Google unveils Nexus One smartphone
Google on Tuesday unveiled the Nexus One, the online giant’s leap into the smartphone market.
At a 1 p.m. ET event, the company presented the phone.
“Nexus One is where Web meets phone,” said Google’s Mario Queiroz.
The announcement puts Google, which before relied on other companies to make the phones that ran its Android operating system, head-to-head with the darling of the market, Apple’s iPhone.
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Google recently released its to-be-announced phones for use by some of its employees, leading to the inevitable appearance of videos and unofficial reviews online.
Leaks suggest that the Nexus One will be a global-system device with a 3.7-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity, an accelerometer and a compass, according to CNN.com partner Wired magazine.
It is expected to run the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 2.1, which is also made by Google but runs on other phones as well.
The move has prompted online chatter about an “iPhone killer,” a phrase bandied about before every major smartphone debut. But reviewers who have seen the phone pre-release have more modest expectations.
“I don’t think anything is an iPhone killer,” said Kevin Burden, a mobile industry analyst with New York-based ABI Research. “Was the iPhone a Blackberry killer? It’s never going to be that one device that was promised to us a decade ago.”