Orange confirms exclusive Desire model

COLOURFUL MOBILE OPERATOR Orange has announced that it will be shipping an exclusive edition of the HTC Desire handset.

HTC's Desire has been getting a lot of press on rival network T-Mobile. But not one to be outdone, Orange confirmed to The Inquirer that it will be shipping an exclusive all black edition. The phone is very similar to Google's Nexus One, for which HTC has yet to partner with networks on this side of the Atlantic.

T-Mobile seemed to steal a march on Orange by claiming last week that it will be shipping the standard device which sports a brown colour scheme. After much excitement from punters eager to get their mits on the high spec Android powered device, T-Mobile did an exemplary job of cocking things up by sending out mixed messages saying that the phone had either failed quality tests or was simply delayed. Finally on Friday it was confirmed the Desire was in stock and shipping to customers.

Orange was unwilling to comment on when the stealthy black edition of the Desire will appear on its shelves. Neither the standard brown nor the exclusive black model can be found on Orange's online store at present, so it seems that T-Mobile is the only place to go if you want to have your Desire subsidised.

News for current Motorola Milestone users looks equally bright as the rollout of updates to the latest version of Android is just around the corner. The US version, the Droid, started getting updates some weeks ago but Motorola told us at the time that Brits would have to wait a bit longer for their fix of live wallpapers. The over-the-air updates take a while to roll out so if you don't get anything immediately don't be discouraged.

The army of Android devices is growing at an ever increasing pace. For Jobs' Mob, the extent to which operators are now going to differentiate their Android devices from other will worry the cuppacino firm, whose last device brought so little new technology to the table that it barely put the Iphone level with its contemporaries. µ