Vodafone and HTC have officially announced the news Pocket-lint broke on Monday, that the two companies would be launching a Android-powered handset.

Called the HTC Magic, the new "G2" will be available in the UK, Spain, France and Germany exclusively and from multiple operators in Italy. No US launch plans have been revealed.

Sporting a 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen the phone will lose the QWERTY keyboard in favour of a thinner design. Other features include 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity as well as GPS.

On the storage front it will have 512MB of ROM, 192MB of RAM and a microSD card slot. It will be powered by a Qualcomm MSM7210a , 528Mhz processor.

On the down side, there's no flash for the camera and no 3.5mm plug for standard audio headphones.

HTC CEO Peter Chou defended the lack of flash with the line: "We aren't trying to replace your professional camera".

Due to be available in April, Vodafone describes the phone as a "tablet-style" device, with a "sleek" design and "unprecedented compactness" for a smartphone featuring the Android platform, of which there has been only one so far - the T-Mobile G1.

The HTC Magic promises "superior mobile internet experience", with lots of options for personalisation via the Android Market's applications.

The phone will be available in white in the UK, Spain and France, black in Germany and in both colours in Italy.

Vodafone has revealed that the HTC-branded phone will be available from free on various price plans.