OK, pretty soon it’s going to stop being news when hackers figure out how to get Google Android 2.2 Froyo up and running on a new handset. But since the handset in question right now is the shiny new HTC Evo with 4G wireless and a huge 4.3 inch display, it’s kind of exciting.

The HTC Evo normally runs HTC’s Sense user interface on top of Google Android. So while HTC plans to offer an Android 2.2 update eventually, it will take time for the company to customize Sense to work with the new OS. For the next few months, if you buy an HTC Evo it’s probably going to come with Android 2.1.

That said, a member of the xda-developers community has figured out how to gain root access to the phone and install a custom ROM allowing him to run Android 2.2 Froyo on the HTC Evo.

Not bad for a phone that isn’t even officially available to the public yet.

You can check out a video of the HTC Evo running Android 2.2 after the break. It looks like not everything’s working at the moment. For example, pulling up the portable WiFi hotspot feature causes an error. The camera and 4G data connections don’t work yet either.

But you should still see faster third party apps and a dock on the home screen with icons for the phone and browser apps.

via Gizmodo

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...