Everything You Need to Know About the G1 – Google Phone

September 23 was G1 day. The much awaited and highly anticipated Google-Powered Phone, Google Phone, Google Android Phone or whatever you may want to call it was finally announced by Google, T-Mobile and HTC. It made three major companies to make it happen, T-Mobile, HTC and Google joined forces to bring what people are calling the iPhone killer. But does it really match up to Apple’s very popular and widely used iPhone 3G? For those who are planning to take the G1 plunge, here is possibly everything that you need to know about the G1.
Feature Highlights – Of course, if you are looking into an iPhone killer, first feature that you will have to look into is whether the phone supports touchscreen. Well, the G1 certainly does. The G1 offers instant access to key information with the mere touch of a finger. Just tap the screen and you’re good to go. Next up, mobile browsing capability. The Google Phone offers quick and easy access to the Internet with rich web content. Then we have the camera features, in this department the G1 beats the iPhone 3G with its 3MP camera as compared to the iPhone’s 2MP. Even sweeter is the built-in auto-focus feature of its camera. The G1 also boasts of customizable home screen where you can drag and drop any of your favorite applications, photos, or folders onto your home screen for quick access to your frequently used applications. Want more features? The G1 seems won’t run out of good features to boasts of. It also has a full QWERTY keyboard, one feature which the iPhone certainly doesn’t have. The G1’s keyboard is well placed in a hinged screen slides which you can just slide close to avoid accidental dialling. Then of course, this is a Google Phone, so it must have full access to various Google applications. And it does, in fact users can easily access this Google applications through one-touch h control. These applications include Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, one-click Google Search and Video Playback support. Other features of the G1 include; IM/Text/Email feature, Music player, 3G network and WiFi access.

The Android Market – The next important feature of the G1 which would certainly match up to the iPhone is of course the Android Market or the G1’s iTunes, where users can have access to third party applications developed specifically for the G1. The G1 Android Market offers one touch access, customize and personalization of the device with software applications such as games, social networking and on-the-go shopping. Of course the G1 comes preloaded with free applications to although these applications are nothing to brag about. We still have to wait and see if third party applications for the G1 would be as useful or not as useful as the iPhone applications.
The T-Mobile Deal – As the G1 is exclusively distributed by T-Mobile, the phone carrier is offering the G1 for $179 with a two-year service contract. T-Mobile is making the G1 available on October 22 with $25 dollar data option for 400messages/web, 35 dollar option for unlimited web/messaging.

Full Specs and Details:

• Qualcomm MSM7201A™, 528 MHz Processor
• Android OS
• 192MB RAM
• 158 grams
• 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
• HSDPA/WCDMA Network – Europe 2100 MHz, US 1700/2100 MHz, Up to 7.2mbps down-link (HSDPA) and 2 mbps up-link (HSUPA) speeds;
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Trackball with Enter button device control
• Slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboard
• GPS navigation capability with built-in GPS receiver and map software
• Bluetooth2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• 3.2 megapixel color camera with fixed focus
• Built-in microphone and speaker
• Ring tone formats: AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MIDI, MP3, WMA, WMV, 40 polyphonic and standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI
• Up to 350 minutes talk time for WCDMA,406 minutes talk time for GSM; Standby time up to 402 hours for WCDMA and up to 319 hours for GSM
• MicroSD memory card support;
• Digital Compass and motion sensor as special features.

T-Mobile has already started accepting pre-orders for the G1 phone, although as of press date, virtually the projected stocks are already depleted even before the G1 phone is released. That only goes to show how highly anticipated the G1 phone is.

The success of the G1 phone still remains to be seen though. If third party developers would enter into the Android market, then the iTunes apps store might be in trouble. And there is also news of other mobile manufacturers who might come up with their own Google Android power mobile handset in the future. Hence Apple is up with not just the HTC-branded G1 phone but soon, other mobile handsets from other mobile phone manufacturers ahead.

