gPhone photos, specs leaked

A website that styles itself as “the unofficial T-Mobile blog” has leaked what it says are the first photos and product specs for the first “gPhone”, due be unveiled in the US tomorrow.

Dubbed the “G1”, advance publicity has the cellphone appearing with three badges: Google’s (for it runs its Android OS), HTC’s (for the Taiwanese contract-manufacturing specialist will make it) and that of carrier T-Mobile.

TMO News pictures a handset with a large (480 x 320) landscape touchscreen that slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. True to HTC’s rep, it’s boxy (at 117x55x16mm) and a weighty 159g (making it one of the heaviest phones around) but feature packed.

As TMO has it, the 3G handset features one-click access to Google services like Maps (including “satellite, traffic and street views”) – supported by a GPS receiver – Gmail, YouTube, Calendar and Talk.
The screen supports 65,000 colours. Rated talk time is five hours; standby time 130 hours. Memory is expandable up to 8GB.

On the negative side, according to TMO’s source, there is no stereo Bluetooth, no support for “corporate email” and no video camera. There is a still camera, rated at 3.1mP.

Apparently T-Mobile will offer the gPhone with or without a data plan, but with no prepay option.