Taiwan-based leader in smartphones HTC unveils its second full-QWERTY slider Android in the HTC Desire Z, a good 18 months after the first, the HTC Dream. Running the latest Android v2.2 Froyo, the new handset is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7230 engine clocked at 800 MHz. That’s a bit less muscled than the 1 GHz Snapdragon of the HTC Desire. From the aesthetics, it’s really a Desire that grew a QWERTY keyboard slider.

Great Flagship Features

Looking like the Desire when closed, the HTC Desire Z actually has the same the feature of the HTC Desire HD which is only distinguished by its larger 4.3-inch screen display. Instead you get a 3.7-inch capacitive S-LCD touchscreen with multitouch, WVGA (480 x 80) resolution, 16 million colors, accelerometer and proximity sensors.

Despite a set of flagship features, it is positioned as a more modest option than either the earlier Desire or its successor the Desire HD. It also boasts of social networking prowess that comes with Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, YouTube and Google talk integration.

The new HTC Desire Z is a cornucopia of data and telephony connectivity options. It’s 3G handset on the dual band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA and a quad band GSM on 2G with class 32 GPRS/EDGE data speeds. Local connectivity gets WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0 including GPS SatNav with A-GPS support.

Imaging gets a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, face detection, geo tagging and video recording at 720p high definition while mobile entertainment gets the usual media playback features, a stereo FM radio with RDS and headphone listening in either wired (3.5mm jack) or wireless (A2DP) mode.

Internal memory gets 1.5 GB with 512 MB RAM and microSD expansion for up to 32GB. Its li-ion batters rated at 1300 mAh delivers up to 9.8 hours of call time on 2G, 6.6 hours on 3G with 430 hours on standby.

This is a major turning point for Google: the year that the standards of handsets get pushed forward so much, other phones will undoubtedly be left behind.

If many folks were wondering why the previous Russian sourced rumors about the 3.0 Gingerbread version of the Android OS coming out with hard to believe details –specifically, the part where it would require high end hardware for the new OS to run, it is because some people are starting to see what Google needs to do.

It is unlikely, of course, that Google would cut off the older smart phones that still run the Android operating system. But considering how fragmented the current user base is, they might as well go and do it.

Until now, there are plenty of devices that are still running the older 1.5 Cupcake and 1.6 Donut versions of the Android. It would make sense not to abandon these devices if they could be brought up to date with either version 2.0/2.1 Éclair or 2.2 Froyo. But the fact is, some of these devices are never going to be updated, and the users will be fragmented even more.

The Android 2.1 Éclair currently holds the largest number of users at about 51% of the total count. This is good, but far from the massive majority it needs to bring uniformity to users. At some point, Google will have to announce actually hardware requirements for later versions of the operating system. While it would be nice if they could update all existing Androids to version 3.0, they will still have to cut off the older models as they would not be able to support the newer features of later updates.

Currently, the number of users on the latest version of the OS (version 2.2 Froyo) is just a meager 3% -which is basically the volume of Nexus One users.

Google’s Android is going to have trouble playing catch up to the already launched Apple iPhone 4 as the updates to several handsets has been announced to be delayed.

Originally, the first handset to have the new Froyo OS is the Google Nexus One, and it was expected that the HTC Desire (one of the best Android devices available) would also be getting a patch after a week. This did not push through and it appears that owners of the HTC made smart phone will have to wait for a while before an official 2.2 update gets released.

So far, the tale of the Android updates has been one of constant waiting and delays for many eager and excited users.

In terms of performance and capabilities, it is pretty hard to beat the Nexus One –featuring capabilities and add-ons that would make both casual and hardcore users happy, the Android OS has never been considered as lacking. But as for the release dates, Google has plenty of issues to deal with.

And the fact that when the updates do come out, they still suffer from compatibility issues. Fans would patiently wait for a delayed launch date if it meant that the final build will have fewer issues and no major compatibility problems. With the Android that is not the case.

For those who did not catch the reviews and coverage on the HTC Desire Android smart phone, here is a quick recap of the handset’s specs and figures. The phone comes with a nice big 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen display, a 5 mega pixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz CPU, and of course, the Android 2.1 Éclair. The OS sports plenty of impressive Google features (such as Google Maps, Google Chat, Google Mail, Google Goggles, Street View, and others); it also uses the HTC Sense user interface.