What Was the First Google Phone? The T-Mobile G1 and Its Successors

The first Google phone was the T-Mobile G1, also sold as the HTC Dream. It was the first phone to run Android, announced on September 23, 2008 and released in the United States on October 22, 2008 for $179 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. HTC built it, not Google. The first phone Google sold under its own name was the Nexus One (January 2010), and the first phone Google made "inside and out" was the Pixel (October 2016).

This page explains which phone counts as the first Google phone depending on what you mean by it, what the T-Mobile G1 offered in 2008, and how the line led from the G1 to the Nexus One and the Pixel.

What was the first Google phone?

The first Google phone is the T-Mobile G1 if you mean the first phone running Google's Android operating system, and that is the answer most people are looking for. The question has three valid answers, though, because Google's role in its phones grew over eight years: first it supplied the software, then it sold the phone, then it designed the hardware itself.

In 2008 the press often called the G1 the "gPhone" or simply the Google phone, because Google services such as Gmail, Google Maps with Street View, YouTube and Google Search were built into it and Google co-announced it with T-Mobile and HTC. Google itself, however, did not put its name on a phone until the Nexus One.

T-Mobile G1: the first Android phone

The T-Mobile G1 was the first commercially available Android phone, a joint launch of T-Mobile, Google and HTC. T-Mobile opened pre-orders on announcement day, and the phone reached US stores on October 22, 2008 at $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement. The United Kingdom followed in November 2008, and Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands in early 2009. In Poland it was sold as the Era G1, and outside T-Mobile markets it carried HTC's own name, the Dream.

It shipped with Android 1.0 and was the first phone with access to Android Market, the app store that later became Google Play. Launch apps included the barcode price checker ShopSavvy, alongside Google's own apps and an Amazon MP3 store.

The phone sold well for a first attempt. In April 2009 T-Mobile said it had sold more than one million G1 units in the US. It received official updates up to Android 1.6 "Donut" in October 2009, which ended its update life after about one year.

T-Mobile G1 specs

The T-Mobile G1 combined a 3.2-inch touchscreen with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a trackball, running on a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor with 192 MB of RAM. These were its main specifications at launch:

What the G1 got right and wrong

The T-Mobile G1 got the platform right and many hardware details wrong. Its strengths were an open source operating system, push Gmail, deep Google Maps integration, an app store from day one and a physical keyboard, which many buyers still preferred to typing on glass in 2008. Those points made it a credible alternative to the first iPhone models rather than an iPhone killer.

The weaknesses were typical of a first-generation device:

• No 3.5 mm headphone jack: headphones needed an adapter for the HTC ExtUSB port.
• No video recording at launch, and Bluetooth limited to mono headsets.
• No Microsoft Exchange support and no desktop sync client, which held back business users.
• SIM-locked to T-Mobile with no prepaid option at launch.
• A thick, heavy body by later standards because of the sliding keyboard.

If you want to try those early Android ideas on a PC today, an Android emulator for Windows 11 runs current Android apps on desktop hardware.

Nexus One: the first phone Google sold itself

The Nexus One was the first phone sold by Google under its own brand. Google announced it on January 5, 2010 in Mountain View and sold it through its own online store at $529 unlocked, or from $179 with T-Mobile USA service. It ran Android 2.1 "Eclair". HTC again designed and manufactured the hardware, and Android lead Andy Rubin said at launch that it would be incorrect to claim Google designed the phone on its own.

The direct-to-consumer web store did not last. In July 2010 Google announced that the next shipment would be the last one sold through its web store. The Nexus name continued for years on phones built by partners such as Samsung, LG, Motorola and Huawei, and those devices served as Google's reference phones for each new Android release.

Pixel: the first phone made by Google inside and out

The Google Pixel was the first phone Google designed itself. Google introduced it on October 4, 2016, calling Pixel "the first phone made by Google inside and out," in 5-inch and 5.5-inch (Pixel XL) sizes. It was also the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. Pre-orders opened in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia, with US prices starting at $649; in the US it was a Verizon exclusive in carrier stores and was also sold unlocked on the Google Store.

So the full answer to "what was Google's first phone" runs like this: the T-Mobile G1 started Android in 2008, the Nexus One made Google a phone seller in 2010, and the Pixel made Google a phone maker in 2016. If you use an Android phone today, our guide to organizing your Android home screen covers the launcher basics that began on the G1.

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