It seems the much awaited Google phone is finally coming. Though there’s no official confirmation from Google yet, industry analysts already seem to know a thing or two about the gPhone. Google apparently contracted Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer High Tech Computing (HTC), widely known for its Windows based phones (previously sold under the Qtek brand).

The Google phone will apparently run a Linux operating system and sport a built-in Qwerty keypad for mobile searching. Europeans won’t be pleased to hear that the device will only provide Edge for data access, but a follow-up 3G model would be scheduled. It is safe to assume WiFi will also be included to facilitate access to other Google services such as Google Mail, Maps and of course Google Talk.

This is where it gets interesting, as Google will be able to integrate Google Talk with recently acquired Grand Central. If Google manages to pull this off, it will be the first mass production phone to include VoIP functionality out of the box, given that there’s no such thing on the iPhone. Of course Nokia already offers SIP based VoIP functionality in their phones but it requires advanced - not very well documented - configuration of a service of your choice. But since most phones in the US are sold locked to a certain carrier, it remains to be seen if any carrier will want to help Google steal their minutes.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 10:48 CEST and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.