This week has seen the launch of Nexus One, the new ‘superphone’ by Google, in a bid to directly challenge Apple’s iPhone.
The Nexus One, which was unveiled at a greatly anticipated event at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, is not the first handset to use the Google operating system, Android; but it is the first device to be designed by the company itself.
Two key features which Google hopes will set apart the model from others in this highly crowded market, is its voice recognition for writing emails or controlling the device and the high speed web browsing it offers users.  Google claims that the devices high specifications make it the first of a new class of ‘superphone’.
Similar to the iPhone, Android offers fully integrated web browsing, music and video playing, along with a large selection of applications that users can choose to install, improving their individual phones abilities.  The phone, which has been built by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, does however include a larger screen and better camera than featured on the iPhone.  It also offers free satnav facilities, which require an additional charge on the iPhone.
The Nexus One however, is just one in a long line of challengers to Apple’s dominance of the market, including handsets from Nokia, Palm and Microsoft as well as new BlackBerry models.
At the moment the Nexus One is available for delivery from America for $529 (£324), plus $29.65 shipping (£18), and will be available on a UK Vodafone contract “within weeks”.
The launch announcement was clearly timed to challenge the dominance of the world’s largest technology fair, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which took place last week, and to take the limelight away from Apple’s launch of a tablet computer, which is expected at the end of January.
The timing of the event is clearly intended as a snub to the company’s rivals. Apple is expected to announce its own new device – rumored to be a touch screen computer – later this month, while Google’s chief rival, Microsoft, is due to open the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Get Involved