While surfing the web doing some research on the next phone I want to get my hands on I came across some news on the new HTC Magic (what some rumors say is the Android G2), codename Sapphire 2.0 which was just released couple of days ago on February 17th, 2009 to Vodafone customers outside of United States. Every HTC device has a codename that is given before the release of the device.

HTC and Google have made great improvements from the first release of T-Mobile G1 by. The HTC Magic has followed other phones such as the HTC Touch Diamond 2 and Touch HD in taking off the slide out keyboard and having an on screen keypad like the iPhone or HTC Diamond.

A cool feature I noticed on some of the videos is a wide screen keyboard. The traditional camera which was on the T-Mobile G1 now has capability to record videos as well as take pictures. It’s not clear whether or not the T-Mobile version which will be released sometime this summer in the states will have the same features or not but we’ll have to wait and find out.

This phone is slightly thicker than the iPhone but feels like the same size. Great improvement in design since the G1. The only flaw most tech journalists found was the keyboard was a bit cramped but 3rd party keyboards will probably be available soon.

For those that are wondering, the HTC Magic is running on the Google Android Cupcake, incase you want to try implementing it on a Windows Mobile device as was done with the first release of Android. Click here for Google Android for WM found on XDA Developers =)

Do you think the HTC Magic has anything on the iPhone? What are your thoughts on the new HTC Magic?