Huawei's enigmatic Android phone bound for T-Mobile in Q3?

Take this with some skepticism, but according to tmonews.com a "trusted source" has revealed an Android-based Huawei phone is currently being tested and heading to T-Mobile in Q3, a timeframe we heard about at MWC. Specs reportedly include a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi, and Cupcake, naturally. No word on UMA, but the site claims that a certain Mr. Blurrycam is dropping off photos and more dtails in next few weeks, so we'll keep our eyes on that.

[transws6am @ Mar 30th 2009 10:15PM]

Let's see how long before some Apple sheep cries about how this is a rip off of the iphone.

[neal.lucas @ Mar 30th 2009 10:25PM]

you don't have to be an apple fan to see that this looks like an iphone.

[bluesky_v2.01 @ Mar 30th 2009 10:31PM]

The phone is rectangular with rounded edges. Unless apple patented that, we should be OK.

[Steve @ Mar 30th 2009 10:33PM]

So you noticed it to eh?

[Shadoblak @ Mar 30th 2009 10:43PM]

Hate to say it....But yeah, that looks almost exactly like an iPhone.....There's no denying it

[who? @ Mar 30th 2009 10:46PM]

It's the button that gives it away.

[josephmohmed @ Mar 30th 2009 10:55PM]

@transws6am

Come on. I know anybody who says anything positive in any way about Apple is a sheep and anybody who owns an Apple product is a zealot, but you've got to admit that it looks almost exactly like an iPhone. I honestly thought it was one until I saw your comment, looked closer at the picture and noticed that there's slightly less space around the home button.

[Ellianth @ Mar 30th 2009 11:02PM]

I'm usually saying stuff doesn't look like the iPhone... But without reading the article, when i saw the picture i thought maybe apple announced the iphone 3.

:P

[maveric101 @ Mar 30th 2009 11:21PM]

yeah it looks pretty similar to an iphone, but personally, i don't care all that much.

[Adam @ Mar 30th 2009 11:28PM]

but it's so darn attractive

[Argot @ Mar 31st 2009 6:54AM]

It looks just like the LG Prada, the phone that Apple ripped off when they "designed" the iPhone.

[Gnormie @ Mar 31st 2009 10:02AM]

hate to say it but it does look exactly like your bland generic touchscreen devive.

seriously people, it's a rounded rectangle with a screen, a circular button + 2 others and a hole for the speaker. Now were it a copy of any other Apple device that actually have some design credentials I might be tempted to say it's a clone. However the iPhones design is the most bland, generic and overtly obvious design to ever grace the planet for a touchscreen device. Calling another device out for copying it is like complaining that any device with a keypad is an obvious clone of the Motorola DynaTAC...

[ImaYam @ Mar 31st 2009 8:53PM]

" more dtails in next few "

Engadget grammar.

[iKurt Mark III @ Mar 30th 2009 10:15PM]

It looks like an iPhone, unsurprisingly.

[shootingblue @ Mar 30th 2009 10:32PM]

Ever notice the Iphone looks like the LG Prada?? Unsurprisingly,

[th3archiv3 @ Mar 30th 2009 10:44PM]

Ever notice how iphone looks like large screen palms? Unsurprisingly..

[Mmmm... Dohnuts. @ Mar 30th 2009 10:51PM]

http://www.3gjuice.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/works_w_iphone_logo.jpg

Difference???

[transws6am @ Mar 30th 2009 10:18PM]

Mission accomplished at 10:15 pm...... mark it.

[Ross @ Mar 30th 2009 10:20PM]

I suppose if you can't beat your competitor, join them. Hence the iPhone look alike (even though most touch screen ones now are looking like iPhone's), but it's definetly not a bad thing, just more nice looking phones going around :)

[monkthehonk @ Mar 30th 2009 10:21PM]

well you would be shitting urself if u didin't think this looked exactly like the iphone so idk what the first comment is freaking out about

[Ishcabible @ Mar 30th 2009 10:25PM]

It's BLUE and has a raised button. :p

[Brent Schmidt @ Mar 30th 2009 10:21PM]

Really though, how is it not surprising? I mean, a full touch screen non-qwerty phone can only once before the design is really copied again, don't you think? For a size that isn't too large...

[Badger_badger_badger @ Mar 30th 2009 10:25PM]

"dtails"

[derX @ Mar 31st 2009 12:48AM]

It's an infinitely small tail. Just integrate it and it'll be normal-sized.

[Forrest @ Mar 31st 2009 12:36PM]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that I get that joke. I guess I should consider my student loans money well spent :P

[Umeadi @ Mar 30th 2009 10:26PM]

WTF!!!....Why is T-Mob getting all the Android love?

[Robert @ Mar 30th 2009 10:55PM]

Because they are on the OHA

[sideshowRaheem @ Mar 30th 2009 10:28PM]

And yet another post about an Android phone that's gonna come out sometime in the near and/or distant future. It seems to me that their are about 1,000 Android phones coming out before the end of the year but we've only seen like 3 of them actually demoed. Why is that?

[Shank @ Mar 30th 2009 10:32PM]

Holy shhh! I thought this was the iPhone 3rd model .

[dodo @ Mar 30th 2009 10:32PM]

I actually like the quality of the Huawei's phones, they have a very solid Nokia-like feel.
pic goes here http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/clocky/blog/rds/digi.jpg
for the phone that I got for free (3 of them actually) with my TV-internet bundle.

