Android phone to hit UK October 30

The first handset to be based on Google’s much hyped Android platform will hit UK shores at the end of October.

T-Mobile UK, the exclusive carrier of the G1 device, said that it will start selling the handset October 30.

Since the unveiling of the gadget in New York last month, over 25,000 UK consumers have pre-registered their interest, the carrier said.

The G1 goes on sale in the US October 22 and T-Mobile USA recently said it had to increase its inventory in order to meet demand at launch.

In the UK, the Android phone will be available for free on T-Mobile Combi and Flext price plans from £40 a month, including unlimited data. The Combi 35 bundle offers 800 minutes and unlimited texts while Flext 40 gives up to 1,250 minutes or up to 2,500 texts or any mix of the two.

In the US, T-Mo said the device will cost $179 with a two year voice and data agreement.

The hardware is built by HTC and boasts a touchscreen and trackball as well as a slide out QWERTY keyboard. 3G HSPA, EDGE and wifi provide the connectivity along with GPS, while the camera weighs in at 3 megapixels.

The software features Google apps including Google Maps with Street View, Gmail, Google Talk and YouTube, as well as a full HTML web browser and Amazon’s MP3 store. By way of cool features, Google Maps syncs with the GPS to allow users to view locations and navigate 360 degrees by simply moving the phone in their hand.

On a negative point the email client only interfaces with Gmail, naturally, as well as most other POP3 or IMAP mail services, leaving corporate email users on Exchange and Lotus Notes out in the cold. Google however, said this leaves plenty of room for “third party development”.

Perhaps taking a leaf out of Apple’s book, each Android device will have access to the Android Market, a similar platform to Apple’s iPhone App Store.