HTC confirms Gingerbread for four handsets, including new Incredible S

HTC has confirmed that at least four of its existing Android smartphones will see Gingerbread in the second quarter of this year. A company representative informed SlashGear that update would arrive on the Desire, the Desire HD (the global version of the Evo 4G), the Desire Z (the global version of the T-Mobile G2), and the forthcoming Incredible S.

Looking at HTC's track record for releases, I might also look for Gingerbread to come to Sprint's Evo 4G, Verizon's Droid Incredible, and a few others. What's more, I anticipate that the Wildfire S and Desire S will get Android 2.3 as well, considering they, too, were announced at Mobile World Congress earlier this month.

As mentioned, the T-Mobile G2 and myTouch 4G are U.S. versions of the Desire Z and Desire HD, so expect those handsets to get the update as well. Depending on how far apart the Android updates get, these phones should be powerful enough to handle another release or two. As we learned shortly after the announcement of 2.3, phones that are able to run Froyo should be able to support Gingerbread.

It's more of a question of whether carriers would rather push forward on new devices running the latest versions or cater to existing users. While most of the phones released by HTC last year have hardware that closely resembles the early 2011 lineup, the horizon is slightly different. The handset maker is rumored to be prepping dual-core phones for the middle of the year which may already be running Gingerbread or Ice Cream when they arrive.