T-Mobile USA’s Android phone, branded as the G1 and priced at $179, as expected will have several tightly integrated Google applications, including Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube, but also will come with access to Amazon’s music store.
The much-anticipated handset, unveiled officially at a New York City press event that featured Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, will go on sale Oct. 22. Current T-Mobile USA subscribers also can pre-order the phone, which will be sold as a locked device. The quad-band G1, which also has Wi-Fi, will go on sale in the United Kingdom in November and the rest of Europe in early 2009.
The HTC-made G1 has a touchscreen that makes navigation possible with the finger, including zooming in on Web pages and photos. It also has a camera, Bluetooth for hands-free calling, and a full QWERTY keyboard.
Cole Brodman, chief technology and innovation officer for T-Mobile USA, said the carrier thinks the G1’s openness will help bring about the promise of the mobile Internet. He said the United States leads the world in the use of texting and mobile voice but only 16% of Americans use the mobile Internet. He said the G1 at launch has the kind of compelling services to encourage more consumer adoption, but that the openness of the platform will “unleash innovations” that will see consumers embrace the mobile Internet.
Peter Chou, president and CEO of HTC, called the G1 a “unique, iconic” device that is “nimble, flexible and powerful.”
Among the demos at the launch event were the integration of Google search that Brin promised would be faster than any experience on a mobile phone today. The demo showed a 1-click contextual search by using a finger. The phone also had a full HTML browser, likened to Google’s new Chrome browser, with the ability to zoom in by tapping the screen. A demo also showed how Google Maps and its Street View photos are integrated with search, including the ability to map a contact’s address.
There will be an Android Market with applications to support the G1 and forthcoming phones. Among these is the Amazon MP3 store, a ShopSavvy application that turns the phone into a barcode reader to get comparative pricing, a GPS route tracker called BreadCrumbz, and an application by Ecorio that lets users keep track of their carbon footprints.
Brin joked at the launch event that he had designed an application using the phone’s accelerometer that calculates the time when a G1 is thrown into the air before it is caught or lands on the floor. He said he doesn’t plan to post that in the Android Market.
Brodman said T-Mobile USA will have two new data pricing plans to go with the G1 launch, both on top of current voice plans. One will be a $25 monthly plan with limited Internet and messaging and the other will be $35 for unlimited Web and messaging.
