SmartPhones

Google is at the head of whatever class it’s enrolled in. From its humble starts in Search, the industry giant now dominates numerous other markets – like the location-based markets with its massive GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth technologies spawning myriad mashups across the globe, and the web browser market, with the recent release of Google Chrome, putting Internet Explorer, AOL, and Mozilla Firefox on high alert. Google is even trying to unseat Microsoft’s near-monopoly on the documents market, creating GoogleDocs as a web-based alternative to Microsoft Office.

So it was only a matter of time before Google went where it has now officially gone – drum-roll please – into the smartphone market, making its debut with the Google G-1 (aka the Google Phone or the G1), manufactured by HTC.

Before getting to the HTC G1 itself, lets get to what’s inside it, because this is what really makes the device stand out. Of course we’re speaking of the Google Android mobile operating system. Competing with the likes of Windows Mobile, Mac OS X mobile, Palm OS, BBOS (RIM BlackBerry), and Symbian (recently purchased by Nokia), the Google Android system promises to bring users a more intuitive, automated, personalized, and customized interface and user experience. And, as it would only make sense, Google Android features faster online searches and overall improved internet integration.

Although this particular model of the long-awaited premiere smartphone containing the Google Android OS is from HTC (makers of the HTC Touch Pro, and others), the system is open source and therefore anyone – Motorola, Samsung, et al - can, and will (mark these words) make a Google phone of their own before long.

One of the other great things about Android’s Linux-based open-source design is that not only can any manufacturer make hardware for it, but any programmer can develop software for it too. So we are all bound to see an abundance of apps for Google phones flooding the market.

As to this inaugural Google Android device, one pivotal feature of the HTC G1 is a physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard, It does make the device a tiny bit heavier than, say, the iPhone (its obvious leading competitor), but many people simply prefer the feel of typing into a real keyboard rather than a simulated one on a touch screen.

Speaking of touch screens, the Google G1 is a touch screen smartphone. They call it “touch sensitive”, however, to distinguish it from a more deft and dexterous technology like multitouch which permits users to control and interact with the device by way of more than just a tap-tap here and a tap-tap there (which, unfortunately, is all the G1’s touch sensitive screen allows).

Some other problems with Google’s increasingly lackluster-seeming smartphone debut include:
•    that it is locked exclusively to wireless carrier T-Mobile which has an inferior calling range and broadband data network than some of the other options, like Sprint and AT&T;
•    it doesn’t have a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack (absurd!);
•    it has no desktop application for desktop syncing
•    1 GB bandwidth allotment per month
•    1 GB onboard memory (with a card slot for memory expansion)

The G-1 includes:
•    a 3 megapixel camera
•    Wi-Fi
•    Gmail
•    GoogleMaps
•    You Tube feeds
•    Amazon mp3 store

Don’t blame Google for this as much as HTC. The Android operating system still has incredible potential. This particular incarnation of its talents and gifts in smartphone form, the HTC G-1, just happens to be a less-than-impressive showing. But better Google Android phones are possible. And have no doubt, they’re coming.

The G1 phone is being offered exclusively by T-Mobile. It will come out on October 22 and sell for $179 with a 2-year contract.