The Google Phone Is Very Real. And It’s Coming Soon, claims Michael Arrington in TechCrunch:
The next “super” Android device will almost certainly be a HTC phone that’s much thinner than even the Droid or iPhone – The Dragon/Passion. This is the phone the senior Android guys at Google are now carrying around and testing, at least as of a couple of weeks ago. If you’re willing to give up the Droid’s keyboard, the Dragon/Passion is going to be a really cool phone. It should be fully available very soon.
But it isn’t the Google Phone. Everything up until now has just been a warm up to the Google Phone.
There are a few things we have absolutely confirmed: Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google’s pure vision of what a phone should be.
PC World has 5 Reasons Why Google Should Not Sell Handsets. Engadget’s theory is that AT&T is responding to the probable impending loss of its iPhone exclusivity.
My theory is that Sprint/Comcast needs a mobile phone with WiMAX. To date, the only commercially available WiMAX mobile phone has been an HTC device sold by Yota in Russia. That device uses an earlier generation of Sequans SQN 1130 chip.
Sequans says that they have a couple of customers developing smart phones with their new generation of WiMAX chips. The Sequans SQN1220 and SQN1210 WiMax chips consume less than 350 mW of power with fully loaded MIMO traffic and less than 0.5 mW in standby. Samsung makes the Mondi MID for CLEAR, but it has no voice.
Wimax.com thinks that mobile WiMAX enabled phones will use either GSM or CDMA for voice, rather than VoIP over WiMAX, due to problems with mobile VoIP, including QOS guarantees, session continuity and handover/ inter-working with cellular voice and the PSTN. Google has invested some $500 million in the Clear partnership with Sprint, Intel and Comcast.
Maravedis and Reveal Wireless believe that WiMAX mass-market adoption requires ubiquitous coverage and sub-US$10 chipsets that are power and performance optimized.