The Google Phone Has Arrived - Welcome G1

We interrupt our regular programming as we announced the arrival of another mobile phone backed up by an Internet giant company who just might give the Apple iPhone a pretty good run for its money. The Google phone has finally arrived - the G1. First, let us clarify this first. The Google Phone or what is more popularly known now as the G1 is not really a Google-manufactured phone. It’s one of those HTC slider phone which is powered by of course Google’s Android mobile phone. And since it has the Android SDK in it, it is but natural to have most of the Google mobile products as a default applications. Now that we’ve cleared that up, lets get into more details about the G1 phone which will be released by T-Mobile on October 22 for $179 with a two year contract. The G1 features a 3.17-inch 65K color touchscreen with HVGA (480×320) resolution, it gives out 5 hours talk time and 130 hours of standby time, a 3.1 megapixel camera, comes with with a 1GB microSD card and can support up to 16GB, expectedly GPS via Google Maps. And that pretty much sums up the G1 major features. It’s a GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi and UMTS/HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz phone that would have a similar application store called the Android market as well as the Amazon MP3 store for music downloading functionality. And it definitely has YouTube as one of its preloaded apps, aside from Shop Savvy, a comparative shopping app, Ecorio which is an app for monitoring your carbon footprint, and BreadCrumbz for creating a step-by-step visual map using photos.

The Google Phone is Coming, We Now Have the Android Market

Google has unveiled the Android Market, an iTunes-like mobile content service being prepped up for the imminent launch of the highly-anticipated Google-powered mobile phone to be released by HTC. HTC announced a couple of days ago, that the GPhone will most likely be out in time for the holidays and was even showing initial photos of the device. Although some got excited to see the prototype Google phone, initial reactions were not that impressive though as the Google Phone lacks the “omph” factor which was in the iPhone during its initial launch. So, to ignite excitement over the Google Phone, the Adroid Market was unveiled. The Android Market as explained by the Android Developers Blog is an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices. It aims to leverage Google’s expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers. In addition, developers can make their content available on an open service that also features feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. Google also promised to make the first Google Phone to have the Adroid Market enabled. Like iTunes, there would be free and paid applications to be featured in the Adroid Market. As the Android Market is currently in beta mode, and with the absence of a legitimate Google phone, we may just have to contend ourselves with a screenshot of how the Android Market looks like. It looks pretty robust if we may have to say so.

From the Rumor Mill: Palm Treo 800W

It looks like the launch of the new iPhone 3G has created quiet a stir not only among mobile phone users but with mobile phone manufacturers as well. Thus, we see various new mobile phone rumors and leaked photos here and there. One of these mobile phone is the Palm Treo 800W. Rumors has started circulating about this new PDA phone as early as last week. And now we gathered some more juicy specs and details about the Palm Treo 800W which we heard will be coming over to Verizon Wireless. So what are these specs and details? First, the Palm Treo 800W will be loaded with a 333mhz unspecified TI processor which is not really something to be proud of since its doesn’t really offer that much faster speed than the processors of other Palm Treo PDA phones. Next, we also learned that the Palm Treo 800W will be running on Windows Mobile 6.1 which is something to be happy about. And now for the usual round of specs and features that we expect to the Palm Treo 800w to have - CDMA 800, EVDO and 1XRTT, personal speakerphone, microUSB, external antenna port, microphone mute option, 3-way calling, HAC compatibility, microSD/SDHC expansion slot, rechargeable li-ion battery, 2.0 megapixel camera with native resolution of 1600×1200 and automatic light balance, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR, 320×320 pixel touch sensitive LCD screen, built-in QWERTY keyboard plus a 5-way navigator, backlight for low lighting conditions. The Palm Treo 800 is being rumored to come out sometime in July under Sprint before it will debut under Verizon Wireless network in the third quarter. It will retail for around $250 with a two-year contract. Via

A Bag Full of iPhone Rumors, Speculations, Predictions and More before the WWDC

As the much anticipated WWDC, where Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is expected to deliver a keynote address, approaches, a slew of rumors, speculations, predictions, and what-have-yous have surface on the web the past couple of days or weeks even. Everyone has this and that to say, and we were deluded by so many information, bits and pieces, leaked reports, leaked photos and many more. We couldn’t blame anyone as this is a much anticipated event every year. And everybody is eagerly awaiting the launch of the most successful Apple product, which happens to be a mobile phone, not a computing machine.

We’ve gathered some these rumors in the hopes of helping you prepare for the coming of the new generation iPhone. 3G? Smaller touch screens? GPS feature, iPhone subsidy, white iPhone, thinner iPhone and we even have leak photos of the actual iPhone package that comes with video chatting feature, cool right?

