After all the fanfare surrounding Verizon’s Motorola Droid and Sprint’s HTC Hero, the Behold II has some big shoes to fill. But now that we’ve tinkered with it, we can say with some certainty that it’s … different. Like the other phones, it’s running the Android operating system. But it also suffers from some unfortunate interface tweaks.

In terms of hardware, the Behold II is mostly ace. The phone’s hard-plastic chassis fits comfortably in the hand, and its brigade of soft keys and input jacks are mostly well-appointed. Using the relatively responsive touchscreen is hassle-free, and overall audio quality is passable in a number of environments.

Watching the high-res trailer for Clash of the Titans was relatively quick (thanks to T-Mobile’s zippy 3G data network), and the 3.2-inch screen sported impressive color and clarity.

For the most part, the phone rarely struggled despite the hefty tasks we threw its way. And as a bonus, a microSD card slot adds storage support for the multimedia capabilities of the Behold II, which include a sharp 5-megapixel camera and a slick music player. Overall, if your modus operandi is snapping pics, bumping tunes and talking on the phone, then the Behold II has you covered.

Unfortunately, productivity and general navigation don’t live up to the hardware’s promise. Instead of sticking with an Android-only user interface, Samsung opted to mix things up with its own “TouchWiz” system. On one hand, we understand the impetus. When HTC crafted a custom interface for the Android-powered Hero, it turned out great. However, Samsung’s similar approach turned the Behold II’s navigation into a nightmare. The end result is a disjointed experience, where sometimes you’re using Android’s menu system, and other times you’re using TouchWiz — complete with different looking icons and menu trees.

The crown jewel of this split-personality experience is the multimedia-enhanced widget called the “cube.” In short, this feature takes users to a rotatable onscreen cube whose six sides offer access to apps like YouTube and the Behold’s music player. Not only is the act of rotating the cube strangely challenging, it’s mostly pointless. Using the regular menus to launch these tasks is easier, and the ability to store shortcut icons on the home screen negates its necessity.

And don’t even get us started on the “shake for a random app” feature.

There’s light at the end of this murky tunnel, though. Even though it pairs decent performance with crappy navigation, it’s likely that Samsung will revisit some aspects of the interface when it updates the phone’s Android backbone in early 2010. This means the Behold II’s shortcomings could fall by the wayside with a unifying software update that has a more consistent look and feel.

But as it stands today, the Behold II’s strong points aren’t quite enough to make the other conscripts in the Android army stand down.

WIRED An all-around reliable phone with fantastic talk time of 4 hours and 52 minutes. Mini-USB port makes file transfers a cinch. Feels surprisingly light at 4.2 ounces. Easy-to-use D-pad makes a decent alternative to touchscreen navigation. Ships with 2-GB memory card. Built-in GPS and Wi-Fi keep you online and on track.

TIRED Menus are confusing, inconsistent and ugly. Unlock key is far too recessed to be of practical use. Touchscreen seems to attract more fingerprints than competitors. No good can come of that spinning cube.

• Manufacturer: Samsung
• Price: $230 (with two-year contract)

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Sholes Tablet will be powered by Android 2.0 and will not include physical keyboard like its predecessor Motorola Droid on Verizon. We can expect official word on Sholes Tablet from Motorola soon.

Sholes Tablet will probably go on sale in second half of 2010. With Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 also set to release in the same year as Sholes Tablet and with 8 megapixels camera, things are surely looking good for the Android camp. [via BGR]

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Three reasons:

1. hardware,
2. carriers,
3. and the business-model.

On the hardware-side, Google will have to design an OS for a number of mobile-technologies, ranging from Samsung to Motorola. The kind of legacy-support kind of reminds me of a number of other software-projects: Microsoft’s Windows, which is historically (maybe not currently) known for its software-vulnerabilities due to its legacy-support; and cross-platform web-ware like Adobe’s Air and Flash, and Sun’s Java, both not exactly top-of-the-line in terms of performance and elegance. But, cross-platform alone has never stopped developers from creating (mostly free) applications. So, my worries here are security and user-interface, and I expect the latter to especially suck.

The other side is the carriers, who have shown no qualms about enforcing their rules on both hardware- and software-manufacturers. Fact is that while iPhone 2.0 may become more open, it will be limited by Apple to not disrupt their business-arrangement with carriers. This is implemented in two ways: in the restricted range of applications that can be developed for the iPhone (e.g. very likely no Skype) and the distribution of said applications (centralised and approved by Apple or NO GO).

Finally, the business-model. When the iPhone SDK was released, it was reportedly downloaded more than 100,000 times. Very likely this happened for several reasons:

1. the market for Apple-products is notably less price-sensitive (k-ching, baby!);
2. iTunes as a store (easy $$$);
3. VCs like Kleiner Perkins are holding out carrots (omg, I’m gonna be rich);
4. and it has strong relationships with carriers (a big barrier for mobile software-publishing so far).

Will the same thing happen for Google’s Android? Let’s see.

• It’s Google, and we all know that the company does not have a history for charging for things.
• While Google has created ecosystems of “apps” with its iGoogle and Google desktop-service, I don’t think any of these are premium. Also, their video-store, its one commercial platform, has failed.
• Similarly, it’s releasing the OS for free under an Apache Software License, and we all know how easy it is to make money on open-source platforms.
• There is a fund, but it comes from Google, not exactly a signal that the market believes in Android’s commercial success
• It does have confirmed partnerships with carriers like China Mobile, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile, but how restrictive will these partnerships be?

And probably some other things I forgot.

I may be cranky, but believe me that I want software like Android to succeed. Just like I want a self-sufficient Linux OS (no, it doesn’t exist!). But Google’s strategy appears too fragmented, too focussed on the technology, and too little on the business of it. Maybe, maybe, Google is planning to become a carrier themselves. There have been plenty of rumours about that since the 700 Mhz auction. Instead, I expect that their main goal is to extend their advertising-platform as efficiently as possible to the mobile sphere, and that that would be incompatible with a large technology-push towards building physical networks

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