Brendan Gates

I’ll admit it. Google could put poop in a box and slap their logo on it, and I’d probably blog about how great it was. So yeah, I’m biased.

But I like cell phones, and I like Google. How could I not be excited about the prospect of a Google Phone? Rumors have been floating around for a few months now that such a beast existed. Then blog chatter ramped up earlier this month when Google supposedly passed out the device internally to employees for testing. Pictures and videos started to leak out. Then today, Google made an announcement… that they were going to make an announcement. A press event has been scheduled for January 5th. That’s the weekend leading into the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which is when most major phones for the year are announced. So is the Google Phone imminent?

Yes it is. Well, a really snazzy Android phone is coming that Google is going to sell. It’s not really any more of a “Google Phone” than Verizon’s Droid, Sprint’s HTC Hero, or T-Mobile’s G1. If you go to google.com/phone you’ll get a phony 404 error page – meaning that the server is finding a page designed to look like a 404 error page, instead of not finding anything at all, and returning a true error. Go to google.com/donkey and you’ll see what a true error message looks like. So what is hiding behind google.com/phone? An order page for the new Googletastic Nexus One phone, I’m hoping.

Brendan, what about that Nokia N900 you’ve been blogging about? Do you not want that anymore?

Good question, blog. I do still have the N900 at the top of my list. Apples to apples, I would go with a N900 over a Nexus One. The problem is, no cell carrier has decided to offer (and subsidize) the N900. That means the only way I can buy one is if I get an unlocked version on Amazon for $550. And that amount of money for a phone is just crazy talk. The Nexus One is also high on my list, but if it is offered by a carrier (Google & T-Mobile) then that means the price will be greatly subsidized. The Nexus One then costs hundreds of dollars less than the N900, and my choice is pretty easy to make.

So mark your calendars for January 5! Google’s Nexus One is coming!

What’s that? I’m the only one marking my calendar? Fine then, be that way. More Nexus Ones for me.