How Big is the Android Phone?

Photo - Engadget.com

Engadget has published a series of photos from a Chinese forum of what is almost surely the HTC Dream  in T-Mobile livery.  This is the Android phone which T-Mobile US is supposed to launch before year end.  The pictures show the same design as other recent leaked shots of the device.

Up to now none of the pictures I've seen of the Dream have showed it in enough context to really judge it's size. This has lead to some reports claiming the Dream would be quite large, with a bigger screen than the iPhone.  A couple of months ago Engadget reported that the phone had a 3 x 5 inch (5.8 inch diagonal) screen,  which would make the Dream more of a MID than  a phone and hardly pocketable.

One of the photos (above) that Engadget published today shows the Dream next to a Softbank branded touchscreen phone. After a little Googling I found the Softbank device's specifications page.  It's the HTC X01HT, and it's dimensions are 58 × 112.5 × 21.95 mm (2.3 x 4.4 x .86 inches) and it has a 2.8 inch screen.  The photos show the Dream as about the same width and height (it's hard to judge the depth but the Dream looks a little thiner) and a slightly larger screen, maybe 3 inches.  The iPhone is 62.5 x 115.5 x 12.3 mm (2.4 x 4.5 x 0.48 inches) and has a 3.5 inch screen.  So the Dream and iPhone are very close in size which makes a lot more sense than the monster with the 5.8 inch screen.