Google Inc.'s profile was relatively low as the World Mobile Congress opened, but chip makers eager to help develop the first phones using Google's Android operating system were not so quiet.

The prototypes Texas Instruments Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. demonstrated at the world's largest mobile conference that ends Thursday looked nothing like the sure-to-be sleek cell phones that eventually will debut the open-source operating system.

TI's prototype was a clunky black with its flagship OMAP3430 multimedia processor, for example. But an eager crowd pressed Tuesday to watch Ramesh Iyer show how users of Android-equipped smart phones will navigate the Web by running a finger over the display — and how they'll find full-size pages, not a Web resized for mobile devices' small screens.

The real beauty of Android is that it shortens by about one-third the time it takes to get a cell phone from concept to market, said Iyer, an ecosystems manager at Texas Instruments.

That's because it contains all the essential building blocks you need for a mobile phone, he said. TI put the Android applications on top of its processor inside of a week, he said.

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