If you’re reading this on your Android phone, odds are pretty good that it’s running Gingerbread and has a screen four inches or larger with a resolution of 800×480. That’s the conclusion reached by Localytics, a research firm taking a long hard look at data supplied by apps that use the company’s proprietary analytic data. Localytics claims that a full 73% of Android devices (smartphone and tablets) run Gingerbread. That figure disagrees with the latest numbers from Google, now a month old, which claim that Gingerbread runs on just 55% of Android hardware.

Using the data collected, Localytics created a picture of an “average” Android smartphone. Based on their research, the most popular spec is a Gingerbread phone with a 4.3-inch screen and a resolution of 800×480. This description matches a handful of Samsung and HTC models currently being sold. 4.3-inch phones accounted for more than 40% of all devices, with 4.0 inches, 3.2 inches and 3.7 inches following at 22%, 11% and 9%, respectively.  Screen resolutions are more dramatically divided, with 800×480 taking 62% of the pie, followed by 480×320 at 14%, 960×540 (qHD) at 6%, and 480×854 (a popular Motorola res) and 320×240 at 5% each.

The average tablet isn’t really surprising: it’s a 7-inch device with a 1024×600 screen. A whopping 74% of Android tablets use that size and resolution, first introduced with the original Samsung Galaxy Tab and Nook Color. Just 22% use the 10.1-inch ,1280×800 size popular among current Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and Asus tablets. 71% of tablets use Gingerbread, with just 21% using the various releases of Honeycomb. Clearly, small, cheap tablets are winning the game as far as Android sales are concerned.

These numbers shouldn’t be taken as gospel – Google will probably update its distribution statistics in the next few days.

[via 9to5 Google]