After the iPhone, came the gPhone.

Ok. It’s the Google phone. A phone that can be spoken in the same breath as the Jesus Phone(yeah, the iPhone). Atleast, that’s the perspective. So what makes this a deal game changer?

Lets a closer look.

It has a 3.7 inch OMLED Capacitive Display. This brighter, more vibrant screen that consumes about 30% lesser power than a similar standard LCD Screen. Not something we have not seen before.

Snapdragon Processor - First on an Android device, running at 1Ghz.

Decent Camera - the standard 5MP, with a flash.

OS - Anroid 2.1: barely any substantial improvements over the previous iterations. This would anyway make its way into future devices, so that doesn't cut it.

Now, what is it that is so different about the Nexus One (N1) that makes it so "media friendly" ?

The Google Brand ? Perhaps…

The super-fast processor? Maybe.. But we have seen that before.

Android 2.1 ? Not really, there are no major improvements over the Droid's 2.0.1 (saving Voice Commands).

What is interesting is that this marks Google's entry into Retail.

Yeah, Google now is officially a online retailer - this means you can start buying "Google" gadgets from their online store. Andy Rubin claims that this is one of the many phones that you would be able to buy from the" Google Mobile Store" - where Google would collaborate with multiple Mobile Manufacturer's and Service providers - and provide the customer a single front to choose his device AND his service provider thereby essentially ushering a new business model for Cellphone sales in the United States.

In places like India, the customer walks into "Mobile Stores" buys a phone and pops in SIM. Google is merely taking this to the web - an eStore, if you may.

Essentially, my point is that the innovation that Google has announced is not the really the phone, but the nexus that Google would create in its new market place - a Global market place. The Nexus One is just the first phone to be sold from there - if it were HTC branded, it would probably not get the hype that Google can generate. After all, the HTC Passion was always in the HTC roadmap, no one was so obsessed by it until it took its new name - GooglePhone.