Hands on with Angry Birds Lite Beta for Android

Android owners rejoice – one of the most popular games on iPhone, Angry Birds, is finally set to take a bow on the Android Market.

In preparation, and in a bid to hit the ground running (having been catapulted through the air, presumably), Rovio has released a free beta version to help iron out any creases that might crop up thanks to Android’s awkwardly fragmented handset situation.

I’ve taken it for a spin on my Milestone to bring you a few initial impressions of the conversion.

With that in mind, I ran it alongside the full iPhone (running on a second-generation iPod touch) and Ovi (running on a Nokia N900) versions to get an idea of where this latest conversion stands at the moment.

I stress that this is far from a final version, so what follows is more of a progress report to see what work needs to be done. We’ll bring you a proper review as soon as we get the final version through.

Given all those disclaimers, you might think that Angry Birds Android is a bit of a mess in beta form. It really isn’t. In fact, it’s virtually up to scratch already on decent but far-from-cutting-edge Android technology.

The N900 version is perhaps the best barometer of what work needs to be done, as the two devices are very similar indeed. They share the same processor and GPU combination.

The game isn’t running quite as smoothly on Milestone at present. It’s still the same playable bird-pinging game, but the framerate isn’t quite as buttery smooth as on the N900 (or, of course, the iPhone) version. That should hopefully be fixed for the final version.

Graphically, it’s as sharp as ever, with the same cartoony visual style really popping out on the Milestone’s vibrant screen. Far more so than on either of the other platforms, in fact, but that’s more than likely down to the hardware rather than any improvements at Rovio’s end.

The controls work beautifully. Pulling the birds back on a length of elastic and releasing them into a stack of bricks in an attempt to topple any hiding pigs is a tactile joy, as always. Angry Birds on Android makes use of pinch-zooming to change the scale of your view, which works as smoothly as it does on iPhone.

Angry Birds on Android looks to be on course to be as good as any other version. Our only real concern at this point is the smoothness of the experience, which isn’t quite on a par with other versions just yet.

We have every confidence that Rovio will use these beta tests to tweak the game to near-perfection, so the best thing you can do for it is to download the beta and get reporting on any issues you encounter.