Before buying an Android phone, you should find out which flavor of the operating system you’ll get. Each tastily nicknamed update delivers new features, so it’s important to find out what your Android phone will have–and what it might be missing.

Android 1.5, aka cupcake. Released April 30th, 2009.

• Video capture and playback
• Direct video upload to YouTube
• Direct photo upload to Picasa
• Bluetooth A2DP support
• Desktop folders and widgets
• Copy/paste expanded to Web pages
• Updated software keyboard
• Animations between screens

Android 1.6, aka donut. Released September 15th, 2009.

• Gallery allows deletion of multiple photos at once
• Enhanced Android Marketplace
• Faster Voice Search with deeper integration in native applications
• One interface for camera and camcorder gallery
• Ability to search bookmarks, history, contacts, and the Web from home screen via Search widget
• Text-to-speech engine
• Support for WVGA resolutions.

Android 2.0/2.1, aka eclair. Released October 26, 2009 and January 12th, 2010.

• Optimized hardware speed
• Support for more screen sizes and resolutions
• Revamped UI
• New browser UI and HTML5 support
• New contact lists
• Better white/black ratio for backgrounds
• Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
• Microsoft Exchange support
• Built in flash support for Camera
• Digital Zoom
• MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events
• Improved virtual keyboard
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Live Wallpapers

Android 2.2, aka Froyo. Release TBA. Confirmed features only.

• Support of Application Installation to Memory Card
• Integrated Adobe Flash support

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