“Be curious!” is the big marketing hook HTC is using for the launch of the Dream and Magic.

The Dream (G1 - exclusive to MTN) and the Magic (G2 - exclusive to Vodacom) were unveiled last night at a function held in Fourways, Johannesburg.

The new handsets are likely to turn more than just a few heads with their open source Android OS (see our review). More than just Android in common, both devices feature a large 3.2\" capacitive touch-screen, Wi-Fi and quad-band 3G support. The older Dream does, however, possess a very handy slide-out QWERTY, but we’ll get into specs and comparisons in our full review of each, due to be published early next week.

The other big news on the evening was the launch of Leaf’s OpenMarket. According to the company, “An open operating system needs an open market to buy, sell or trade [your] creations.”

OpenMarket is basically a Web 2.0 community in which users of the Magic and Dream can buy, sell or swap unique content in the form of wallpapers, ring tones, videos, applications and anything else they can create. In true open fashion users can even open their own store on OpenMarket with the promise of little interference.