Since OHM have a UK address, we ordered the developers edition of the G1 so we could have more interesting experiments and applications for you. It’s $399 USD as announced, but the total is slightly different. First we tried to use our US address to profit from the free shipping, but unfortunately it was not accepted. We will have an extra $42.60 for shipping and handling, that’s a total of $441.6 – still acceptable.

After entering the shipping, now time to finalize order but I just noticed a different total of $527.25. There is another Tax to be paid of $85.65. So the overall price of the developer edition is $399 Tax Free, or to be more precise for US only. There will be an extra $100 or more depending on the country you are shipping to.

The case of UK for example the total will be $527 USD, I don’t know about other countries, but I think the price remain acceptable for us to get a gadget that you can use to test your android applications on real device. Selected specs for Android Dev Phone 1:

• Touch screen
• Trackball
• 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus
• Wi-Fi
• GPS-enabled
• Bluetooth v2.0
  • Handsfree profile v1.5
  • Headset profile v1.0
• 3G WCDMA (1700/2100 MHz)
• Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• QWERTY slider keyboard
• Includes 1GB MicroSD card (can be replaced with up to 16GB card)

Just a reminder that the G1 Dev phone is available in 18 international markets, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan, India, Canada, France, Taiwan, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Hungary (free shipping in the US only).

Check android project page for more information on Devices availability for developers. Android Dev G1 could be ordered from Android market.

Update : We have information that the G1 Dev Phone cost $537 USD for France ($95 taxes and $42 shipping)!

While it’s not possible to run Android on current iPhone, anyone can create amazing skins for the emulator. AndDev.org have created an amazing iPhone skin for Android emulator in two flavors : landscape and portrait. To use it, unzip the downloaded package then rename it to iphone_HVGA-L and iphone_HVGA-P, instead of using the default names. Copy to android_sdk/tools/lib/images/skins/ and you are ready. To run the emulator with the new skin see our previous tips. Then enjoy !

Since the first day of launching Android, many started asking if it is possible to run the platform on available devices. The only answer I got until now is : NO, you have to wait until 2008. Android provide in its Linux Kernel support for the Qualcomm MSM7K family of devices; and according to the official Android’s MSM Linux Kernel Development group, the current kernel tree support only the Qualcomm MSM7200A, in a work done by the Android Systems team at Google and supported by Qualcomm.

The dual processor chipsets aims to reduce the development costs by supporting more features for the handset. The MSM7200 Chipset features include :

• Supports WCDMA/HSUPA and EGPRS networks
• Multimedia Broadcasting Multicast Service (MBMS)
• Integrated ARM11™ applications processor and ARM9™ modem
• QDSP4000™ and QDSP5000™ high-performance digital signal processors (DSP)
• 528 MHz ARM11 Jazelle™ Java® hardware acceleration
• Support for BREW® and Java applications
• Qcamera™: Up to 6.0 megapixel digital images
• Qtv™: Playback at 30 fps VGA
• Qcamcorder™: Record at 30 fps VGA
• Q3Dimension™: Up to 4 million triangles per second, and 133 million depth-tested, textured 3D pixels per second fill rate
• gpsOne® position-location assisted-GPS (A-GPS) solution
• Support for Linux® and other third-party operating systems
• Digital audio support for MP3, aacPlus™ and Enhanced aacPlus
• Integrated Mobile Digital Display Interface (MDDI), Bluetooth® 1.2 baseband processor and WiFi support

So all of these features should be available in your future GPhone, in addition to what Android will provide as software solution. Until the first handset will be available for public in the second half of 2008, the only way to try Android’s applications is using the emulator.