We take a look at what kind of rabbit HTC pulled out of the hat with its latest Android-powered smartphone.

THE first so-called Google phone, the HTC G1 was never officially introduced here. The phone, running Google’s Android operating system, was large, a little clunky in operation and didn’t quite fulfil the promise of being an iPhone killer.

Now, the second generation model has arrived and it’s called the HTC Magic but, pardon the pun, does it actually have the little bit of magic that was lacking in the G1?

Out of the box

In terms of size, the Magic is a big improvement over its predecessor — while the G1 was large and fat, the Magic is a svelte and slim little number that actually feels better in the hands than even the iPhone.

The front is hardly minimalist in design, as it has six tiny buttons just below the screen and a little trackball for navigating the menus.

The left side of the the device is the only side with any other buttons, and is home to the volume rocker switch.

Turn on the Magic and you’ll be presented with a gorgeous screen — the specifications say that its only 320 x 480-pixels, but it looks way better than that probably due to the relatively small pixel pitch.

The next thing I noticed was that the screen is actually a capacitive touchscreen, which means it’s similar to the iPhone/iPod touch’s screen, where all you need is the lightest touch to register your input to navigate the menus.

The interface works, with a huge clock on the front by default, and up to three different desktops you can use.

The Magic is entirely driven by its touchscreen interface and the few buttons on the front — there is no slide out physical keypad or anything like that.

The software keyboard is again, similar to the iPhone’s with predictive text that seems to be about as good once you get used to typing on it and trusting the auto-correct feature to fix your mistakes as you type.

As far as the menu system goes, the Android operating system seems to operate on a sort of slide paradigm — slide your finger left or right to switch between desktops, or slide down to bring up the notifications menu and slide up to bring up the applications list.

You can add icons to the desktop by opening up the applications list and performing a tap-and-hold till the applications window slides out of the way, allowing you to place the icon anywhere on one of your three desktops.

As far as phone functions go, the Magic has all the usual applications — a dialer, a messaging and SMS application and contacts list. Nothing unusual here.

The messaging application is threaded, which means it groups together messages between you and any particular contact.

HARDLY MINIMALIST: The Magic has quite a few buttons on the front, with a trackball for navigation.

Call quality is excellent, and for me, audio is one of the best I’ve heard on any phone.

Missing marketplace

Unfortunately, the most attractive bit of the Android operating system is completely missing in the HTC Magic — the Android Marketplace.

The Marketplace is Google’s answer to Apple’s App Store, but unfortunately the service is not available in this country.

HTC has tried to mitigate that somewhat by offering a service called SlideME, which offers a similar store for downloading or buying applications for the Android operating system.

However, as I browsed through the applications listed in SlideME, it was patently obvious that it certainly isn’t as well-stocked with applications as the Android Marketplace.

That in itself wouldn’t be as big a problem if I could at least find all the default Google applications, such as Google Maps, but this was not the case.

The problem is that Google’s Android applications cannot be downloaded from any other place besides the Marketplace, which is quite a downer if you ask me.

Of course, there are a number of (illegal) ways of finding software to download for the Magic, but this is a big hassle and of course, you’re running afoul of the law by doing this.

According to people I’ve talked to at HTC, the company is working together with Google to work out the licencing issues and the company hopes to officially introduce the Marketplace in the future.

What’s up

Okay, so enough with the downers — what’s good about the HTC Magic?

Well, for one, battery life is actually pretty good — if you don’t make many calls, the phone can last good three to four days straight, which is pretty amazing when you consider that most modern phones tend to only last a day or two.

Of course battery life goes down a lot if you use WiFi and make a lot of phone calls, but even then I think it’ll easily last you till the end of the day.

The interface is also something I liked — it is generally pleasant to look at, and most of the settings are much easier to understand and change than on Windows Mobile smartphones.

Response times when scrolling through and tapping on applications is adequate, if not the fastest I’ve seen so far.

Browsing the Web

Much like the rest of the Magic, the supplied web browser works just fine, but for those of us already spoiled by a certain browser on a certain smartphone made by a certain company with an apple for a logo, it’s just not quite as good as it could be.

For one thing, most webpages aren’t rendered as they should look, and while double-tapping works to zoom in and out if columns, it’s not quite as smooth an experience as it could be.

The other thing is that while the Magic’s hardware can theoretically support multitouch, it just doesn’t and zooming in and out of webpages is still handled by a software button.

Oh yes, just another example of how browsing could be better — the Magic has a built-in accelerometer that will automatically rotate the display orientation if you’re holding the Magic in landscape mode. But this only works when you rotate the Magic counter-clockwise so that the top is in your left hand. Yeah weird, I know.

On the upside, despite the display issues, the browser is actually quite full-featured and I had few problems visiting most sites.

Conclusion

Overall, there are some things I really like about the HTC Magic — the size is just right, the screen looks really good and battery life is very good.

The operating system is also pretty and there are a few nice touches, such as the multiple desktops and the slide-out menus.

Unfortunately, just like the Windows Mobile operating system, there are a few things that make the whole experience a little clunky — slow response times is one and browser rendering is the other.

All these are not deal breakers, but not having a proper Android Marketplace is.

As it is, unless you look around for less than legal application downloads, or go for the rather sparse applications listed in SlideME, you’re going to have a problem getting apps for the operating system.

Whether this is a deal-breaker for you is ...well, for you to decide.

Pros: Nice-looking interface; hardware is top-notch.

Cons: Limited official applications support for the Android operating systendsem.