Rumors about the Google-branded Nexus One smartphone have been floating around the Internet for a couple of weeks now, so pretty much everyone was expecting the search engine giant to make it official as soon as possible, perhaps even during CES time. However, in order to get all the attention from the tech media, Google decided to go a little early and officially unveiled the Android 2.1-running smartphone developed by the Taiwan-based handset manufacturer yesterday.

The device features a 3.7-inch AMOLED 480x800 WVGA display and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3G QSD8250 chipset, delivering speeds up to 1GHz. Furthermore, it packs 512MB of Flash memory and 512MB of RAM, the amount of storage space being easily expandable via the SD Card slot (up to 32GB memory cards are supported).

Confirming all the rumors, the Nexus One is one of the slimmest, most portable smartphones out there, as it's just 11.5-mm thin and weighs around 130 grams, including here the removable 1,400 mAh battery. Additionally, the gadget sports a noise suppression system, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with four contacts for inline voice and remote control and a trackball that incorporates a tri-color notification LED, alerts when new emails, chats, text messages arrive. A 6-megapixel auto focus camera with flash and geo tagging has also been thrown in the mix, for good measure.

Google's smartphone delivers a wide array of exciting features as far as the available functions are concerned, the device providing access to Google Maps Navigation, eMail, a phone book that aggregates contacts from multiple sources, including Facebook, Quick Contacts and Android Market. In addition, users of the Nexus One will be able to enter text without typing, by using a voice-enabled keyboard for all text fields. Other customization features include more widgets and five home screen panels, as well as the possibility to easily upload photos and videos to one's online accounts.

"The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call ‘superphones,’ with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset making it as powerful as your laptop computer of three to four years ago. It's our way to raise the bar on what's possible when it comes to creating the best mobile experience for consumers," said Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering. "We look forward to working with handset manufacturers and operators to bring more phones to market through this channel worldwide."

And now, for the issue many of you are probably anxiously looking for, namely pricing and availability. So, for the time being, the Nexus One will be available from the Google web store in the US without service for $529 or starting at $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile. In the near future, it will be available from other carriers, for example Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone in Europe, but also without service on other markets, such as UK and Hong Kong.


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