Android 3.0 Gingerbread Detailed: 720p Displays & Intentional Fragmentation In Q4 [Updated]

New Android 3.0 Gingerbread details have emerged, courtesy of notorious mobile industry insider Eldar Murtazin of mobile-review and his Russian-language Digestive podcast.  According to Murtazin – handily translated by UnwiredView – we can expect Gingerbread in mid-October 2010 with the first handsets preinstalled with the new OS arriving in November/December.  They'll be impressive beasts, too; minimum hardware requirements are apparently a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 3.5-inch screen or larger, with up to 1,280 x 760 resolution displays supported on 4-inch or bigger handsets.

Meanwhile the UI as a whole will be updated, with Google apparently looking to the Nexus One's gallery app for their inspiration.  Expect plenty of animation and transitions throughout, which should tax those CPUs a little.

As for positioning, Google are apparently set to officially split Android into two tiers, with 2.1 and 2.2 Froyo co-existing alongside 3.0 Gingerbread.  The 2.x OSes will serve the mass-market devices – and give HTC, Motorola and others a place for their customized UIs – while Android 3.0 Gingerbread will cater for the high-end flagships.

Update: Guess we could've spoken too soon.  Murtazin is backtracking on his earlier comments, claiming that Gingerbread and Android 3.0 aren't in fact the same thing and that the Q4 release may be more like Android 2.3.

[via Android Community]