Oct 22, 2008 8:18 am US/Eastern
Google Gets Into The Smart Phone Business
G1 Sells For $179 With A Two Year Contract
(CBS4)
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The T-Mobile G1 Android-powered phone, the first cell phone with the operating system designed by Google Inc., is shown Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008 in New York.
Mark Lennihan/Getty Images
Move over iPhone, there's a new whiz kid smart cell phone on the block.
Officially called the T-Mobile G1, the new open source phone made by HTC is being nicknamed the "iPhone Killer" because it runs on Google's android operating system.
"This has been developed by Google so there's lots of money behind it," said CNET editor Nicole Lee. "What open source means is that it's open to almost all developers to make many different applications for it."
So how does it measure up against the iPhone.
The G1 is $20 cheaper than the cheaper than the cheapest iPhone. The G1 sells for $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile. While both phones have touchscreens many users preferred the G1's slide-out keyboard and trackball over the iPhone's touchscreen only feature. The G1 also has a 3.2 megapixel camera compared to iPhone's 2 megapixel camera.
"If someone loves the integrated Google on the device, they're going to love this phone," said Lee.
It may take a while for the G1 to put a substantial dent in iPhone sales, however. Apple said it shipped 7 million iPhones in the third quarter.
(CNET)
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