The first phone to run on Android-run smartphone will debut next week, at a joint press conference between T-Mobile and Google in New York. An invitation inviting folks to the event reads: “Experience the first Android-powered phone from T-Mobile at a press conference on September 23rd at 10:30am.”

This smartphone is a slider QWERTY-keyboard model built by HTC called the Dream (or G1, as some have referred to it as). Attendees will get a chance to handle some of these handsets after presentations from Google and T-Mobile, among other, executives.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Dream will roll out in October and HTC expects to move in the neighborhood of 600,000 to 700,000 before the close of 2008.

While there's been no word on pricing, expect that to change next Tuesday.

Yesterday, Google showed off the Android platform at a Developer Day in London. It is the first time people in Europe got to check out Android in action on an actual working phone.

As a platform for mobile development and an operating system, Android falls under the auspices of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which - in addition to Google, Qualcomm, and T-Mobile- is composed of major mobile telephony, semiconductor, and mobile handset players.

The OHA asserts Android will make it easier and less costly to develop applications for mobile phones—by removing the often complicated pre-qualification regimens and hoops mobile operators make developers jump through today—while giving these wireless carriers and phone manufacturers a great deal more flexibility in the devices the former supports and the latter creates.

In theory, all of this (more freedom, less cost, greater flexibility) should be experienced by consumers as a result of Android as well. By making more advanced cell phones, smartphones and (even) applications cheaper to buy and easier to use, and giving consumers a greater say in the mobile handset they choose to buy and use on their carrier's wireless network.