The Nokia N900 Gingerbread port comes courtesy of Alexey Roslyakov, a Russian coder, better known under the nickname DrunkDebbuger. He says a publicly available experimental release should come before the year’s end, which means in less than a week. Of course it’s not completely functional at this stage, but cellular data, Wi-Fi and sound are a go and naturally support for the rest of the hardware is being added as we speak.

If being an alpha tester isn’t much to your liking, you can try the stable Android 2.2.1 Froyo release for your N900. Roslyakov says it should be available for Christmas.

The final bit of good news is that there will be some kind of Android release for the Nokia N900 in time for the old calendar Christmas (7 January).

It seems that all N900 owners have made Santa’s Good kid book this year.

The rumors on the upcoming Samsung-made Nexus 2 a.k.a. Nexus S have just been reborn. The first hands-on shots of the smartphone have just surfaced and so have some details on it, thanks to the FCC website.

The next-gen Nexus phone was first expected to show up on 8 November 2010, but Samsung announced the Continuum instead and we almost lost hope that we will ever see a second Nexus phone.

Yet over the past 24 hours the Samsung-made Google Nexus S popped up on a bunch of websites (of the FCC, Wi-Fi Alliance and Best Buy Mobile) and, most excitingly, we finally got to enjoy some live shots of the smartphone.

Samsung Google Nexus S

And while the I9020 Nexus S doesn’t look much like the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S on the outside, those are said to be identical on the inside, save for the Android 2.3 a.k.a. Gingerbread that the Nexus S should be powered by.

We can expect a 5MP AF camera with HD video recording, Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity and maybe the gorgeous 4″ Super AMOLED touchscreen found on the Galaxy S.

There is still no word on the Nexus S launch date and price tag but keeping in mind that the Gingerbread should come any moment now, we shouldn’t wait for too long to get all our questions answered.

The Android v2.1 Eclair packing Vodafone 945 and the QWERTY slider feature phone Vodafone 553 are the two new additions into the carrier’s lineup, while Vodafone 543 gets refreshed in Miss Sixty fashion.

Vodafone 945 is the successor of the company’s first Android – the 845. The upgrade involves a 3.2-inch WQVGA capacitive touch display and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash. The rest stays the same – 3G with HSDPA support, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, microSD card slot and 300MB internal storage. Vodafone 945 also runs on the same OS as 845 – Android v2.1 Eclair. No word on Froyo yet.

Vodafone 945

Vodafone 553 is a QWERTY slider with 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, FM radio and microSD card slot. 553 is a feature phone with touch-based proprietary software packing Vodafone 360 People phonebook and Opera Mini 5.

Vodafone 553

Meanwhile Vodafone and Miss Sixty prepare an exclusive refresh of Vodafone 543. The new edition will come with Miss Sixty customized covers and phone accessories.

Vodafone 543 Miss Sixty

All three devices should be cheap and available for the holiday season.

The first country to get an unlocked Aria will be the HTC homeland, Taiwan. The handset should hit the shelves tomorrow but we couldn’t quite see what the pricing will be. The machine-translated press release mentions 14900 yuan but considering that this is about 1700 euro, a price of 1490 seems much more likely.

Update: One of our readers tipped us that the quoted price is 14900 Taiwanese dollars, which equals just over 400 euro. Ouch!

Technically HTC haven’t mentioned a word about the Aria hitting other countries, but once the exclusivity chains are broken, this should be inevitable. It’s not like we can’t put to good use a nice little midrange Android handset with sleek design and sensible price tag around here in Europe.

You heard that right, the Android 2.2 Froyo update for the HTC Desire will enable the 720p video recording rumored from the very beginning. The HTC Sync software will also enable iTunes syncing.

The updated software for the Euro HTC Desire will of course keep the signature HTC Sense UI and bring the App Share widget and HTC’s enhanced Caller ID and a better multi-language keyboard.

