Android on a PC?

is taking over the world, inch by inch. Released in 2007, almost 10 months after Apple's release of its first generation iPhone, Android has steadily increased its presence, first in the mobile sector and now in tablet pcs. Android, a Google product, though suffering from fragmentation, is still an OS to reckon with. With updates coming almost every few months, it has kept abreast with the markets needs. Apple has got a very capable competitor and in years to come, who knows, it might be the leading operating system in both the mobile and tablet space.

As with many good things in life, you do not have to rush out and get them in order to test drive them. For those that own an HTC Vogue (Okta Touch), you can refer to my previous post How to Install Android 2.1 [Eclair] on HTC Vogue [Telecom NZ Okta Touch to install Android on this Windows Mobile phone.

For those wanting to try out Android on your PC, worry not. I found two projects that will let you do just that.

BlueStacks - this software allows you to run Android Apps on your pc. It does this by installing a virtual layer on your Windows pc, in which it runs Android. I tried downloading this software to try it out but at present the website is not taking any new registrations. I will keep you all posted on how it goes with this software when I manage to download a copy.

Android-X86 - a very impressive project that allows you to run Android on netbooks and most notebooks. At present there are a few models that you can install it on but the list seems to be growing every few weeks. Also, you can install it as a virtual machine using VMware. Once running, it looks really impressive.

Give these a try and post your reviews. It would be nice to compare our mileage.