Vodafone, 3 Taking Pre-Orders For Android HTC Magic (UPDATED)

htcmagicAustralia’s second Google phone, the HTC Magic, will go on sale soon, and in a move that’s remarkably reminiscent of last year’s iPhone shenanigans, you can effectively place a pre-order for one online. Both 3 and Vodafone are offering this option.

Just as with the iPhone, this offer comes without the most crucial detail: how much you’ll pay and what kind of plan you’ll need to sign up for. It’s more an “expression of interest” than an outright contract — all either company promises to do is email you when it becomes available — but of course that information will emerge in lots of other ways (I’d be starting off at our sibling site Gizmodo.)

Knowing that dedicated geeks are going to ignore me anyway, I’ll say signing up for this is pretty pointless. If there was one thing that typified last year’s rush to the iPhone, it was that the first plans to market did not turn out to be the best value. Vodafone in particular proved utterly clueless when it came to the question of what the data inclusions were on its plans, and that’s going to be just as vital an issue with an Android device.

Importantlly, there are bound to be more Android phones along soon. Unless your need for Android and its Google apps goodness is so great that you feel waiting out one phone has already been torture, it would make sense to hang back and wait for an actual price before the June launch. (Story updated to add the 3 announcement, which appeared just after I wrote this; Vodafone has an exclusive deal to sell the white-coloured version, but not the phone itself.)

Vodafone HTC Magic Site

3 HTC Magic Site


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


2 responses to “Vodafone, 3 Taking Pre-Orders For Android HTC Magic (UPDATED)”

Leave a Reply