3G iPhone – The 3G capability was a much sought feature on the original iPhone. And everybody is expecting (if not demanding) that the next generation iPhone should come with this capability. Although the Wi-Fi feature of the original iPhone was enough to give users a good connectivity feature, still when it comes to calling, sending SMS and even connecting the iPhone into user’s PC serving as a modem, 3G connectivity is still a must.

GPS feature – Another hot rumor that surfaced up is Apple’s GPS navigation feature. Mobile GPS is a pretty much widely used and most sought after feature in any mobile devices. Practically almost all the high-end mobile phones offer this functionality. And mobile users actually love using it. So, for Apple to finally establish its iPhone as the leader in mobile phone communication, it better have a GPS function in its incoming iPhone model.

Thinner iPhone – Some are saying that the new iPhone will be 22 percent than the original. Some are saying that it would have a smaller screen. A couple of days ago, a photo was leaked showing the new iPhone with indeed a smaller screen than the original. This is but understandable as Apple has just made the Mac Book thinner with the air model, right? Hopefully, Apple won’t come up with an “iPhone Air”. We’re just kidding.

Better battery life – one of the old iPhone’s flaws was the limited time capacity of its batteries. This is expected of course from a mobile device with full touch screen features and a large display. So, iPhone fans are predicting that the new iPhone will have longer battery life than its predecessor. Hence, it is also rumoured that the new iPhone will come with a smaller screen, possibly to save some battery life.

White iPhone – a Dutch community site published leak photos of a white iPhone sometime in May. This created quite a stir in the blogosphere as the photos seemed pretty authentic. But nobody from the Apple side confirmed this rumor obviously. Whether true or not, it will be pretty exciting to see an iPhone donning the white coat. And it’s understandble since Apple has a white Mac Book Pro, right?

iPhone – there was also an ongoing rumors that some iPhone distributors will be offering the new iPhones in subsidized package, apparently to fire up more sales. It might go against Apple principles but still, if indeed true, it might actually boost up the iPhone’s sales and help Apple reached its targeted sale for the iPhone.

And the latest among these iPhone buzz happened just when the week was about to close. Leaked photos of the new iPhone spread across the blogosphere like a thief in the night. The photos showed a new “red” iPhone with features such as front-facing camera for video calling and an iChat feature. It was such a seemingly real photos that the first blog to break it out received tons of traffic as other tech bloggers followed suit in linking to the story. The original photos were posted on a Flickr site and you can check it here. Engadget claims the photos are fake while others took it with a grain of salt. True or not, the photos look cool nonetheless and it would be pretty exciting if the features cited would actually be true.

Indeed what an exciting times it has been for all of us iPhone fans. But as the weekend starts, it would be best to put aside the excitement. Relax, have a pleasant weekend. It will be a more exciting week for us comes Monday evening as the WWDC ushers in!

Christian Dior Phone is the Mother of All Luxury phones

Will you actually buy a phone worth $3500-$5000? If you answer yes, then the upcoming Christian Dior luxury phone might just be the phone for you. If you answer no, you might find this new mobile beauty a bit interesting too. Although the Christian Dior luxury phone has started to circulate in the rumorland, it took the Wall Street Journal to finally convince us all mobile phone afficionados to believe that there is actually a Christian Dior phone. And judging by the released publicity photo, this phone definitely the mother of all luxury phones. Is it all beauty and grandeur? Certainly not. The Christian Dior phone is to work worldwide, except Japan and Korea. And it will have features such as a touchscreen display, camera, specialist ringtone, custom graphics to go along with the external design, wallpapers, and who knows what more. It even comes with a remote or a mini phone or perhaps a Bluetooth accessory. We are not sure, since we are relying only on the published spy shot. What else do we know about this new luxury phone. WSJ also reported that the Christian Dior phone would have a “My Dior” that will clip to outside of bags for easy access. And of course we already know that the Christian Dior phone is geared for the noveau rich mobile phone users., specifically from Russia and China. Christian Dior is aiming to market around 10,000 of these expensive phones in one year. As to when it will be available, we don’t know yet. But do we really care? Unless you are one of those Noveau Riches, then you will certainly anticipate this new luxury phone.

HTC Diamond Coming Soon, as in Today?

