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Tons going on this week at the Mobile World Congress. Among the most buzz-generating attractions is Android, the platform being developed by Google for the Open Handset Alliance. Well, LG is the first one to give us a soft release date: Early 2009. Some people are going to be a bit disappointed by this. After all, there were reports of the platform becoming available by the middle of this year, but that simply hasn’t panned out. But, things are still moving along, and we should start seeing this OS soon enough.

Tech blog Gizmodo got their hands on an Android device this week, and came away fairly impressed. It’s still under development, though, so some of their disappointment could disappear by year’s end.

Just so it doesn’t go unmentioned, LG’s vice president for marketing strategy, Chang Ma, told Reuters that device might be out in late 2008. But with the way these things tend to go, I’m willing to bet 2009 will be the time, despite the possible holiday season implications.

LG has also become the selection of the GSM Association to lead its Horizon Phone initiative. This aims to increase the number of multi-band phones out there which will support High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). The focus now is on the 850 MHz spectrum.

“The GSMA’s Horizon Phone initiative will help operators to establish the 850 MHz spectrum as an integral 3G frequency band, which will lead to greater scale economies, more cost effective communications and greater choice of products for users,” said Craig Ehrlich, Chairman of the GSMA. “We congratulate LG as the selected supplier for the Horizon Series of phones.”

So LG has their hands full. But maybe they can mash these two projects into one — a multi-band phone that runs on Android. LG was selected because of two of their handsets: The LG KM560/CM560 and the KP330/CP330.

[Reuters] [Fox Business]

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