The Nexus One has a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash.

CORP TALK: The internet is abuzz with the much hyped Nexus One Android-based phone from Internet search giant Google. Word from the Telegraph is that the launch will be in California later today.

TechTree India even has a list of specifications. Of course, Engadget has a video review and photos of the Nexus One already. The phone itself is built by HTC and runs on Google’s Android 2.1 operating system.

It has a 1GHz SnapDragon processor, a 3.7-inch 480 x 800 display and a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash. Here’s a list of the hardware features of the Nexus One:

The Google Nexus One smartphone has a 3.7

Display: 3.7″ AMOLED 480×800 WVGA display
Thinness: 11.5mm
Weight: 130g
Processor/Speed: Qualcomm Snapdragon 3G QSD8250 chipset, delivering speeds up to 1GHz

Camera: 5 megapixel auto focus with flash and geo tagging
Onboard memory: 512MB Flash, 512MB RAM
Expandable memory: 4GB removable SD Card (expandable to 32GB)
Noise Suppression: Dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc.
Ports: 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with four contacts for inline voice and remote control
Battery: Removable 1400 mAh
Personalized laser engraving: Up to 50 characters on the back of the phone
Trackball: Tri-color notification LED, alerts when new emails, chats, text messages arrive

Here’s a video of the phone after launch just earlier today:

UPDATE 06/01/10: Apparently, the Google Nexus One smartphone will indeed be available to users in Hong Kong and Singapore at US$577.31 and this includes Google shipping the phone unlocked (with power adapter) to you via DHL. Here’s a screenshot of the shipping terms once you reach the checkout page.

Paolo Manzano, Managing Editor, HWM Philippines

Paolo (HWM Philippines): Despite all the hype that the Nexus One is indeed the Google Phone, it will remain as one handset amongst many other handsets in the crowd.

This means that it will still need to compete with the rest, finding its relevance amongst a user group that will embrace it just like the iPhone was whole-heartedly embraced.

Of course, it has several advantages: one, it is conceptualized by Google, with all the sweets they have to offer, including seamless integration of Google Apps, the best support for Android Market, and perhaps extensive compatibility with future Android updates.

Another point to watch here is the fact that Google is now treading on its partners’ territory by producing their very own branded handsets, something that Microsoft has avoided at all costs in order to keep their WinMo partners happy.

Perhaps the market will go for the Droid or Hero or some other handset, but for any partner, is competition from Google on this front something that they want?

Probably not. It will be interesting to see how it turns out in the next few years and how it will shape the business of Android partners such as Motorola and HTC, and most especially Google.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: Being Google, everything that comes out from the Google factories will be hot cakes.

Coupled with HTC’s manufacturing wits, the combination is lethal. Good hardware with global-reach software, what else would you ask? Well, lower pricing may be.

Since the HTC Dream’s launch, when I had expected Android-based phones to boom in two years, I now think it will probably be faster, pending internet infrastructure to be more established in certain countries (e.g. Indonesia).

The product is certainly worth the hype.

Smartphone communities welcome this change from the unreliability we’ve so far seen in other more established platforms.

CORP TALK: Nikkei Electronics has published a preview of Google’s Chrome operating system (OS), set for launch around the holiday season in end 2010. According to Google, the OS is made not to compete with Microsoft Windows on market share but to operate on netbooks and provide unrestricted Web access on the Cloud and a myriad of related applications.

Basically, with the browser acting as the interface, the OS sits atop a Linux kernel and has a reported boot time of just 10 seconds. The report indicated that five netbook manufacturers, including Acer, ASUS and HP, have already expressed interest to produce netbooks with Google Chrome OS.

The Google Voice app was rejected by Apple for its App Store because it encroached on Apple's core telephony features for the iPhone.

T&A: Knowledge@Wharton has put up a feature on Google stepping on Apple’s toes recently when it wanted to distribute its Google Voice app on Apple’s App Store for the iPhone.

Apple rejected the app because it felt Google Voice interfered with the Apple user experience with its own core telephony features, such as voicemail, text messaging and calls. But that’s just one potential competitor out of many others.

According to Wharton, Google has a dominant position in Internet search, but has since moved into other areas like free office production software and the Android mobile computing platform — making it look like a younger Microsoft in the mid-1990s — an ambitious company with a growing list of competitors.

The caution given is to avoid a clash with antitrust issues (and privacy advocates) in the future, prompting a similar predicament Microsoft faced with regulators many years later. The difference however is that most of Google’s offerings are free — from office productivity software, to the Chrome Web browser — and “free” is always a popular word.

While analysts share that Google’s main goal in expanding beyond its core search business model is to expand into areas where Internet access and mobility happen, its ultimate plan is to organize the world’s information so that more people will use its free services online, allowing it to capitalize on reach and grow its search advertising business.

It is no wonder then that though it is dominant on the desktop and notebook space, it wants to secure the consumer reach in the mobile space as well. But we’re certain the Google Voice app rejection from Apple is just a bump on the road for the Mountain View, California-based company. (Editor opinions: 1)

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: It’s a common practice among competing parties to “block” access to another’s applications.

There’s nothing wrong with that since Apple has to protect its core business for telephony with the iPhone.

However, Google should take some lessons from the experiences Microsoft had to go through in the past and recently in the EU, with the occasional fine making the news now and then.

CORP TALK: After so many ups and downs, a partnership is finally formed between Microsoft and Yahoo in a 10-year deal with the common goal to eventually thwart the advances of Internet search giant Google, as reported by the BBC here.

The two companies will collaborate together, where Microsoft will use its Bing search engine (our report on Bing here) to power the Yahoo website while Yahoo will become the advertising sales agent for Microsoft’s online offering.

Prior to this, Yahoo has turned down several takeover bids from Microsoft over the past year. The deal will see Yahoo getting 88% of revenue from all search ad sales on its site (within the first 5 years) and it will have the right to sell ads on other Microsoft websites.

CORP TALK: Google launched its Google Chrome browser some nine months ago and currently has over 30 million users. According to a blog run by the Google team, Sundar Pichai, the VP for Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director for Google Chrome browser have announced a new project called the Google Chrome Operating System.

Planned as an open source, lightweight operating system, the team envisions the Chrome OS to run well on netbooks, with the idea of making it available to consumers in the second half of 2010. The OS will run on both x86 and ARM chips, using Web-based applications as the software tools of choice.

The blog also emphasized that the Google Chrome OS and Android are two separate initiatives. While Android is designed to work on devices like phones to netbooks, Chrome OS is for heavy Web users and targets netbooks to full-size desktop systems. (Editor opinions: 1)

Navin Danapal, Technical Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM MY): This was long time coming and expected. After Google’s Android OS for the mobile space, there were experiments with Android on a netbook. Then Intel showcased Moblin (Mobile Linux) 2.0 OS to power netbooks, as how ASUS used Linux OS for their Eee PC.

From this it’s clear netbook makers want a compact OS that augurs well between the mobile and notebook/desktop platform, and that’s something that Microsoft doesn’t seem to deliver with the bloated Windows Vista and the improved Windows 7 (but still not as lean as Windows XP). (more…)