With gossip mongers having kept most of last week busy with Google’s alleged new Android-based handset, the phone’s official release certainly doesn’t come as a surprise. Yes, Google has finally slid the covers off its most recent Android phone, Nexus One. And without a doubt we’re pretty excited.
The official Google Mobile blogspot reveals the handset to be powered by the latest Android 2.1 software and boasts of quite an array of advanced features. Mobile enthusiasts can look forward to a slew of popular Google Mobile apps pre-installed in this phone. This includes favorite classics like Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Talk.
Additional Google goodies bundles in the handset include Maps Navigation and Google Voice. Equipped with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, it seems to be a super-fast phone. The phone is also incorporated with a few other interesting features. With a voice-enabled keyboard for any text field, users can now speak to their phone and it will perform the task of text messaging or email writing or even searching a query.
Sounds exciting? Well, hold on! There’s apparently much more in store. Integrated with the new YouTube widget, users can choose from among one of the five customizable home screen panels. Users can now also access their Picasa Web Albums with the 3D interface of the new Cooliris Gallery application. Thanks to the phone’s 3.7″ AMOLED WVGA touchscreen, videos, apps, and photos are not only larger but also clearer, and sharper. The screen has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels with 100,000:1 typical contrast ratio and 1ms typical response rate.
Armed with a 5 megapixels camera with autofocus from 6cm to infinity, 2X digital zoom and LED flash, users can now include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver. The camera captures videos at 720×480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions. Housing a 4GB Micro SD card that can be expanded up to 32GB, the phone includes 512MB of Flash memory and 512MB of RAM. With Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning, the phone also comprises of a digital compass and accelerometer, support for Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR A2DP stereo Bluetooth and more.
Users can purchase the Nexus One from the Google Phone Webstore without service for $529 or with a qualifying T-Mobile US service plan at a discounted price. Nexus One with new 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for new customers will cost $179, with a new, 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for qualifying existing T-Mobile customers who are adding data plans, it will be priced at $279 and with a new 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for qualifying existing T-Mobile customers who are upgrading their data plans, the phone carries a tag of $379.