Google branded unlocked phone Nexus One confirmed is built by HTC with Android 2.1

Last night, there were tweets from Google employees and others about a new Android-powered Google phone that was apparently handed out at an “all hands” meeting. Now Google is confirming that it is indeed “dogfood” testing a new Android device with employees around the world.

Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. and will ship in early 2010. It will have the Gooogle brand just like Apple. The phone is manufactured by HTC with Google customising itself. The hardware seems to be similar to the HTC Passion/Dragon powered by Snapdragon 1GHz and powered by Android 2.1.

The phone has a super high resolution OLED touchscreen and is thinner than the iPhone. It has two mics for noise cancellation. Voice to text recognition is just like BlackBerry for entry of text without touching the screen.

Update 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the new Android phone distributed to Google employees this week will be sold directly to consumers as an unlocked phone as soon as next year. Google will sell the phone instead of carriers, and consumers will need to arrange wireless service separately. The phone is called Nexus One and is made by HTC.

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