In China, the release of the Meizu M9 drew similar anticipation. {Electronista}

We haven’t seen any M9 clothes yet, but the controversial smartphone has a lot in common with the iPhone. Meizu, a Chinese brand, previously drew a lawsuit and criticism from Apple over similarities between the phone’s user interface and that of the iPhone. Apple was able to successfully halt sales of the M8 on those grounds, though legalities are still being debated on both sides. With a switch to Android, Meizu added buttons that the OS relies on for functionality, and the M9 interface is somewhat different, though still more similar to that of the iPhone than any other Android phone.

None of that seemed to matter to the hundreds of people who turned out to buy an M9 though. The switch to Android is credited with the heightened anticipation for the phone, and the fact that Apple’s legal attempts to stop the phone from being released fell through probably didn’t hurt either.

What’s interesting to note is that in China’s smartphone market, Android phones already represent 50% of smartphones sold in the 3rd quarter of 2010, which is staggering considering their share of the market the year before was 0%. In raw numbers that’s somewhere between 4 and 5 million phones. That comes at the expense of Nokia, which had 70% of the market in 2009. The much loved iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry (which still maintains a good portion of the US smartphone market, despite not receiving the same amount of press that iOS and Android products do)? They sold less than 500,000 phones during the same period. {Fortune}

That’s a significant drop for Apple, who according to Fortune estimates sold roughly 1 million phones in the 2nd quarter. Don’t hold your breath for a US release of any Meizu phones (where they’d surely be sued out of distribution), but do take note of China’s growing position as a major smartphone market which could become large enough to sustain homegrown brands like Meizu.

If Apple wants to get the same type of launch day excitement going in China, it looks like it will take more than a strong legal team. An expected price reduction should help, but for companies looking to get a foothold in China now may be the time to start working on the Android versions of those iPhone and iPad apps.

Photos via Electronista

The T-Mobile G2 is a smartphone designed largely with HSPA+ (T-Mobile’s 3G network with “4G speeds”), and seems to be the only phone currently available running on the stock Android 2.2.  Gone is the chin design of the G1, which is replaced by what looks like a riff on the Nexus One with a touchpad rather than a trackball.  The design is complete with a 3.7-inch screen.  Like the T-Mobile G1, the G2 has a slide-out landscape keyboard, but now without being shifted to the left side due to the lack of the chin. {Mashable}

The G2 also sports a 5 MP camera with LED flash that can shoot 720p video, has 4 GB of internal memory and an 8 GB microSD card installed.  Unfortunately, however, the G2 has an 800 MHz Snapdragon processor, which is relatively weak compared to other smartphones.  Like some other recent Android phones, the G2 also has Swype installed for easy text input should you not want to use the physical keyboard.  Of course, there’s also use the stock Android touchscreen keyboard if you find touch typing easier than swyping.

We all knew it was coming eventually.  Last year Verizon and Motorola saw great success with the release of the original Droid, which was the  flagship Android phone for at least a few weeks.  The Droid continues to be a great success, being that it is a great phone with a lot of advertising behind it.  Makes sense that there would be a follow up apart from the Droid Incredible and Droid X.

Today Verizon has finally made the Droid 2, the true successor to the Droid, official.  The Droid 2 looks fairly similar to the first Droid, but the corners are rounded where the Droid had sharp angles.  Gone is the bar under the screen that stayed put when the screen slides up, now it slides with the rest of the front.  Also gone is the D-pad, replaced with arrow keys and an “OK” button, which make the keyboard feel more natural to some.

For specs, the Droid 2 ships with Android 2.2 installed, so no worrying about updates.  The mobile hotspot functionality on Froyo will cost an extra $20 a month.  With the Droid 2 we also have a 5 MP camera, 8 GB of flash storage (with and 8 GB microSD card included for 16 GB of storage), and DLNA streaming.

The phone will be available for pre-order on Wednesday, and will be available in Verizon stores on Thursday for $199 on a two-year contract.  To be nice to current subscribers, Verizon is taking a play from AT&T’s book and allowing anyone who has a Verizon contract ending this year to upgrade to the Droid 2, or any other smartphone, without penalty.  You may want to wait, however, because the R2-D2 version of the Droid 2 will be available online starting in September. {Engadget}

The new updates brings Flash 10.1 to the Google phone, along with a host of other features.  There’s a slightly redesigned home screen, where users will always have access to the call function and the web browser no matter what home screen they are looking at.  The Nexus One will now also feature tethering both via Bluetooth and mobile hotspot where users can connect up to 8 other devices to the phones 3G connection through WiFi.  Other improvements include automatic updates for apps if you so choose, an “update all button” in the Market, and faster speeds for applications.

Phones other than the Nexus One will get the update, but it will take time for the phone manufacturers and carriers to push out the updates.  For the Nexus One, Google handles pushing out updates on their own.  For phones like the myTouch 3G, the update could be relatively simple as it runs on stock Android without any added bells and whistles.  Phones like the EVO 4G and HTC Incredible, however, will likely take longer as they use a custom skin over Android which will have to be made compatible with the new OS version.

It also calls into question the new phones we’ve been seeing like the Galaxy S smartphones from Samsung like the Captivate, Vibrant and Epic 4G and the new Droid X, which were announced as running on Android 2.1.  Of course, this was before we knew that Google would start pushing the updates through.  It would make sense for the companies like Motorola, Samsung and HTC to attempt to put Froyo on their phones before they’re launched, but there’s no guarantee that the updates will be ready in time.  Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of Over The Air updates of Froyo rolling out over the next few months.  Meanwhile, Google is likely hard at work on the version, Gingerbread.