That seems a pretty darn reasonable price for a hardware QWERTY phone, and while the Ally’s specs – a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera and Android 2.1 – may not exactly topple any giants, it’s not off to a terrible start.  As for the hardware itself, the glass touchscreen feels reasonably responsive and the keyboard has some decent tactile feel; we’re not entirely convinced by the key layout, however, and will have to see if we can get used to it.

As for LG’s UI changes, they’re minimal in comparison to something like MOTOBLUR or HTC Sense.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing – we’ve seen that unmodified Android phones usually get OS updates quicker than their customized counterparts – but it does make for a less gripping out-of-the-box experience.

We’ll be putting the LG Ally through its paces over the next few days in preparation for the full Android Community review, so until then enjoy the hands-on gallery below, and let us know any questions you might have! Check back in a couple of days for our full review of the LG Ally for Verizon.

In addition, Donut brings with it intelligent search, with the Android phone learning common searches and offering them up in future queries.  OS 2.0 also allows for simple addition of third-party content to standard searches with just a few line of XML code.

Google also demonstrated an update to their voice-control system, present on OS 1.5 Cupcake, which introduces their new text-to-speech API.  A generally available translation app – which currently only shows text translations – was modified with the new API to read out translation results.

Finally, the video shows the new handwriting gestures which can be used to quickly filter out contacts or move through tracklistings in the media player.  Let us know what you think in the comments!

In addition, Ang described the phone as having Sony Ericsson’s unique style, a phrase which could be interpreted as the company planning a new GUI which would sit on top of the regular Android interface.  While he did not give any details, the VP pointed to the XPERIA X1 as an example of how Sony Ericsson have differentiated a broader platform (in the case of the X1, Windows Mobile).

Sony Ericsson will continue to make Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, however, he continued.  The company joined the Open Handset Alliance in the second major wave of additions, back in December 2008.  Shortly after they were tipped to release an Android handset by summer 2009; given that Android OS 1.5 Cupcake is only now seeing widespread availability, that prediction seems unlikely to pan out.

[via SlashPhone]