T-Mobile announces Google-powered G1 handset

24th September 2008

Google and T-Mobile have taken the wraps off the first phone to be powered by the former's Android operating system.

The G1 handset allows users to easily make use of Google search and applications including email, web surfing and office software by interacting with a touch-screen, trackball or pull-out keyboard.

It can connect to the internet with 3G, Wi-Fi and Edge connections and features a browser with full HTML capabilities and a zoom function.

"We hope that Android can provide a meaningful contribution to all players in the mobile ecosystem: the developers, the wireless carriers, the handset manufacturers, etc," said Erick Tseng, lead Android product manager, in a post on the Official Google Blog.

The phone will go on sale in the US next month and in the UK during November.

According to Sandeep Aggarwal of Collins Stewart, the G1 phone is likely to result in about $5 billion (£2.7 billion) of incremental annual mobile ad income for Google, reports the Wall Street Journal.