Google’s Phone Gallery is RSS Enabled, And There Are a Few Phones Here We’ve Never Heard Of
It’s been a long, long time since we’ve visited Google’s phone portal (which once served as the storefront for the now-discontinued Nexus One) where they showcase the hundreds of different Androids available for many different carriers around the world. When it first began they only showcased the newest handful of devices from America’s major carriers but they promised they’d be adding more regions and carriers as time went on. (And that they did – we went from just the UK and US to nearly every major region in the world.)
We stumbled across something neat, though – it’s RSS enabled! By adding this to your favorite RSS reader (ours is Google Reader, of course), you’ll be able to check out the latest phones the moment they make their way into Google’s database. We added it ourselves and actually came across a few devices we’ve never heard of. Let’s take a look at some of these:
LG Optimus Chat
Judging by the name, this one sounded like it’d be an Optimus-style phone with the added luxury of having a hardware QWERTY keyboard. That’s exactly what the Optimus Chat is. Much like other devices in the same family, it has a 3.2-inch HVGA display, Android 2.2, a 3 megapixel camera and a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor. The carrier listed is NTT docomo, a Japanese carrier. We’ve also learned that this one was released on several carriers in India.
SKY Mirach
This is one from Pantech offered by SK Telecom in South Korea. It joins one device we’ve heard of before – the SKY Vega – as one of three phones in this lineup. It’s a bit similar to the Optimus Chat we talked about above, but has a bigger display at 3.5 inches and a higher WVGA resolution. Processor, amount of RAM, and version of Android are all similar – 600MHz MSM7227 by Qualcomm, 512MB of RAM, and is powered by Android 2.2. The camera is a bit beefier, though, delivering 5 megapixels of still photo goodness.
SKY Izar
This litttle fella – which we’ll call the smaller cousin of the SKY Mirach above – belongs to Korea Telecom. It does away with a hardware button for home for an all-touch experience, but also has a smaller screen and only runs Android 2.1. (It’s said to be upgraded to Froyo soon enough.) The display itself is 3.2 inches, but the resolution of 480 x 800 means you’ll have a lot more screen real estate than you normally would on a display this size.
They aren’t the newest, fastest, prettiest or most attractive phones in the world, of course, but still interesting. It makes us wonder if there are other phones tucked away on this site that we’ve never heard of. Head over to Google.com/phone to check it out if you’re curious and see if you can spot a lesser-known phone from your region.