Android phones in China: New and Upcoming

Dual-SIM, Dual-boot, Windows/Android phones, $100 FroYo phones, tablets with support for H.264, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid hardware decoding at up to 1080p resolution, these are just a few of the Android innovations that are being made in China.

This article from Visionmobile is a fascinating read that looks at the rise of Android in China, with interesting nuggets and facts on the development scene: 2-year old Android developers in China are getting paid close to $3,000 a month, the equivalent of what a veteran J2EE programmer with 10 years of experience. As with India, Android Market apps cannot be purchased by users in China yet. 

New and upcoming chipsets for cheap white-labeled Android phones being designed by MediaTek, Rockchip and Actions-Semi. Notable mentions include:

“TongXinDa TOPS-A1”: This fake HTC knockoff has dual SIM cards (GSM and CDMA, both at active states), a dual boot system (Windows Mobile 6.5 and Android 1.6 both stored in ROM) with 256MB RAM and ROM, and a 400×240 screen resolution.

Ramos W7: This $150 iPod Touch competitor runs Android 1.5, has a 4.8” 800×480 resistive touch screen, with a focus on video media playback features.

In the future, we are likely to see an Android 2.1 tablet with support for 1080p decoding of download-friendly formats.
In the tablet space, Actions-Semi has been designing a new chipset based on the mISP 74K kernel, running Android 2.1. Marketed under the EBOX moniker, the company aims to head-to-head competition with the iPad with support for H.264, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid hardware decoding at up to 1080p resolution. Such specs are unheard of among current Android solutions.

Revenues from the Android app store remain scant, with only 2% of the developer community reaping a satisfactory level of revenue.
The level of satisfaction from app revenues is evenly distributed, with 20% of respondents saying they are not doing well and losing money, and 18% saying they are extremely satisfied and doing well or optimistic about the future (the rest 60% is for people who do not make money from apps).

We looked at the Huawei IDEOS a few weeks ago, which is poised to be a smartphone for the masses – $150 Android smartphones will soon be a reality in the coming months. In India, phones like the Spice Mi-300 and the Acer beTouch E110 are bringing affordability to the Android platform. These phones lack the screen size or muscle to be classified as iPhone competitors, but bring a mix of Google’s services: Search, Maps, Gmail, and access to the Android Market for under Rs 10,000.