Google Cranks Up the Smartphone War -- and the Confusion

At Google (GOOG) headquarters on Tuesday, the company finally officially announced its Nexus One, a smartphone designed to go toe-to-toe with Apple's (AAPL) iPhone. Google's own engineering team supposedly designed this phone with assistance from Taiwanese handset maker HTC. Google employees posting on Twitter have given the Nexus One rave reviews (naturally). But many tech pundits have also waxed poetic about how it could be the best smartphone yet that runs on Google's Android operating system.