A new video taken at the Mobile World Congress this week is showing Google’s Android platform running on a fairly long-in-the-tooth mobile handset with a touch screen from a Hong Kong-based company called E28. Meanwhile, several major cellular players have thrown their support to the operating system by promising to deliver actual ‘gPhones’ by the end of this year or early next.

Apparently, Android runs unmodified on E28’s E283 and applications designed for the operating system downloaded, installed and ran without problems, if a little sluggishly. Not much of a surprise considering the E28 is an off-the-shelf cell phone without the speed and power you’ll likely find on ‘gPhones’ that’ll eventually ship with touch screens.

The E283, available for the last six months or so in it standard - Android-less - configuration, is quad-band handset with a sluggish (for a smartphone) 200MHz OMAP TI 730 processor, 64MB of RAM, 64MB of ROM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and a 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 pixel (QVGA) resolution display.

During the demo pictured in the video (from PhoneMag), a E28 spokesperson explains how you make GSM voice and GPRS data calls, and access Wi-Fi networks on the E283 with Android installed.

He scrolls through the menu bar on the touch screen and even launches Google Maps, with zooming, satellite view, and other functions intact. The spokesperson also demonstrates how to dial a call and add a contact.

In addition, when he launches Google's Android API demo, the E283 smoothly displays video of 3D images circling around the screen.

All Aboard the 'gPhone' Train
Following HTC’s lead, LG, Samsung and T-Mobile have all promised to deliver Android-based handsets.

For LG that means a ‘gPhone’ later this year or early 2009; Samsung, during the first part of next year; and T-Mobile, the earliest of the bunch, says it may have a Android-based smartphone out during the fourth quarter of 2008.

As for HTC, CEO Peter Chou revealed to analysts last month that his company would  be first with Anroid smartphones, introducing two to three of them in 2008. Although Chou didn’t offer an exact launch date, the number of 'gPhones' mentioned shows how committed HTC remains to Google’s new mobile platform.

A number technology companies - mostly chipmakers and behind the scenes - are showing off Google’s Android mobile phone platform in prototype form at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. These include ARM Marvell, Qualcomm, NEC, ST Microelectronics, and Texas instruments. To get developers on board the Android train, Google is running a $10 million contest called the Android Developers Challenge. It recently extending the submission deadline by more than a month to April 14th.

Based on feedback it's received, Google’s also made significant updates to the Android software developers kit (SDK), an update to which will be made available in a few weeks. It’ll include a number of user interface and API enhancements.

So the deadline's also been extended in part to allow developers who would like to take advantage of these SDK improvements for their contest submissions can.

The Android contest is divided into two parts, with a total of $10 million in prize money at stake. In the first part, 50 entries will receive $25,000 to fund further application development. 10 of these winners will then receive an additional $275,000, with another 10 $100,000 each.

The second part, where the rest of the prize money will be distributed, won't begin until the first handsets built on Google’s mobile platform become available. It is estimated this won't happen until the second half of this year.