Image from Cory O’Brien's Twitter

Image from Cory O’Brien's Twitter

Yesterday afternoon, news spread of Google’s new phone called “Nexus One“. This smart phone runs the Android operating system and has already been sent out to some google employees apparently. The photo above is from Cory O’Brien’s Twitter page. He describes the device: “Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android.” This phone will be sold online by Google carrier free, unlocked, and estimated to be available in early January 2010.

It has been confirmed that Google has sent out the Android 2.1 operating system to employees running on the HTC Passion unit to test over the holidays. Expect the final version to be similar.

Google will be using HTC to manufacture this device but it will be Google branded. Content controlled by Google as carriers usually have a say on what  a device can, and can not do. This way you can use it on virtually any carrier.

Here are some of the features (although not officially confirmed)

  • 3.5″ high-resolution OLED touchscreen
  • No physical keyboard
  • Thinner than the iPhone
  • two mics (one on the back for background noise cancelation)
  • powered by the Snapdragon 1 Ghz processor
  • Voice to Text in every app.
  • Android 2.1 operating system
  • GSM
htcpassion-googlephone

Image from from TheUnlockr