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Google launches Nexus One 'superphone'

Google has begun selling mobile phones directly to consumers, taking on hardware makers like Apple in an effort to dominate the burgeoning mobile internet space.

The company had been testing the Nexus One smartphone with employees through a process it dubbed “dogfooding”, but today it announced the device would be available more broadly through its web store. The Nexus One, based on Google's Android platform, will initially only be available to those in the US, Britain, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Rather than a money spinner, Google hopes the Nexus One will serve as a Trojan Horse for its vast array of web services, cementing the company as a leader in mobile search and applications. The fight for control of the mobile space is seen as so important that even hardware makers - such as Samsung with “Bada” - have developed their own mobile phone software platforms. “The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call 'superphones', with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor making it as powerful as your laptop computer of three to four years ago,” said Andy Rubin, Google's VP of engineering.

Source: The Age