Google Phone also makes phone calls!

Mike Halsey | Jan 05, 2010 | View Comments

In the most unsurprising shock event so far this year (okay so it’s only January 5th!) Google have today unveiled the Nexus One, the first Google branded (though it seems to lack the Google name on the front) mobile phone.

This HTC built handset will no doubt be superb, much like every other HTC phone, such as the Google Android powered “Hero”. It has an HD2’esque 800 by 480 pixel screen (this is a 3.7” AMOLED), an HD2’esque 1GHz snapdragon processor, and HD2’esque 5MP camera with LED flash and a very un-HD2’esque dual microphone system, with one on the front and one on the back that work together to eliminate background noise. It’s also got voice control too, but I think we can skip lightly over that one.

It can safely be said that if you lusted after the HD2 but didn’t want the horror that was Windows Mobile, your phone has finally arrived!

Running the very latest version of Android, as you’d expect, it has one feature that I’m finding very annoying. HTC are still using a mini trackball on the front. I’m not in favour of treating the screen of a mobile phone as a desktop, because it’s not. It needs to be treated like the interface for a phone, nothing else.

It offers new software such as Google Earth with a 3D fly-around view and HD2’esque interactive wallpapers. Okay so you’re probably annoyed with my comparing this to other phones but the one thing you might have noticed is how I’m not comparing it to the iPhone. This is because it is, mercifully, a completely different beast to Apple’s mobile monster and this could finally make it a touch-screen smart phone for the rest of us.

It’s going to be available on T-Mobile in the US and, like the iPhone, probably won’t be cheap. You can buy them direct from Google unlocked however if you like paying full price for your phone. It’s rumoured to be available on Vodafone in Europe in the spring.

Why are Google branding their own phone? They simply and quite sensibly want to let the world know that Android has arrived and is a serious contender on mobile phones. You need to have your own device to do this. They’re not a hardware company so working with the premier handset manufacturer HTC, who made phones for just about everybody under aliases before going under their own name, makes complete sense.

The big difference between the Nexus One and the iPhone is that Google managed, quite sneakily, to get other companies to test out Android as a version 1 operating system. It can now safely be said that the Nexus One is NOT a version one product. Would I buy one and replace my Touch HD? Without a doubt!

You can read more on the official Google Nexus One website.