The phone is rumored to prep for a May release

Jan 23, 2009 18:17 GMT  ·  By

According to the latest news on the Web, the recently leaked photos of the HTC Sapphire, which is expected to come to the market in the form of T-Mobile G2, are real. That means that the device we saw there, minus the keyboard, of course, is indeed heading towards us. Moreover, some say that we won’t wait too long to get our hands on it.

We learned today that the highly-expected G2 device would come with an operating system not so different when compared to its predecessor. On the outside, the G2 comes with a much thinner body than G1, and also seems prettier. In addition, the phone is reported to be a little lighter than the previous model, although its body is rather solidly built.

The button on the left side, which was believed to be a MyFaves key, is in fact a Home key. The upcoming handset has about the same screen as G1, yet its paint is stated to be a smooth and shiny pearly white color. A 3.5mm headphone jack will not be present on G2 either, but there will be the auto-focus camera, although it does not sport flash.

The phone includes auto-rotation functionality, yet this feature is reported to work only for certain applications, such as the browser. The home screen and main menu do not seem to have auto-rotate support at this time. Besides that, there is still no video capability, yet this is supposed to be only a pre-production software, and things might change.

One thing is sure though, the virtual keyboard of the G2 will be a selling point for the device, especially given the fact that it works on both landscape and portrait modes. The guys over at Android Authority did not unveil the source of the insights, yet we hope that some of these specs will be included in the final version of the handset.

As stated above, we might not have to wait too long before the handset comes to the market, as it is rumored to make an appearance at the Mobile World Congress conference, next month in Barcelona. Moreover, it seems that the HTC Sapphire/T-Mobile G2 might be on track for a May release. Given the fact that G1 has just been announced for release in more European countries, this might not be so close to reality as we'd like to hope.