Google Dream Phone Makes Its Debut

The T-Mobile G1 with Google powered by Android was unveiled this morning in New York with a list price of $179 — undercutting Apple’s iPhone — and confirming many of the rumors that had been floating around about the device over the past few week.

But it was a surprise guest appearance by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who skated onto the stage wearing rollerblades, that drew the most enthusiastic response from the crowd and cameras.

“I’m a bit of a geek and I really like tinkering with things,” Brin said, pulling one of the black flip phones out of his pocket (also available in white and brown). The two, perhaps taking a cue from the legendary in-person marketing prowess of Apple’s Steve jobs, hyped one of the most appealing assets of the G1: the completely open source Android platform, which allows third party developers to create applications.

Read more: wired.com