After 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.

Martin Bryant UK Editor, The Next Web
Martin Bryant is based in Manchester, UK. A co-founder of the city's monthly Social Media Cafe events and award-winning blogger, he is Digital Content Editor for Marketing Manchester. His main interests are developments in the social web that relate to the mobile and music industries. Twitter, Personal site