G1 News

According to the market researchers iSuppli, the costs of components for the T-Mobile G1 weighs in at a bargain basement $143.89 (approximately £92 and a penny in old money).

Broken down, the processors and inside gubbins cost about £18, whilst the 3.2″ touchscreen is £13 or so, and then the 3 megapixel camera is the next most expensive part, costing £8-ish.

The cheapest bits are also the most important, with the radio frequency transmitter that allows for super-fast web access and making calls costing a mere £6.

So, in nuts-and-bolts terms, the phone is a little cheaper than others with the iPhone 3G costing approximately £110, and the BlackBerry Bold £108.

Android is (sort of) free, and HTC mustn’t have cost too much to get building the G1, but it seems like T-Mobile has spent a lot more than £91 worth of time and energy to make this handset a success.

Omio has just posted up a really interesting interview about the G1 with the head of T-Mobile’s Corporate Affairs in the UK, Robin O’Kelly. With their permission, I have copied it here!

Well, the dust has settled on the T-Mobile G1’s launch and with a Saatchi-designed marketing drive, things are well underway. Omio had the opportunity to talk to Robin O’Kelly, Head of Corporate Affairs for T-Mobile. We discuss the handset at length, as well as T-Mobile’s plans for the future.

OMIO: I suppose we should start at the beginning. How did the partnership between the three companies involved in the G1 (HTC, T-Mobile and Google) come about?

O’Kelly: T-Mobile has been part of the Android Open Handset Alliance since its inception. We share Google’s view with regards to mobile internet, in that we want to provide freedom to the customer and we were the first to break the “walled garden” when using mobile internet with web ‘n’ walk back in 2005.

Other networks preferred to control what customers saw and where they clicked as soon as they entered the web, pushing their own services and products. We came at it from the other direction, we thought: ‘if we make the user experience comparable to the one they are familiar with on a PC, they will readily come back and use it more frequently.’ Which they did.

Now you see this as standard practice from the other networks, but it began with T-Mobile.

The G1 is a natural extension of that concept of fast, open and easy mobile internet usage, as is Android.

OMIO: And how was it working with HTC?

They are an excellent manufacturer, and one that has come so far in the last three years or so. They used to make high-end, technically very proficient Windows Mobile driven handsets, including the MDA III for T-Mobile. Now they are entering the mass market place, designing handsets for themselves and others. They are very happy to work alongside many manufacturers, but we think the chance to work with an entirely new operating system was the allure for them with the G1.

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