Google's Nexus One - Isn't too different, though.

The legendary object of fiction, the ‘game-changing’ phone that will ‘redefine’ smartphones is here… and it doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Modestly priced at $180 on contract, and $580 unlocked, it’s a pricey object that compares to the iPhone 3GS – with less battery, and less hard-disk space (in google’s case, flash memory). Coming with 512mb of RAM and 4GB of disk space, it’s not too bad – it has a 5 megapixel camera that also records video… but to a limit of 20 minutes.

The Phone itself is a gorgeous blend of what the perfect Android phone is destined to be. Brushed industrial metal with a solid glass screen reminiscent of the Macbook Pros or HP Envy coats the device. There’s 4 buttons, much like the Droid, with an additional button that the placement, according to Engadget, “feels a bit awkward here, and there’s literally nothing in the OS that requires it”.

Similar to the iPhone, it lacks a physical keyboard, which is a rather controversial change, unlike their other Android phones which have a physical keyboard. The phone, unlike most other smartphones, has a flash camera with a 5 megapixel resolution.

There’s few issues with the phone, although Engadget describe that “we actually had some real trouble with those four dedicated buttons. Hopefully it was just our review unit, but the target areas seemed to be too high on the row, and we found ourselves consistently accidentally tapping them while composing an email or text message, or missing them when we tapped a little too low.”

The phone is currently only available on contract with T-Mobile, with other carriers like Verizon coming in the spring. It’s $180 on contract, or $530 otherwise.

This is a phone to watch out for, however.

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Alright. I’m a blogger. And I travel a lot. These aren’t great mixes, partially because when you travel, you can’t usually type or blog. I use my iPhone to blog when I’m AFK – this is a trend to do with smartphones. They’re increasingly useful as temporary computers, for when you’re in another country and can’t use your laptop, or on a train, walking down the street (imagine how much of a douche you’d look walking down a street trying to type on a laptop) and various other applications.

There’s no denying that the iPhone, let alone smartphones, are incredibly powerful and useful phones. And even so, as Apple say, most smartphone companies are just playing catch-up. Blackberry aren’t – but Blackberry are business phones. Apple’s iPhone has been a real game-changer – it was the most noticeable touchscreen phone and arguably one of the best smartphones – and it brought smartphones to a younger generation. No one in my school had a smartphone. Some geeks had blackberries, but that was in the lesser 2% of the school. Then Apple came along and maybe around a twelfth of the school have one. It’s strange, isn’t it?

What’s really eating me at the moment is the chaotic fuss over the Nexus One – Google’s Smartphone – and why everyone is hyping over it. To put it short, the Google Phone is just a phone with the Google logo. It has nothing special and it is not different from any other smartphone. There’s no exclusive features and it is not game-changing. I dread to see the day where Google is the next Apple – anything with a Google logo is apparently amazing?

Yeah, I’d admit this is a bit of an opinionated post, but at the moment the Nexus One is nothing. It’s not game changing, and it’s using technologies I saw a year ago. I want something new and refreshing with a new feature, not just the same phones on the market with a Google logo. I know Google are probably trying to do something interesting with this phone, but it’s not magical and amazing – yet. I don’t understand why people are up in arms about this revolutionary phone when it’s frankly nothing more than an iPhone catchup in an HTC Passion shell. Yeah, Android OS is something cool. But a phone running the same Android as the HTC phones and the Droid?

Guys, the Google Phone aint anything amazing. Stop acting like it’s the next super phone.

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Google are planning on releasing their own phone, as their monopoly expands. The 'Google Phone' will run a separate version of Android, which is unlike any of the others. 

Gizmodo states:

Over the next few weeks, Google Phones (most probably in early, prototype form) will flood the Mountain View campus. They'll don large LCDs while running a new version of Android—either Flan or the version of Android beyond it—which our source spotted running on Google's handset as well as a laptop. (Whatever the software was, it most certainly wasn't Chrome OS, we were assured.)
But maybe the most intriguing bit is what someone said to our source offhandedly, that the current Android, the we all know and love, is not the "real" Android. So what makes for a "real" version of Android?

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