One of the HTC long rumored handsets that will arrive on the market with Google's Android operating system on board is the HTC Passion. The device surfaced into the wild a few months ago, and has been since said to be called the HTC Dragon, to arrive in 2009, to sport a Qualcomm 1GHz Snapgragon processor and to be on its way to Verizon's offering (or to T-Mobile's). Now we learn that the Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC Corporation might have delayed the Passion for the early 2010.

According to a recent article on DigiTimes, the Passion should arrive on the market with Google's Android operating system on board, and won't arrive at the end of the ongoing year, as originally expected. The delay is said to have been caused by HTC's desire to enhance the software the handset will come to the market with, sources “familiar with the Passion roadmap” stated.

The high-end device should sport a 3.5-inch multi-touch OLED display, as well as the said processor from Qualcomm, DigiTimes notes. Interestingly enough, HTC has been also reported to plan launching an Android-powered phone with a Snapdragon chip inside, but with a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED screen, the HTC Bravo, as shown in a leaked roadmap from the company. If we're to compare the screen sizes, this would suggest that HTC has two Snapdragon phones up its sleeve for the next year, both running under Android.

Moreover, it seems that the company intends to announce an Android device that sports a QWERTY keyboard next year, and the unveiling is to take place at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. For what it's worth, this is in line with what we've learned about HTC Espresso, which should arrive next year as the successor of the popular HTC Hero. While the existence of a successor for Hero has been already confirmed, it remains to be seen whether Espresso will be that device or not.