HTC Clones Nexus One, Launches 3 New Phones

It’s just the beginning of the year and already HTC is on a roll. The company has announced three new smartphones — two of those will run Google’s Android operating system — and a redesigned user interface that aggregates social networking feeds.

The three new HTC phones are HTC Legend, a Nexus One clone called HTC Desire and HTC HD Mini, the only one in the pack to run Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The phones have been designed by One & Co, the San Francisco-based design firm that HTC acquired in December 2008.

“HTC Legend and HTC Desire take Android to another level in both substance and style,” said HTC President Peter Chou in a statement.

Thanks to its close partnership with Google, HTC has emerged as a powerhouse maker of Android devices. The company designed the first phone to run Android, the T-Mobile G1. In January, HTC’s Nexus One became the first smartphone to be sold by Google.

Last June, HTC introduced Sense, a user interface that allows users to set up profiles for work and play and has widgets that bring in data from different social networking streams such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Since then, the idea of aggregating all those feeds and offering them to customers through a single window has popular among cellphone makers. HTC rival Motorola got a jump on the idea with MotoBlur, an interface that aggregates Facebook and Twitter feeds and debuted on the Cliq.

HTC has tried to mimic that with its HTC Friend Stream that organizes updates from different online sources into a single flow. Friend Stream also lets users organize their contacts into different social circles such as groups of friends, colleagues or even high school friends.

All three of HTC’s phones announced Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain, will include the updated Sense interface.

Yet another Android phone from HTC, the Desire, with its 3.7 inch OLED display, is closest to the Nexus One in terms of its technical prowess and features.

The Desire uses the same Qualcomm 1-GHz Snapdragon processor that we have seen in the Nexus One phone. It has a 3.7-inch display and weighs about 4.7 ounces. It also runs Android 2.1, the latest version of the Android operating system, first seen on the Nexus One.

The Desire, formerly known as HTC Bravo, supports Adobe Flash 10.1. It has a 5-megapixel camera with flash and geotagging capability, digital compass, FM radio, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

The phone has an optical joystick surrounded by a narrow button instead of a trackball in an attempt to ostensibly improve usability.

Desire will initially be available in Europe and Australia before the second half of the year, says HTC.