to choose from and allows for a satisfying level of personalization then the platform will be unstoppable IMO.

So it has the ability to move between an SMS icon, gmail, contacts, and browser icon!? Sign me up! That was a useless video.

That shot of the true prototype is sweet though - but tells us nearly as much about the OS as the video does.

@vagabum - ur absolutely right, there r too many whiny babies commenting on things they dont know about. Android is going to be the best mobile platform that will totally rip apart windows mobile. Microsoft nows this, and with their recent acquring of Danger Inc. they are trying to prepare for a fight they wont win.

It's all about the user experience!

Why is everyone critiquing the physical phone? THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY ARE SHOWING. They're not even showing an interface - just an OS. All they're trying to demo is that they have an operating system that can run android applications on android hardware... nothing more.

Honestly, I think that the white prototype is not a bad looking phone. Certainly looks better than most Blackberries. If they polish it a bit more I would definitely buy this. Probably the best looking QWERTY bar phone around. Its no iPhone, but it also doesn't have a touchscreen and I'm fine with that.

@billpendry: Amen! Proof of concept as much of marketing arm to cellphone manufacturers.

@yoshi: yup, fugly.

I was pretty certain it was mentioned that they would require ARM11 processors for the base chip requirements.

even on the ARM9, it was still pretty fast. (I just played with it today)
I got to play around and brought up system settings.
The guy quickly grabbed it back from me but it's running Linux kernal 2.6 omap.