Asustek plans to introduce Android handset next year

Asustek will be joining T-Mobile and others who have Android handsets in the market, with a planned introduction of an Android device in the first half of 2009. The initial market for the device is likely to be Taiwan, with the company phasing out older EMP hardware in favor of hardware from Qualcomm and Marvell.

Asustek's smartphone deployments have gone relatively unnoticed so far, with only minor sales. As Android is seen as a platform intended to compete with the iPhone and Blackberry devices, getting on the wagon early could be a good move by Asustek to change those figures. With the openness of the Android platform, it's likely that many other vendors will start to adopt it over the next year as well.

Little information is revealed about the hardware for their first Android handset, other than it will be at least a 3G model.