Nexus OneAfter weeks of waiting and anticipation from geeks around the world, Google has finally launched the Nexus One.

While pretty much all the advance rumours were correct, there were a few surprises too. The big news is it’s available to buy today. Read on for full details…

Here’s everything you need to know in one handy list:

The Open Handset Alliance

  • 13 new members have joined Google’s Open Handset Alliance, the team of companies officially supporting Android. This includes China Telecom, a major coup for Google in opening the platform to a vast new potential audience.

The Nexus One hardware

  • The Nexus One is being billed as a ‘Superphone’ showcase for the evolution of Android and advertising will use the tagline “Where web meets phone”.
  • Spec: 3.7-inch 480×800 AMOLED display, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, a multi-colour notification LED in the trackball, light and proximity sensors, a compass, GPS and accelerometer, stereo Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and active noise cancellation. 5MP camera with LED flash. It’s capable of MPEG-4 video capture and there’s a one-click upload to Youtube feature.
  • It’s super-thin and lighter than a Swiss Army knife. There’s an option to get custom engraving on the metal bezel on the bottom of the back of the device.

Android 2.1

  • This latest version of the OS adds an extra two homescreens (taking the total to five)
  • Extra widgets including a news and weather widget
  • New animated and interactive Live Wallpapers that respond to touch.
  • Fancy 3D effects are used on the new wallpapers, the application launcher and the photo gallery. Photos can be synced with Picassa in the background.
  • You can now fill in every single text box in the OS using your voice. That everything from the address book to the browser.

Google Earth for Android

  • Google is soon to launch a version of Google Earth for Android.
  • The app includes voice activated search.
  • It looks like this will be a Nexus One-only app for now.With some serious 3D going on, this isn’t going to work on older, less powerful handsets.

Buying Nexus One

  • As predicted, Nexus One is available now via a Google web store at google.com/phone either SIM free or at a discount with a T-Mobile USA contract (if you’re a US resident). $529 for an unlocked phone, $179 on T-Mobile. In coming months it will be available with Vodafone (for Europe) and Verizon plans too.
  • At present Nexus One is only available to order from the USA, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. Additional countries will be added in the future.
  • In future more phones will be available direct from Google, including some Motorola models. More operators will come on board too.