T-MOBILE OFFICIALLY ANNOUCES THE G1!

Finally! After months of waiting, rumors and info leaks, T-Mobile and HTC have officially announced the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to run on the Google Android OS. The T-Mobile G1 features a 3 inch touch screen display, a full QWERTY keyboard, compass and a track ball for navigation. Since it runs on Google's OS, the G1 is deeply integrated with Google services like Google Maps Street View, Gmail, and YouTube. It also offers other advanced features such as a full HTML browser, HTML email client, 3G support, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and a 3 megapixel camera.

The first Android based phone will hit the stores on October 22nd and will be offered at $179 with a two-year agreement. T-Mobile customers residing in areas with 3G coverage may purchase the G1 at a retail location. Customers who are located in 2G areas have the option of purchasing the phone online after testing the device at a retail location. The data plan for the G1 with 400 messages and unlimited web access is offered at $25. The unlimited messaging and unlimited web access plan for the G1 is offered at $35 per month.

Many mobile phone experts already consider the T-Mobile G1 as a worthy competitor to the iPhone. In many ways, the T-Mobile G1 is similar to the iPhone. It's a touch screen device with a powerful new operating system like Apple's hit mobile device. T-Mobile's Android phone also allows users to download 3rd party apps. However, the T-Mobile G1 also has a lot of differences with the iPhone the most obvious of these are the full QWERTY keyboard and the track ball. It also offers features which are absent from the iPhone such as the copy and paste functionality and a MMS program that sends photos to other phones without using Email.

The initial reviews on the T-Mobile G1 Android phone also unveiled some of the device's weaknesses. For instance, the G1 offers much less internal memory than the iPhone with only a 1 gigabyte memory card included with purchase . The G1 also does not have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so users have to use a custom headphones or an adapter. Some experts also point out that it is not compatible with Microsoft Exchange and Activesync so users can't sync the device to with a PC-based calendar or contacts program. The lack of UMA for T-Mobile's Hotspot@home service was also noted by early reviewers.