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Last updated: Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Google’s G1 handset was launched at a T-Mobile Press Conference in New York today. Judging from past experience, Google has a great knack for throwing tough challenges at historical industry leaders and household names. The new handset, which has been produced by well-known Taiwanese smartphone manufacturers HTC, will feature the much anticipated open-source mobile operating system Android.

Open source is a value that Google have made synonymous with their booming brand and has worked extremely well for them in the past. In fact, analysts are already speculating that the Android powered handset will manage to snatch up 4% of the U.S smartphone market in the fourth quarter of this year.

T-mobile, the sole network distributors for the G1 in the US, are so confident and excited about the launch of the market shaker that they have a website dedicated to the G1 just waiting to be set free at the end of the release conference. To top it all off, it seems that other companies are also confident that the G1 will be a stellar success. Earlier today it was announced that the G1 will come preloaded with an Amazon MP3 application that was created for the Gphone to run in direct competition with Apple’s iTunes. This application will allow users to browse, buy and download music from a library of more than 6 million tunes.

The G1 is expected to contain a host of fantastic applications, most obviously the mobile version of Google’s recently released Chrome web browser. Staying true to style, Google held a competition encouraging the development of applications . This proved very successful as many of the applications utilise the handset ‘ s GPS receiver , and additional applications are already available for download and purchase online.

The question that’s on everyone’s mind, the question that is so common it’s become a cliché, is “will it be an iPhone beater?”. The G1’s nifty applications coupled with Google’s global image lean us toward an emphatic yes but by looking at it’s design and specifications we’re not so sure. Although the recently released pricetag of $179 is very, very competitive as the iPhone goes for about $199 on a two year contract. The most noticeable G1 features include 480 x 320 HVGA Display, 3G Capable, GPS, 3.1 Megapixel Camera.

For a handset that is being released at this time of year, together with all the camera and feature wars going on between other manufacturers, there are a few oddities about the G1. Firstly it can’t capture video, it won’t include stereo Bluetooth, users will need to have a Gmail account and the 3G coverage supporting the device seems a bit on the poor side. To put this in perspective, the G1 will only be sold within a 5 mile radius of T-Mobile 3G coverage areas and this gives us the impression that limited 3G coverage, or the lack thereof, will drastically reduce the performance of the phone’s key features.

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