You have to hand it to Virgin Mobile. For a virtual network it has certainly made headlines over the last 12 months with an unlimited text & data pre-pay tariff, unlimited minutes tariff and rock bottom £5pm mobile broadband. And now it is upping quality and quantity.

Following on from the LG InTouch Max, Virgin Mobile has announced it is expanding its Android range threefold with the high profile additions of the HTC Desire, Galaxy Portal and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Release dates for the Desire and X10 aren’t yet known, but expect them within the next month or so. Meanwhile the Galaxy Portal is a snip from free on £22pm 18 month contracts and is available now. The announcement rather closely mirrors Vodafone’s deals for the Desire, X10, Legend and Nexus One last week – so it looks like Android’s latest and greatest smartphones will be hitting up quite a few networks. Watch this space…

In related Android news The Nexus One has reportedly flopped following sales of just 135,000 units in its first 74 days. By comparison both the original iPhone and Motorola Milestone were well over 1m in the same timeframe. That said, hold your horses. The Nexus One was never heavily promoted outside of tech circles, was largely sold without subsidies and dedicated tech support and has yet to hit most countries on network deals.

Furthermore, the virtually identical HTC Desire is expected to sell like hotcakes so I very much doubt the handset itself is at fault. Google needed a flagship model to show users just what was possible and the Nexus One has achieved that. This isn’t all over just yet.

In yet more Android news Gesture Search has been made available for Android 1.6. Not to be confused with multi-touch, Gesture Search enables alphabet gesture recognition: ie outlining ‘h’ in contacts to jump to all names beginning with h. Handy or a novelty? Without trying it I’m not sure – best give it a whirl!

Links:
Virgin Galaxy Portal Product Page
Nexus One Product Page
Android Gesture Search