General Mobile -- maker of the DSTL1 dual-SIM Android phone -- has always walked a fine line between KIRF and originality with its phones, and its latest batch is no different. Normally it's easy to resist a device widely regarded as a knockoff (for most of us, anyhow), but in the case of the newest model here, General Mobile's actually managed to answer a question HTC's failed to so far: where the hell is the HD2 with Android? The so-called "Touch Stone" (deep breaths, Palm) rings true to many of the actual HD2's specs, from the 5 megapixel camera to the 4.3-inch capacitive WVGA display, but this sucker adds an "optional" analog TV tuner (which won't do countries with digital transitions any good) and Android 2.0 atop an ARM9-based PXA935 core. Sadly, this phone doesn't quite exist yet -- we were shown a dummy model today with the promise of retail toward the end of the year, at which point HTC and others will undoubtedly have phones like the Supersonic on the shelf. If you'll excuse us, we need a cold shower, but you'll find more shots of the Touch Stone along with the Cosmos (launching soon) and Cosmos 2 dummy (launching... well, eventually) in the gallery.

General Mobile's Touch Stone: how can something so wrong be so right? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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