Clonedroidphone.com

Wistron NeWeb’s GW4

Earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a Chinese company called Wistron NeWeb debuted a smartphone with all the right features running MontaVista embedded Linux.  From the PC Magazine article:

“But according to Wistron spokeswoman Molly Lin, the GW4 will be running Android by March, when Wistron will start selling it to more prominent firms for branding.”

March has come and gone, with no word yet on Wistron NeWeb’s progress. This news fragment remains notable though, as it is the first, and to my knowledge only, report of a Chinese phone manufacturer representative acknowledging an effort to port Android on a non-Open Handset Alliance affiliated company’s phone.

Here’s a pretty nice video of the GW4:

Asustek to launch Android handset

From DigiTimes:

“Asustek Computer plans to launch its first Android-based Google phone in the first half of 2009, according to company sources.”

This past September, it was reported that Google invited Asustek into the Open Handset Alliance.  Last year Asus released their first 3g Windows Mobile-based smartphone, the M530w, to the UK market.

Android Running on a CECT N96 Clone?

This forum post intimates that a CECT N96 is running a version of Android.  I’m still investigating, but this may be the first documented Android-on-clone spotted in the wild.

Here’s the best demo video of the CECT N96 I could find on YouTube, from our Croatian friends over at Red GSM:

The MiPhone M88 - an Android platform?

With a 200Mhz ARM926T TI OMAP 850, the MiPhone M88 seems to meet Android’s minimum hardware requirements.  It ships with Windows Mobile 6, costs $258.00 from DealExtreme, and looks like it has the right combination of smartphone essentials - Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900, 802.11g/b, Bluetooth, 3.2” touch screen.

Though initial reviews are positive, the $258 price point is a bit optimistic of DealExtreme, considering real HTC devices and iPhones cost only slightly more (albeit with a contract).

So, of the iPhone clones this may very well be the nicest yet.  Alas, the game is still on for an Android distribution that works on these phones.

Android Goes Open Source

Google has released the complete Android stack into the wild.

Everything from the C runtime to the kernel to the Dalvik virtual machine has been released as source.

This is a huge step towards implementing Android on 3rd party phone hardware - we’ll have to wait and see where this goes as developers, manufacturers, and enthusiasts get their hands on the source code and start hacking.