The update process is simple – users will be notified when the update is available and the update won’t wipe the data from the phone. HTC suggests you hook up your Desire to a Wi-Fi network before you download the update to avoid data charges.

Unlocked HTC Desire phones will be the first to score Froyo, but owners of carrier-branded phones should be getting the update “in several weeks time”.

This piece of news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the HTC Evo 4G phones on Sprint will be getting Froyo next week.

Both devices run on Android v1.6 Donut, have 3.2 megapixel snappers, ST Ericsson 416MHz processors, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM, and full connectivity package – Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, FM radio and 3.5mm audio jack. The common specs sheets end with an accelerometer for auto-rotate and a microSD card slot.

Acer beTouch E120 sports 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, while beTouch E130 uses 2.6-inch landscape QVGA touchscreen and full-QWERTY keyboard below it. The QWERTY bar form factor is definitely a novelty in the Android world.

We are already familiar with E130, since it was recently showcased at Computex 2010.

Acer beTouch E120 • Acer beTocuh E130

Both beTouch devices run on Android OS v1.6 Donut and will feature additional software such as Acer Spinlets (for accessing or sharing media content) and UrFooz (for social networking).

Both phones will be released in Q3 this year in black and white versions. Acer beTouch E120 will hit the shelves in mid-July, while its QWERTY sibling E130 is expected in August. There is no word on pricing yet.

Someone over at the Italian website Androidiani.com has managed to get 2.2 Froyo up and running on a Nexus One – and you can download the files you need to put it on your Nexus too. However, it’s very unstable and you can’t use it for more that 10 minutes without it crashing. It’s no wonder given how quickly they ported it.

The XDA-Developers forums are buzzing with talks about Android 2.2 Froyo and getting it to work on other phones too. One dev there has got Froyo running on an HTC Droid Eris, but they say it’s barely functional, so they haven’t released it for public download yet.

Android 2.2 Froyo ported to Nexus One, HTC Droid Eris

If you want to try Android 2.2 Froyo, for now the better option is to download the SDK – even if you’re not a developer, you can still play around with the emulator to get a feel of how some frozen yoghurt treat will taste on your Android phone.

Even if those devs can’t release a workable version of Android 2.2 Froyo before the official update for the Nexus One hits, owners of other phones might have to wait quite a while before they get it – some (like HTC Hero owners) are still stuck waiting for 2.1 Eclair.

The impatient among you can follow the source links to check on how the two ports are progressing. If you missed it somehow, here’s a changelog for all the new goodies in version 2.2 Froyo.

And while we know a few bits and pieces about the I5801 and I550, there’s hardly anything we know about the touchscreen equipped smartphone Liquid Stream, except for the fact that it runs the Android OS.

Acer Liquid Stream

As for the I5801 and I5500, they have already made their first public appearances… a few times. The Samsung I5801 (a.k.a. Galaxy 3) comes with a TouchWIZ-ed Eclair in the pocket as well as a GPS receiver, microSD card slot, 3.5mm audio jack and support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also features a 3-megapixel snapper able to shoot QVGA videos.

Samsung I5801

The I5500 is said to be part of the Corby family and to be based on the Android v2.1 too. It should pack Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support as well and to have a GPS receiver on board. The I5500 is expected to sell for around 200 euro which sounds like a fair price for an Android-powered device sporting all those features.

Samsung I5500

There is still no information of the expected availability and price of the other two.

We don’t know much about this new Corby, except that it recently got a Wi-Fi certification for the b/g/n protocols. It received FCC certification as well, so we’re looking at 3G, Bluetooth and GPS for the Samsung I5500. The camera resolution is unknown, but it probably won’t be more than 3MP.

The rumors add Android 2.1 Eclair and Corby branding to the mix and an expected price of 200 euro putting it at the low end of the price range for an Android phone.

We don’t have a photo of the Samsung I5500 Corby yet – the photo on the left is a quick mockup. In-the-wild photos can’t be far behind though.