[shravan @ Mar 30th 2009 11:27PM]

This is kind of getting boring. All the hype and what has Android offered till date ? It was touted to be iPhone's death knell. It is nowhere near even a tiny bell ring. Google must have a say in the H/W and get better phones, not ones that are outdated. This is lacklustre to say the least.
I'm an Android fan BTW.

[Shank @ Mar 30th 2009 10:36PM]

If u can't beat'em , clone'em.!!LOL fail from the opening gate.

[MarkG @ Mar 31st 2009 5:38AM]

How exactly is it a FAIL?

Are you suggesting that the iPhone is so full of fail that a 'clone' is also -- inevitably -- a failure?

How else do you expect a touch-screen phone to look? Should other touch-screen phone manufacturers make theirs triangular, or square, or circular, just so they look different to Apple's rectangular phone, even though a rectangle is the most practical shape?

[cloud858rk @ Mar 31st 2009 4:49PM]

Does iPhone have a 5 MP camera?

[TareX @ Mar 30th 2009 10:37PM]

Good news. But unless it's powered by Tegra (or something equivalent), am not getting it.

Seriously, you I wanted a normal touchscreen-only phone, I would have bought an iPhone. I'm waiting for the other rumored Android with a Tegra-like chip, a physical qwerty, and iPhone's sexiness. TmoJoe on Tmonews forums has been teasing around with this device, saying he has a 9-min video that he won't release yet so his source won't get fired...

[Shank @ Mar 30th 2009 10:39PM]

Breaking news!!!!!
Engadgeters voted iPhone smartphone and gadget of the year!!!!!!!
Will this accomplish such feat,.????

[TareX @ Mar 30th 2009 10:41PM]

umm.... Engadget, didn't you mean this site:
http://tmotoday.com/

[Shank @ Mar 30th 2009 10:43PM]

Only way I would get this , is if it can clearly kill the iPhone safari browser. I currently browse 1-2 hours a Day on my iPhone 3g.

[chefgon_ign @ Mar 30th 2009 11:16PM]

I realize you're just a lowly troll and you're just trying to get a rise out of some people, but I felt the need to point out that Android's web browser is at least as good as mobile safari. It renders equally well, is easy to control, and it never crashes. As an extra plus, it is much better at reformatting columns to fit the screen width so that zooming is almost never necessary.

[paul34 @ Mar 30th 2009 11:36PM]

Well if it doesn't crash that often, that'd be a huge improvement over Safari. My Safari on my iPhone gets a hissy fit and will crash if you spend more than a few minutes browsing some regular websites with images and text on it, sometimes. It's pretty annoying.

[vitriolix @ Mar 31st 2009 11:41AM]

Concur, I use my touch and g1 every day and I prefer the way Android handles resizing the text columns to your zoom level, and it starts out zoomed in to the colum. another huge feature is: long click a link, it pops up concxt menu, choose "open link in new window". just like a desktop browser you can preload the next page you are going to read while you finish reading the current one. this drives me nuts when I go back to the touch.

[Look_Around_You @ Mar 30th 2009 10:45PM]

I see a lot of Low Ranked comments in the future.

[who? @ Mar 30th 2009 10:52PM]

:P

[Shank @ Mar 30th 2009 10:47PM]

Ok android been out since October of 2008.. Supposedly every major carrier would have tons of phones on android os. I don't get it whats the hold up, don't they want to make money. ?is it just me , or is android overhyped?it was said that android would kill iPhone .

[microlith @ Mar 30th 2009 11:01PM]

Indeed, it's been out for just over 6 months. This means that only in the past few months have companies been working it into their design cycles. It takes time for them to get phones designed, implemented, and get the software buildout going and up on these things.

Now, Android will not kill the iPhone. At this rate nothing will. What it will probably do is eat away at the Windows Mobile front. Once Symbian is opensourced, it's likely that will come gnawing at Windows Mobile from the other end, since at this rate it will be the only OS that requires royalties to use and the only one that isn't open source.

That said, damnit, I want a hardware keyboard. If one doesn't show up or something before the next iPhone iteration hits and there's a 32GB iPhone, I'm jumping and retiring my 5 year old 3G iPod.

[AJC @ Mar 31st 2009 2:40AM]

I can't really agree with your android comment too much; Yes, the Android software has been available to the public for six months, but OBVIOUSLY its been available to handset manufactures for way longer. The G1 wasn't built in a day. There for other companies have had ample time to produce another Android phone and haven't. Either because they have been weary of a new platform, or they are concerned it wont sell to anyone but techy geeks.

[AJC @ Mar 31st 2009 2:41AM]

oops my comment was meant for Microlith

[digitallysick @ Mar 30th 2009 11:01PM]

I agree android has been out long enough now, where are the phones? Whats the holdup? If it were me I would get decent hardware, android and rush out a handset, cash in

[TareX @ Mar 30th 2009 11:15PM]

The hold up is it was half baked, and wasn't ready for decent hardware. Now, with cupcake and the growing market, it can get the phones it needs...

[chefgon_ign @ Mar 30th 2009 11:25PM]

TareX is right, the reason why Android hasn't been showing up on tons of phones yet is because it still isn't finished. They cut development short in order to polish up the G1 release, and the end result is that the currently released version of Android is not as scalable or adaptable as it was supposed to be because it was only QA'd for the G1.

Now that Cupcake is nearing completion, we're getting closer to the "real" release of Android when it will finally be ready for anybody to install on handsets without doing low-level hacking to get anything to work.