Photo from BGR

In case you haven’t heard, Google’s making a phone–sort of. To spare the non-geektastic, here’s the rundown on this sexy beast:

Mostly-confirmed tidbits

• The Nexus One will be built by HTC, and has been approved by the FCC.
• Google has given the phone to employees to “dogfood” (aka beta) test.
• It will run Android 2.1, which just got ported to the Droid.
• It will probably appear in January 2010.
• It’s a GSM phone and going to T-Mobile in the US, not AT&T.
• Google and T-Mo will sell the phones unlocked, unsubsidized and contract-free.
• The phone is essentially the HTC Passion/Dragon/Bravo, with identical tech specs: 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU, 3.7″ AMOLED screen, 5MP camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, compass, 1,400mAh battery, and a bunch of other goodies.
• There’s still no multitouch.

There are two ways to consider this: that it’s not a big deal, and that it is a big deal–but in the way the Apple haterz/Google fanboys think. You can probably guess where I come down.

It’s not a big deal

• It’s the Passion/Dragon/Bravo. That means that Verizon gets the CDMA version of this phone–for all intents and purposes, identical.
• Farhad Manjoo and Engadget point out that Google won’t really step to Apple’s “our way or the highway” strategy, as it would likely destroy the Android experiment and the Open Handset Alliance. Google’s not going for a Mountain View-Cupertino showdown.
• T-Mo’s 3G network is pretty tiny, even compared to AT&T.

It is entirely a big deal

• Manjoo says “I’d be shocked if the device did anything that other Android phones can’t do.” That may be true, but look at those stats again: 3.7″ OLED screen (bigger and prettier/higher resolution than the iPhone), 1Ghz processor (faster than the iPhone’s underclocked 600Mhz), 5MP camera (higher-res than the iPhone). Assuming that Apple sticks to its standard summer iPhone release schedule, the Nexus One’s January launch gives Google and T-Mo six months to bloody Apple’s nose.
• Google does software; to quote Manjoo again, they do “fantastic, awesome, world-changing software. That is pretty much all it does.” In the last two months, Google has rolled out Maps Navigation and Google Goggles (worst name ever). Software makes a huge difference (recall Apple’s “There’s an app for that” campaign), and all of Google’s weight is behind Android.
• Android’s ability to run multiple apps at once becomes much more useful if you have the processing power to avoid lag (the Droid doesn’t always have that power, at least in my brief experience). Its 1,400mAh battery (besting the iPhone’s by a slim margin) should help keep lifetime comparable.
• Search marketing for smartphones is growing much faster than other types of online advertising. Anything that adds to that market is good for Google–especially if it encourages people to use Google’s other (ad-supported) services.
• Despite its small 3G footprint, T-Mo consistently bests AT&T in customer satisfaction, ranking just behind Verizon. AT&T tied for last place.
• Because Google is not technically building the phone, Google has an incentive to maximize market share for Android, not just the Nexus One. With the Verizon-bound Passion dropping at the same time, Google (and HTC) will have an “iPhone-killer” on two networks, both of which can leech customers dissatisfied with AT&T.
• With two carriers pushing an identical, high-end Android phone, app developers should finally have the incentive to build more (and better-looking and -working) Android apps.
• T-Mo’s contract-free “Even More Plus” plans include unlimited data and texting, and start at $60. AT&T’s two-year basic voice-and-data contract alone costs $70, and jumps to $90 with unlimited texts. Over two years, that difference alone works out to $720–more than enough to offset the cost of the handset, even at an iPhone-comparable price of $600.
• Google doesn’t need to profit as much from the Nexus One as Apple does from the iPhone. With their massive bankroll, they could price the unlocked N1 substantially lower–my guess is around $400.

Because Google didn’t build an exclusive “Google phone” to fight the iPhone, they’ll have a technologically superior handset for about six months. It will run on superior networks. It will have more innovative software. It will ultimately be cheaper.

In short, it’ll be better.

More potentially-related posts:

1. A latecomer Nexus One review.
2. Fuck and yes.
3. A Nexus One user update.