Chicago (IL) – The wait for Google’s first Android smartphone, the HTC Dream, is almost over. The usually well-informed Wall Street Journal reports that T-Mobile will be announcing the device next week, while European developers are pretty certain that they have seen the device already – at a Google developer event held at London’s Wembley stadium earlier today.  

Relieving news for all those who hardly can sit still in anticipation of Google’s first phone: The HTC Dream, the pilot model for what is expected to become a big family of Google Android devices, is apparently ready and will be announced by T-Mobile on September 23. It appears that the device will go on sale sometime in October. There is no information on a possible price of the HTC Dream.

HTC expects big demand for its smartphone and believes it will be able to sell about 600,000 to 700,000 devices until the end of the year – which is well behind the 1+ million iPhone 3Gs Apple sold on Day 1 alone, but about twice of what analysts are expecting HTC will be able to sell. Android phone are widely believed to be a viable option next to Apple’s iPhones. But the sleek interface and the development of a big marketplace for applications cannot hide that Android is still in its early stages. According to Google, certain features, including support for Bluetooth, will be missing in Android 1.0.

Little is known about the HTC Dream itself, but developers that attended Google’s developer event in London earlier today are sure that the device that was demonstrated by the company in fact was the HTC Dream. If true, then we should expect a HTC Touch-like device with a 3” screen, integrated Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS. However, it seems that the device did not have a motion sensor chip that could automatically switch the screen layout between portrait and landscape modes. Also, the device did not feature multi-touch capability.