A major topic that has been shaking up the Blogosphere this weekend was the the new "Google Phone" codenamed "Nexus One". Apparently, this phone was given out to Google employees during a company meeting, and the story broke when Google employees started to tweet about it (here is the tweet that started it all).

As you may already know, the GetConnected crew is a big fan of Google and the things they do (well, most of them anyways), and this is definitely a Google product to be excited about.

Descriptions of the Nexus One's impressive specs are pretty consistent among the many sources that have emerged - it is described to have a large OLED display and a thinner body than an iPhone. It also features the Snapdragon processor that packs 1GHz of processing power. To put that into perspective, many Netbooks currently use an Intel Atom 1.6Ghz processor, so you'll pretty much be able to wield 60% of the processing speed of a small computer in the palm of your hands. Most devices right now don't even exceed 528MHz.

Other phones have been called Google phones simply due to the fact that they run the Google Android OS, however the Nexus One in this aspect is totally different. According to the New York Times, one Google employee noted that "the new phone, which is being made by HTC, a major Taiwanese cellphone maker, was designed from the ground up by Google,” including everything from software to hardware components.

If you look closely at the image at the beginning of this article, you'd notice that it is not HTC branded at all. In fact, this device is rumored to be marketed and sold directly by Google themselves for a price of around $500USD unlocked, as opposed to selling via a wireless partner. Sources have noted release dates as early as early January, 2010.

Historically though, adoption rates of non-subsidized devices were never really high due to their expensive price tags, so we'll just have to wait and see whether or not this device will become the game changer that everyone is making it out to be.

I, for one, is really excited about this device and can't wait to get my hands on one. I just hope we wouldn't have to wait 7 months before it becomes available in Canada like the first "Google Phone"!

You can see more leaked pictures of the Nexus One here.