We live in gadget heaven and the good folks at Google have just added to our dreams with the launch of the Nexus One.

Now, okay, arguments are going to continue forever which is the more stylish and ‘sexy’ phone, the Nexus One, or the iPhone, but for many people out there, it will come down to functionality and ease of use.

And as we said in an earlier blog, it’s unlikely that the Nexus One will beat the iPhone on the catwalk, but what’s at stake here is being the chosen portal of the mobile internet world. Control the gateway and Google will add another notch on the technological bedpost.

It will of course eventually reach the phone recycling fraternity, but not before its been hammered by those geeks in the industry known as the first adopters.

And the Nexus One will no doubt turn a few heads, even though it’s come from the more robotic HTC design stable.

So what are it’s key features? In the Google PR blurb, the first feature they mention is ‘dynamic noise suppression from Audience Inc.’ Not top of my hit list, but there’s no accounting for taste. Perhaps a little more relevant is that it boasts a large 3.7 inch OLED touchscreen display (800 x 480 pixels) which, says the boys and girls, allows deep contrast and brilliant colours. Okay then.

Although most won’t care about the next bit, it is important for those worried that their phone has the legs: the beast running the machine is a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset which apparently is faster than a Olympic sprinter on banned substances. Software is Eclair (thought that was a creamed bun with a bit of chocolate on top) and it runs the Android 2.1 operating system. I tell you what, the best job at HTC and Google must be coming up with the product names.

The software is fun packed, which means that you can have fun with voice-enabled keyboard (those with a lisp might have more fun than the others) and a 3D photo gallery. So, it follows the recent trend of the phone turning into a big toy.

Given that modern-day smartphones are for those looking for something exciting to play with, the next stats might be superfluous, but you can talk for ten hours on one charge, on the 2G model, and for seven hours on the 3G model. Standby time is an impressive 290 hours of the 2G and 250 hours on the 3G. And for those habitual surfers, you have five hours of fun on the 3G.

There’s 512MB of flash and 512MB RAM (remember when that was impressive for a desktop)? A 4GB Micro SD Card boosts the capacity, which can climb to 32GB.

It not only has GPS, but AGPS (short for Assisted Global Positioning System). If that doesn’t light your fire, what about a digital compass, or an accelerometer, or a five mega pixels camera? Autofocus works from 6 cm to infinity (wow, infinity, where’s that then?).

As to it’s vital statistics, its slightly anorexic at 11.5mm depth, 59.8mm wide and 119mm high. With battery, it weighs in at 130 grams.
If you want one in Europe, better ask your friendly Vodafone.

But will it be our weapon of choice for mobile browsing? You certainly wouldn’t bet against it?

Vodafone intends to please its customers in the new year by making available the iPhone in the UK.

This will no doubt bring a raft of older iPhones to the attention of the mobile phone recyclers.

The Vodafone iPhone will be available to its customers on contract with those paying a £35 paid plan getting a iPhone 3G free.

There are three models available of course, the iPhone 3G 8GB, iPhone 3GS 16GB and iPhone 3GS 32GB. Each are available in a number of plans within the Vodafone contracts.

The iPhone 3GS, whether you get the middle-weight 16GB, or the heavyweight 32GB, is, says its fans, the most powerful iPhone yet, up to twice as fast as the iPhone 3G.

Amongst its many qualities the iPhone 3GS boasts a high quality three megapixel autofocus camera, a longer battery life, simple to use video recording and hands free voice control, just in case you appear in an episode of The Apprentice and want to abuse your fellow team mates in front of the cameras.

All the iPhones connect to the mother ship via the App Store which, whichever way you look at it, has been a phenomenal success, with over two billion downloads up to now. These Apps of course are there to ease life for the modern human, or just make it a wee bit more complicated; take your pick. But if you need advice, or help, on anything, then go to the bountiful App Store.

Vodafone contract customers wielding an iPhone can expect up to one GB of mobile data and unlimited access to Wi-Fi in the home.

Consumer entry point for a Vodafone 3G 8GB is a 24-month contract costing £30 a month and a phone price of £59. This gives you 300 minutes yapping time, unlimited texting ability and a single gig. Top of the pile is the 18-month contract costing a significant £80, but you can jaw on for 3000 minutes, again send unlimited texts and still get one gig; but on the upside, you do get an iPhone 3GS 32GB phone for free.

The next generation telecommunications network 4G may be around the corner, but that hasn’t stopped Vodafone trialing fast speeds of up to 16Mbp/s via HSPA+. HSPA+ is effectively 3.5G, not quite 4G. If you want to know more about HSPA, see the glossary of terms, but it’s there to improve speeds.

Currently, top speeds are about 7.2 Mbp/s, although its claimed that the HSDPA platform can be ramped up to 14.4Mbp/s with the wind behind it and if it’s going downhill. The HSPA+ super-fast trials were conducted alongside Ericsson, the manufacturer of telecoms infrastructure, and Qualcomm, the maker of mobile chipsets. It’s thought that speeds of up to 21Mbp/s could be reached by early 2009.

So, if speed matters, then you can look forward to HSPA+ maybe final quarter 2009, but bear in mind that you would need a new handset to take full advantage of those kind of performance figures. Ah right, another handset, of course, might have guessed that. Best send the old mobile off for cash then. But, the great advantage for the network operators, that only new software will be required to upgrade the existing network.

Now you can see why HSPA+ is so attractive as a short term measure before they have to start again with 4G networks, which are far more than just software upgrades.  For all you out there that lap up all this new technology, then please note that HSPA+ is part of the 3GPP release, standard seven. Now why you’d want to know that is beyond this writer!