HTC launch Magic, 3 announce pricing

HTC today launched the hotly anticipated Android-powered HTC Magic, with launch partner 3 Mobile announcing its pricing for the phone.

The Magic will be available to 3 customers mid-June for AU$99 per month with no handset repayments. Those purchasing the Magic will have the option to upgrade the capped plan with data for half the price of 3's standard X-Series data packs, making a 1GB data pack AU$15 per month on top of the handset contract.

Competing carrier Vodafone will also launch the Magic on its network, but do not intend to announce pricing until closer to the phone's in-store date of 15 June.

The HTC Magic will ship in two variants for the Australian market. The version released by Vodafone is differentiated by the title suffix "with Google" and comes with Over-the-air firmware updates and photo geotagging software pre-installed, plus the ability to upload the geotagged photos to Picasa. 3 Mobile will release the Magic with Microsoft Exchange support, but future firmware updates for Google's Android will require a connection to a PC.