T-Mobile USA formally announced the first phone using Google’s open-source mobile operating system, Android, on September 23rd. The phone, manufactured by HTC, will be called the G1 in the U.S. market. It will be priced at US$179, with a 2-year T-Mobile contract.

The G1 is slightly heavier than its primary competitor, the Apple iPhone 3G, and it features a large touch screen, a slide-out full keyboard and an integrated trackball for application navigation. Its biggest differentiating feature, however, is that this is the first smartphone to be powered by Android, which promises to be intuitive to use, easily customized to user preferences, and expandable with third-party applications.

According to the tech blog, Boy Genius Report, T-Mobile’s G1 will be shipped to customers on October 17th. The G1 is the first of many new Android-based phones expected in the next year.  BGR also reports that Sprint will have an Android-based phone in early 2009.  Google hopes to sell 400,000 Android based phones before the end of 2008.

Tags: Android, Dream, G1, HTC, T-Mobile

The tech blog Engadget reports that T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone using the open Android operating system. The phone will be built by HTC and go on sale in the U.S. “before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.” The New York Times also reported that the device will include a slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboard.

Also, Google released the latest version of the Android software development toolkit.  Early reviews are very positive on the user interface, but decidedly mixed on native functionality.  According to the tech blog Gizmodo:

It’s hard to pass judgement on Android in the condition it’s in. What’s there is impressive, but there are so many glaring omissions, at least from a consumer standpoint. There is a fantastic system for managing ongoing calls and system messages (via the pull-down taskbar) but no apps to take advantage of it. Email and IM would suit such a configuration beautifully, but neither is included in this release…

…Objections aside, the progress is promising. In terms of usability, Android is much easier to navigate and customize than virtually all other mobile solutions. With a few more apps, Android will be a clear choice over Windows Mobile, skinned or not.

Here is a walk-through of the Android interface, using the toolkit emulator, conducted by the mobile phone blog, MobileCrunch:

What does this mean for salespeople?

The early Android phones will almost certainly be incomplete, compared to the more robust smartphone alternatives available today from Apple, RIM and Nokia.  Mobile sales professionals should continue to monitor how Android develops during the early part of 2009.  If more developers embrace Android’s open platform, and more applications begin to become available, it could become a very flexible alternative to the Apple iPhone or RIM BlackBerry.  In any event, Android’s potential competitive threat should help to keep the costs of smartphones down - and we could see an all-out price war by mid-2009 - definitely good news for salespeople.

UPDATE: Google trims features from Android OS release

Tags: Android, HTC, T-Mobile