If there's one high tech thing on my holiday wish list, it's this: new Google phone. Immune to iPhone and impartial to Google's ingenious ability to simplify, I am even more impartial to the modest price: $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile.

The new gadget features a touch screen, slide-out keyboard and a trackball. Powered by Google's Android operating system, it's choc full of Google goodies: Search, Gmail, Maps, Talk, YouTube, you name it, and it's there.

All contacts or emails are all automatically backed up, and real-time syncing keeps all contacts, emails, and calendar events always available and up–to-date.

Now, a bit of techie lingo: The new smartphone, 4.6 inches by 0.6 inches and weighing 5.6 ounces, has a 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen but also sports a QWERTY keyboard, unlike the iPhone. It featurs a 3.2 megapixel camera and a microSD card slot. In addition to T-Mobile's 3G network, the G1 has built-in support for the telecom's Edge network, as well as WiFi and GPS.

Makes sense? In plain English, it makes phone calls, sends emails, keeps me connected, plays music and videos, shoots photos and has a real keypad unlike that slippery thing on iPhone. And it's more traveller-friendly, too. Unlike the iPhone, the Google phone lets me switch SIM cards, thus avoiding paying huge premium on overseas calls from Europe on my DH's iPhone.

All in all, the new Google phone seems to me to be more user-friendly than old-fashioned Blackberry but it's much more sophisticated and technologically advanced, and with a sweet price tag, it's a real treat.

 

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