You may be seeing the words “Nexus One” appear all over your RSS feeds and favorite websites. If you don’t know what it is, it is Google’s first official smartphone. Yes, there have been other phones from manufacturers such as LG, Motorola and HTC that run their Android operating system, but this is the first device that will be sold directly from Google itself via its Nexus One online portal.

The device was officially announced in California yesterday at an invitation-only event (Yes I am sad I didn’t get an invite). Google have dubbed it a “superphone” as it comprises of all the latest in mobile phone technology such as superfast 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 5MP flash camera, voice-to-text typing, GPS, huge 3.7 inch screen and full wireless capabilities.

Pricing is US$530 unlocked or US$180 on 2 year contract with T-Mobile. Unfortunately, it says that the phone is not available in Australia yet

Google seemed wary to call it the “iPhone killer”. I think this is wise considering how quickly the Apple iPhone market has grown. Personally, I think it’s a step closer but other smartphone manufacturers are still 2-3 years away from truly taking over.

Here are all the juicy specifications of the Nexus One (ref: NextWeb)

Nexus One Specifications & Features:

Size & Weight:

Height: 119mm
Width: 59.8mm
Depth: 11.5mm
Weight: 130 grams with battery, 100g without battery

Display:
3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen
800 x 480 pixels
100,000:1 typical contrast ratio
1ms typical response rate

Camera and Flash:
5 megapixels
Autofocus from 6cm to infinity
2X digital zoom
LED flash
User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver
Video captured at 720×480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions

Cellular and Wireless:
UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)
HSDPA 7.2Mbps
HSUPA 2Mbps
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Power and Battery:
Removable 1400 mAH battery
Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger
Talk time:
Up to 10 hours on 2G
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Standby time:
Up to 290 hours on 2G Up to 250 hours on 3G
Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback:
Up to 7 hours
Audio playback:
Up to 20 hours

Processor:
Qualcomm QSD 8250 running at 1 GHz

Operating System:
Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1

Capacity:
512MB Flash
512MB RAM
4GB Micro SD Card (Expandable to 32 GB)

Location:
Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver
Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
Digital compass, Accelerometer

Additional Features:
Haptic feedback
Teflonâ„¢ coated back
Second microphone for active noise cancellation
SIM card slot
Micro SD slot
Proximity sensor
Light sensor

Pre-Loaded Applications:
Maps, Gallery, YouTube, Market, Phone, Gmail, Browser, Voice, integrated Google suite, Navigation, and others. No full official list available at this time.

File Formats Supported:
Image: JPEG (encode and decode), GIF, PNG, BMP
Video: H.263 (encode and decode) MPEG-4 SP (encode and decode) H.264 AVC (decode)
Audio encoders: AMR-NB 4.75 to 12.2 kbps sampled @ 8kHz
Audio decoders: AAC LC/LTP, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+) Mono/Stereo standard bit rates up to 160 kbps and sampling rates from 8 to 48kHz, AMR-NB 4.75 to 12.2 kbps sampled @ 8kHz, AMR-WB 9 rates from 6.60 kbit/s to 23.85 kbit/s sampled @ 16kHz., MP3 Mono/Stereo 8-320Kbps constant (CBR) or variable bit-rate (VBR), MIDI SMF (Type 0 and 1), DLS Version 1 and 2, XMF/Mobile XMF, RTTTL/RTX, OTA, iMelody, Ogg Vorbis, WAVE (8-bit and 16-bit PCM)

Languages Supported:
Keyboard: English (U.S), French (France), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil)
Display: English (U.S), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese, Russian,

It’s a late warm summer’s night here in Melbourne and I’ve just finished my LG Eve (aka LG GW620) unboxing video. Don’t have time to watch 855MB uploaded to YouTube so I’ll have to do it later.

In the meantime here’s the LG Eve advertisement that will give you some insight as to what I’ve been playing with for the last couple of days and will be discussing next week in Korea.

YouTube – LG GW620 – The Friendly Smartphone (ad).

Microsoft and Apple should be paying close attention to the Google Android OS as it’s shaping up to be a formidable competitor, especially with the changes that have been spotted in these screenshots that have been shared by the BoyGeneiusReport team. Some of the major changes are unified mailbox, map enhancements, car-mode, better Facebook integration and overall improved stability. Click on the BGR link below to see a whole swag of shots of the new (unofficial) OS.

But is it worth upgrading, updating or moving to? In short, the BGR guys seem to think so:

We’re loving it. And it could help that it’s running on a pretty bad ass piece of machinery, but hey, that’s for another day.

I can smell some more mobile gadget news in the air!

Via Boy Genius Report