If the rumors that has been circulating around are true, we might be getting an announcement anytime today from HTC about its newest handset model – dubbed as HTC Diamond. The HTC Diamond was said to be the successor of the HTC Touch and as such bears some of the Touch’s notable features and specifications. This include the HTC Diamond’s being a Windows Mobile Professional smartphone. Judging by the leaked photos, the HTC Diamond definitely looks sleek and dandy in its shiny black color design. At the back of the handset is a diamond design, thus its called the HTC Diamond. Other rumored features of the HTC Diamond include; GSM/3G connectivity capable of giving out 7.2mbps of HSDPA speed, powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, 2.8” VGA display, 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, another VGA camera for video calling, 4GB internal memory with microSD slot for expansion, powered by Qualcomm MSM7201 chipset with a 528MHZ speed. In addition, the HTC Diamond would also have Bluetooth V2.0, Wi-Fi, aGPS, FM radio, sensor control for its display. Other than this we couldn’t find anymore features from the different reports available on the web. I guess, the best thing to do now is to wait for the official announcement from HTC which is about to come out sometime soon, as in today? In the meantime, take a gander at the leaked photos and admire this new HTC mobile beauty.

Alltel Releases the LG Glimmer Cell Phone

Alltel finally releases the much talked about LG Glimmer Cell Phone to the U.S. mobile market. Rumors of the LG Glimmer phone getting a U.S. release was spread out when LG Korea displayed a photo of the LG Glimmer on its website. A couple of days ago, various mobile gadget sites started reporting about it even if there was no official announcement yet from Alltel and LG. The LG Glimmer phone will be exclusively distributed by all Alltel outlets nationwide. It retails for $419.99 but will cost only $249.99 after an instant rebate and mail-rebate, with a two-year Alltel service agreement. The LG Glimmer has a touch-screen interface rivaling that of the iPhone and a slide-out keypad. It has a 2MP camera with video, a music player, GPS navigation capabilities and a preloaded Axcess features. The LG Glimmer phone is power packed multimedia phone that boast of top cell phone features including speakerphone, Bluetooth connectivity, downloadable tones and applications, sms, voice activated dialing, mp3 player that, video capability and support for expandable memory via a microSD card. Design wise, the LG Glimmer phone is ultra sleek and emits a classic look minus the bulk common among high-end multimedia phones. It weighs 4.5 oz and measures 4 x 2 x .6 inches. It has an integrated 2.0 megapixel camera with built-in camera flash. The LG Glimmer also support fast internet connectivity speed via 1XRTT/EVDO network technology. Each LG Glimmer cell phone package from Alltel distributors includes the following accessories; Lithium Ion Battery, A/C travel charger, 3.5 mm stereo adapter with microphone, touch screen stylus and LCD protection film.

Nokia to Unveil the N82?

Nokia is set to reveal another secret on November 2, based on the teaser found at the company’s website. Now many are speculating that this big announcement on All Soul’s Day, is the phone that has been doing the rounds in the grapevine, the Nokia N82. Some rumored specs of this much anticipated smartphone, which is said to work under the WCDMA/HSDPA networks, and GSM/EDGE, and powered by the S60 3rd Edition FP1 Platform, are; a QVGA 2.4″ 16M colorsTFT (240 x 320) display, integrated GPS, FM radio and media player, a secondary camera for video calls, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and xenon flash.  Let’s hope it is indeed the N82 that Nokia is set to unveil a few days from now.

[The Nokia N82? via Mobile-Review ]

HTC to Release Over 50,000 Phones Powered by Google OS?

Everyone’s been looking for the next big thing to talk about — after the much awaited iPhone, that is. And what is said to match the iPhone, if not top,in terms of press and hype is no less than the Google phone, which up to now, after much speculation and rumors, has not been confirmed.

The newest rumor with regards to Google dabbling into the mobile phone manufacturing industry, is that according to an analyst from UBS, over 50,000 HTC handsets will be equipped with Google OS. The first batch of which will not be for commercial use but for “developers to demonstrate software capabilities,” as Mobile-Review writes.

Nobody knows for sure if Google will still push through with the G-Phone or will just supply the operating systems for mobile phones from different mobile phone manufacturers as the same source stated that HTC will not be Google’s exclusive partner for their OS devices. The first commercial shipments are said to be available commercially next year at the earliest.

[ HTC to Release Over 50,000 Phones Powered by Google OS? via Mobile-Review ]

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