HTC Aria for AT&T gets unboxed: non-Market Android apps blocked

AT&T's latest Android smartphone, the HTC Aria, has dropped in over at Android Community, and they've been sharing some first impressions and a hands-on photo gallery.  A compact 3.2-inch HVGA smartphone running Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense UI, the Aria has the same distinctive style of the HTC HD mini and apparently runs fairly decently on its 600MHz processor.

Interestingly, as was previously rumored, AT&T have apparently locked down the Aria's firmware so as to prevent owners from installing Android applications not sourced through the Android Market.  You can see the option to install from "unknown sources" is absent from the Aria in the photo below.

There's also no flash for the 5-megapixel camera, though you do get WiFi and GPS.  Android Community are promising a full review of the HTC Aria very soon, and we'll be sure to flag up when that happens.