Unless you have been working with your head in the sand this morning you have probably heard that T-Mobile and Google finally officially announced the first phone to run Google’s open source Andriod operating system. Dubbed the G1, the dual branded phone is based on the HTC Dream chassis that includes a 3 inch HVGA (480×320) display, GPS, WiFi, 3G, a 3.1 megapixel camera and the ability to support up to 8GB of memory.
The phone is available for pre-order to current T-Mobile customers for $179 with a 2 year contract but it won’t hit the fanboys’ sweaty hands until October 22nd.
The G1 features two big industry firsts. The first is push Gmail. Simply sign into your Gmail account once and you will receive your email in real time along with being about to access all of the Google services you know and love. The second major feature is a built-in compass. This means that once you fire up Google Map’s StreetView the phone can tell you which way is north and it will automatically orientate the map on the screen as you spin around.
It’s sounds great and the gadget nerd in me is itching to get on the pre-order list but I don’t think I can do it. What’s cool about the G1 is not the HTC Dream hardware it’s the open source OS Andriod. Sure the G1 is the first but there are going to be many more Andriod handsets to come from probably every major cell phone manufacturer in the game. I’d love to see what the HTC in-house developers can do with Andriod after they have a few months to tinker. The G1 looks like it’s slicker than shit but I think I’m going to have to wait for the second or third Andriod device to be released before I make a commitment.
Check out T-Mobiles first offficial commerical for the G1 below and then hit read link for a more in depth walk through from a Google marketing guy.
