Android is, as many of you no-doubt already know, an operating system designed to be run on mobile phones. Originally it was developed by Google, but now development is being handled by the Open Handset Alliance - a consortium of 48 software, hardware and telecom companies. Currently I know of  that at least some of the HTC phones are using Android as their operating system.

Even though Android has been out for a few years now, you have only been able to run it in an emulator of sorts, unless you own one of those smartphones. However, now for the first time, you can run it directly on your computer!

I have tried it out on my laptop, and now I’m going to give you a quick tour of Live Android and see if it’s worth using on your netbook.

Booting up

As it boots up, two things impress me.

1. It boots fast. Really fast.
2. It has a very slick looking animation (that doesn’t show in the screenshot) that kind of reminds me of the logo screens that you’d have to sit through when playing old video games for SNES and Genesis.

The desktop

After a few seconds, the desktop appears along with a message saying that I should connect the charger, as my battery is about to run out. I already had the charger plugged in, so I’m going to assume that the power indicator is broken. Broken in the sense that it doesn’t work on a desktop, of course. On a phone, it should work as expected. This applies to everything that I may say is broken, just so you know.

After getting rid of that message, I got full access to the desktop. For some reason the power indicator never bothered me again. Either it realized that I was actually on AC power, or it just wasn’t very interested in warning me again.

As you can see, there are some shortcuts already on the desktop. Now, neither the dialer or the messaging really works - for quite obvious reasons. The applications themselves work, it’s just that there’s no way to send your messages or connect your calls.

If you press or drag the panel on the right side of the screen, you get access to all the various applications that come pre-installed.

Most of these applications work. The only ones I found that don’t work (besides sending text messages or making phone calls) are the ones dealing with the camera.

While most of these applications are pretty basic, the ones I found to be the most impressive are the web browser and the email client. Let’s take a closer look at them, shall we?

The web browser

Here’s the web browser. As you can see, web pages are very easy to read and you can move about just by dragging the page around.

The one feature that I found really cool (and maybe all smartphones have this, I don’t know) is what I like to call the “zoom-out-and-pan”-feature.

This makes web browsing so much easier, as you can find the part you want to read, and have the browser automatically zoom in on that spot.

Of course, it can handle AJAX and other fancy technologies just fine. However, it does not have flash. I hope and pray that flash will become available, or that it’s already available and I just don’t know how to install it. Being able to watch flash videos is pretty much essential for a smartphone.

The email client

Here’s the email client. Setting up my account was super easy. It took two steps - and the last one was even optional. The interface is great, and it’s super easy to browse your emails, compose a new one, tag them, etc.

Conclusion

After having used Android for the first time, I have to say that I am very impressed. While not particularly useful on a desktop, I would love to have this on my phone. If I ever do get a smartphone, I will definitely be looking for one that uses Android. The interface sports a beautiful color scheme, the application store (not displayed here) has plenty of downloadable applications, I could with relative ease write my own Java applications to be run on my phone, the web browser and email client both rock, and if you stick a 16gb flash memory into your phone, you can even use it as a replacement for your portable media player.

Kids, do try this at home!

While there’s currently no way to install this on your desktop (and you probably wouldn’t want to anyway), there is a live ISO that can be burned to a CD - or, if you don’t have a CD input, there’s a USB version available as well.

For more information on how to get Live Android, go to the project website.

Please let me know what you think of Android - both as a mobile operating system, but also as a live distribution for your computer.