SmarTone-Vodafone Brings Hong Kong Its First Android Phone!

Googley goodness is finally served up fresh with the HTC Magic.

Hot off the press! SmarTone-Vodafone in Hong Kong just announced that they will be releasing the new HTC Magic, the very FIRST official, non-parallel market Android smartphone in our fair city!

HTC Magic is preloaded with tailored mobile versions of popular Google services and offers direct access to Gmail and Google Search. HTC Magic provides an enhanced YouTube experience, allowing users to upload videos directly, watch videos in widescreen, rate their favourites and view comments. Google Maps now includes Latitude and is enabled with Street View in anticipation of its coming Hong Kong launch. Google Talk is also included to help customers stay in touch with friends via instant messaging. Google’s unrivalled innovation continues with its latest development, Android Market on HTC Magic. Customers can browse through close to 2000 apps, including games, shopping, travel, social networking and many more, currently available, free of charge, for quick and easy download. This smartphone also includes a variety of email options, such as POP3 and IMAP, as well as Gmail. It enables synchronization and automatic push for Microsoft Exchange Server-based email and Gmail, to ensure your calendar, contacts and email accounts are constantly kept up to date.

Most importantly, it allows Hong Kong to get ready for the upcoming launch of Google’s Hong Kong Street View feature! We’ve seen the Google camera car driving around HK for the past few months, so we’re very excited about this feature.

Pre-orders for the white or black version are being made available now to SmarTone-Vodafone Prioprity Plus members, but it looks like the Magic will be available in the first week of June and when the stock is here the price and plans will be released.

Very exciting news for Hong Kong as the smartphone wars heat up, as you’ll have to choose between this exciting new Android phone, the Palm Pre or the next Apple iPhone – because if you aren’t using a smartphone by the end of the year you’ll be missing out.

SmarTone hasn’t given us an official date yet – but we are guessing it as June 8th, but we’ll update our calendar when we get the official word. Click through to HTC’s site here to see all the specs. Smartone provided features are listed below:

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