{Disarmed} The first Android phone was announced 13 years ago today
Android is now officially a teenager. Because the first Android smartphone was announced 13 years ago today. And a lot has happened since then. Manufactured by HTC, which is not doing really well these days, the device paved the way for Android to take off in the mobile world.
The T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream, had specifications that may have been acceptable in 2008, but haven't aged like good wine. The phone was powered by Qualcomm's MSM7201A SoC, with a single ARM11 core that ran at a whopping 528 MHz alongside an Adreno 130 GPU.
It also had 192 MB of RAM and only 256 MB of internal storage (which could be expanded with a microSD card), 3G and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, Wi-Fi support, a mini-USB charging port (not micro-USB ) and no headphone jack. And it also had a QWERTY keyboard! With a thickness of 17.1 mm and a weight of 158 grams, it is a real hunk despite its (by today's standards) tiny 3.2-inch TFT display with 320 x 480 pixels.
The technical data was not the main selling point of the cell phone, but rather the power supply. It was launched with Android 1.0 and was the first time you could get an Android device outside of a tech pattern or emulator. The early Android was primitive and had a lot of flaws and quirks, but it was Android and it gave the world a taste of what was to come.
At that time, Android already had a customizable start screen, widgets and a proper notification bar. Also, unlike iOS (then known as iPhone OS), Android was completely open source - anyone who wanted to bring their own phone with the Android operating system could do so.
The post The first Android phone was announced 13 years ago today first appeared on xiaomist's blog .
Comments
Post a Comment