Google Nexus One Event Recap
Unfortunately I didn’t attend the Nexus One event today and instead I’m sitting in my Vegas hotel room reporting on it as I wait for CES to begin tomorrow. I’m guessing you didn’t go either? Well if you want a recap of the event in bullet form we thought we would catch you up to speed quickly:
- Next Stage in the Android Revolution
- 13 New members of the OHA including China Telecom, NEC and Freescale
- Discussing the growth of hardware and software… from the G1 to the Droid: “20 devices, 59 carriers, 48 countries, 19 languages”
- They talk about taking Android to the next level and officially announce the Nexus One
- HTC CEO comes on stage to share some key specs while holding the phone: 3.7″ AMOLED display, 1GHz processor, Android 2.1 3D graphics, 480 x 800 pixel resolution
- 2 microphones for voice cancellation
- You can get your Nexus One ENGRAVED!
- 5 homescreens
- News and weather widget with GPS
- 3D elements like Live Wallpaper, App Drawer, Photo Gallery
- Clustered picture galleries by date/location
- Voice activation for EVERY text field on the phone
- Google Earth for Android
- They just coined the term “superphones”, a new class that the Nexus One falls in
- Google announces a hosted web store for locked/unlocked Android Phones at http://google.com/phone
- The phone will currently be available with a T-Mobile contract but Verizon/Vodafone offerings are coming in Spring and Google is working on adding not only more carriers… but also MORE DEVICES to their list of sponsored superphones!
- $529 unlocked, $179 with T-Mobile 2-year contract
- You need a Google Account to buy the phone because it uses Google Checkout. You would need a Google Account to use the phone anyways… so its not that big of a deal. Slowly but surely Google is sucking you in to use ALL of their services!
- It’s really quick and easy to order – I know because I did so myself.
- Overnighted if you buy it now or 72 hours if you get it engraved
- Motorola is also getting involved (fact, their CEO was on stage) and will likely be the 2nd phone in Google’s web store (speculation, by me)
Then came the Q&A which, if you saw it, was absolutely BRUTAL. The question askers pulled no punches and in some cases playfully confrontational. In any case, here are some of the goodies to come out of the Q&A:
- Future versions of Android will allow for Apps to be installed on the SD card.
- Google is the merchant of record and you purchase the phone from Google… but the manufacturer is HTC. This is interesting in terms of supply chain – I wonder how much Google is paying HTC for each unlocked device?
- Engadget asked about Multi-touch support in terms of the Droid vs. Milestone issue and nobody seemed to have an answer. Even Peter Chou said “The HTC Hero has multi-touch” but they just said “it is something we’ll look at” when talking about the Nexus One.
- Motorola is going to try and update the Droid to Android 2.1 – or as much of it as they can and this should happen relatively soon!
So what do you think? Have we just entered a new era of mobile phone buying? Head on over to the Nexus One Forums to discuss!