• The phone was given to Google employees at an all-hands meeting on Friday, December 10th. The story broke when a number of Googlers tweeted about the phone.
  • Google posted on its blog that it was experimenting with “eating its own dogfood” on the Android front by giving employees “around the globe” a device to test. There have been zero –zero — official statements about Google selling the device to retailers or directly to consumers. There is a Wall Street Journal article which claims that this is the strategy Google is headed in, but the post contains a number of poorly sourced and suspect facts. Other reports say “what if” and “could.” That doesn’t make it so. As of right now, the only way to get this phone is to work for Google.
  • The phone itself appears to be the HTC Dragon / Passion (with at least the specs of the Bravo, which looks to be a variant of the other models). All are Snapdragon-based phones with a 3.7-inch AMOLED displays, 5 megapixel cameras, and no physical keyboards.
  • There have been rumors (or fact, as stated in the aforementioned WSJ report) that this phone runs a “real” or different version of Android. Based on the pictures we’ve seen, this is inaccurate. It appears to run a version of Android that looks nearly identical to the version currently found on the Droid (2.0.1) — Google’s latest, most official device. The version number we’ve heard is Android 2.1, which would not be a drastic departure from 2.0.

(most text above comes from Engadget)

A few other related items:

  • Google gave an unlocked HTC G1 to employees this time last year, without much fanfare. It was sold locked through the T-mobile channel afterwards.
  • Andy Rubin stated in October that Google will only enable licensees to make phones and that they would not compete with them. It seems he has been asked about a “Google Phone” for years and is tired of repeating the answer. Some suggest that Google “changed its mind” since October. The lead time for a phone like Nexus is at least 12 months so it’s unlikely that they shifted strategy in the past 2 months.
  • Sources indicate T-Mobile will sell this device with the normal subsidy. If they do there is channel conflict with the same phone in a parallel retail channel with some other subsidy (without subsidy, the phone would be DOA) This would also contradict claims that the phone is compatible with AT&T 3G.

I recall that many people wanted Google to launch its own phone since way before Android was announced. In fact, the rumors in early 2007 sounded exactly like the current rumors: the “Google phone” is coming.