Samsung pencils in June for Android smartphone launch

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 28 Apr 2009 at 08:53

Samsung has confirmed that its first smartphone running the Android operating system "will arrive in major European countries from June".

Aside from the operating system, the Samsung I7500 ticks many of the usual smartphone boxes. There's a 3.2in, 320 x 480 pixel OLED touchscreen, Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS.

There'll be a five megapixel camera and 8GB of onboard flash memory which can be expanded by 32GB through a MicroSD slot.

Android integrates features such as Gmail and Google maps in the phone and includes a virtual store for software applications, competing with the App Store that helped sales of Apple's iPhone.

Samsung follows HTC into Europe with an Android-based system last year.

There's no word on whether the smartphone will integrate version 1.5 of the Android operating system, which introduces a raft of new features, not least of which is support for the new SquirrelFish JavaScript engine, which promises to speed up website rendering.

There's also a new touchscreen keyboard.