While there has been much speculation online the last few months about the possibility of a Google Phone, the Mountain View internet giant officially put all rumours to rest yesterday with the announcement of the Nexus One. Manufactured specially for Google by HTC, the Nexus One is very similar in appearance to the earlier leaked shots of the HTC Passion. The Nexus One has a lot more hardware clout than earlier Android phones, and the very latest iteration of the Android OS.
Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor the Nexus One is set to be one of the speediest phones on the market. There are other Android phones to make use of the supersonic processor but the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is yet to be released and already being forgotten, and the Acer Liquid had its Snapdragon underclocked to 768MHz. Aside from the speedy processor the Nexus One also boasts an excellent camera with 5 megapixels that looks to be far more promising than the snapper found on its arch-nemesis the Apple iPhone.
While there are already plenty of Android phones on the market to choose from the Nexus One is one of the first to use the new Android 2.1. And surely, if you are going to make an Android phone no one will likely do it better than Google themselves. Android 2.1 looks noticeably more enticing than earlier versions, and not just visually. While there are new 3D app icons and a more appealing homepage, Google has also added in more homepages and a WebOS card style method of quickly switching between them.
Comparisons are already being made to the iPhone and no doubt Google are secretly hoping that the Nexus One will wipe the smugness from the face of Steve Jobs. From a preliminary viewing of the phone it does look like one of the best ‘iPhone Killers’ to have the most promise of living up to its task, and perhaps the Nexus One will succeed where others have failed. Already on sale in the US through T-Mobile and unlocked directly from Google, a European release is set to follow shortly. The Nexus One will be available in the UK through Vodafone (exclusively, it seems), although there is no news just yet as to whether we too will be able to enjoy an unlocked version here as well.
Tags: Google-Nexus-One, Google-phone