The long-awaited Google Inc. Android-powered handset by HTC Corp. for T-Mobile USA Inc. – dubbed the G1 – debuted today and its pre-launch reception appeared positive.
Timed for release on Oct. 22 at $180 with a two-year voice and data contract, the touchscreen-and-QWERTY device may bring T-Mobile USA the sought-after combination of customer retention and attraction all carriers crave, raise HTC’s brand awareness and begin the process of wooing mobile subscribers worldwide to use an integrated suite of Google’s mobile services.
Three potential drivers to the G1’s uptake:
1, The price slightly undercuts the iPhone’s less-expensive model – which has reset pricing for smartphones.
2, The touchscreen lends itself to browsing, now a crucial function of high-end devices.
3, And the QWERTY – not available on the iPhone – may attract an increasingly text-crazy subscriber base. According to Nielsen Mobile, between the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the number of text messages sent by American subscribers exceeded the number of voice calls made.
Observers will now watch closely to see how the Linux-based, Android operating system – given away, license free – will spread, versus Nokia Corp.’s intent to do the same with the Symbian OS. Another open Linux-based effort, led by the LiMo Foundation, has released as many as two dozen handsets from various vendors to less media acclaim.
Upgrade market changing
In that sense, the G1 is more about software-and-services than hardware. But analysts at Global Crown Capital L.L.C. said the effect would be positive for HTC.
“The upgrade handset market has been shifting rapidly to favor models equipped with advanced display technology since the summer of 2007,” wrote Global Crown Capital analyst Tero Kuittinen. “HTC is rolling out several new models that redefine mobile-phone display quality between June 2008 and October 2008, and we believe this is a juncture where HTC emerges as an important new brand, globally.”
In an echo of Apple Inc.’s aggressive international rollout, Google said the G1 will be available in the United Kingdom in November and across Europe in the first quarter of 2009. T-Mobile USA is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, which runs or has an interest in many European carriers. The device runs quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSDPA (1700/2100 MHz).
Discussions between other U.S. carriers, handset vendors and Google’s Android team are already well underway, according to Avi Greengart, analyst at Current Analysis.
But more on the G1 as a device, and its design and functionality.
The gritty details
The handset present at the G1’s unveiling today in New York carried T-Mobile USA’s logo across the bevel at the touchscreen’s top end, according to Greengart, who attended the event. The HTC logo appears on the side of the device. The “G1,” of course, is named for Google, which has its logo on the back of the device.
The device is candybar style, with five buttons on the raised base for navigation. Those buttons are for (from left to right) send, home, trackball, back and end. A rectangular button above the home button is for menu. The device slides open horizontally to reveal a QWERTY keypad that somewhat obstructs right-thumb use due to the raised button area, Greengart said.
The device is plastic with few embellishments and fits well in the hand, Greengart said. But whether HTC has raised its colors, materials and finish game enough to please consumers wowed by other, more elegant devices such as HTC’s Touch Diamond or the iPhone remains to be seen. Greengart noted, in an instant comparison with the iPhone, that the G1 is a bit narrower and thicker, the latter clearly to accommodate the QWERTY keypad.
Battery and memory also stand as two significant areas of comparison with the iPhone. The parties behind the G1 placed minimal memory onboard and touted instead the addition of removable memory. (The iPhone comes with 8 GB or 16 GB of onboard memory.) But while the iPhone battery is not removable, the G1’s is.
Greengart said the touchscreen was “very responsive;” he had been critical of early incarnations of HTC’s patented TouchFLO technology.
“My take is that the G1 won’t fall flat, especially in the U.S. at T-Mobile, because it is the only touchscreen-oriented device at that carrier that can take advantage of T-Mobile’s expanding 3G coverage,” Greengart said. “This device can go head-to-head with other major devices launching this fall, including those from RIM and Apple.”
(T-Mobile said that its 3G coverage by Oct. 22 would include 20 major metropolitan areas, as well as regions such as New England northern New Jersey.)
“This gives T-Mobile a way to immediately begin monetizing its growing 3G network, and it’s no coincidence that T-Mobile will have significantly expanded its 3G network by mid-October, when the G1 launches,” the analyst said.
“I’m just saying that the key value proposition for the subscriber is mobile Web browsing and that is the primary functionality of the G1,” Greengart added.
Teardown houses may have a field day when the G1 hits the market, to determine which component makers had design wins in the device, but Qualcomm Inc. spoke up right after the G1’s presentation to say that it had delivered a dual-core baseband chipset and software that, the company said, was “instrumental” in delivering high-speed processing and multimedia capabilities with 3D graphics, as well mobile broadband connectivity.
