It’s getting better every minute. A certain Cory O’Brien, a account manager at a San Francisco Bay Area marketing agency, isn’t listed by Google as a client, but he has the Google Phone (aka Nexus One).

What’s interesting is that the Nexus One is in fact the HTC Passion found in October, and which from everyone’s confusion turned into the HTC Bravo, which is also supposed to come to the States in January. Either way, firing up a “Nexus One” search in Picasa brings you several photos of the phone and those “mobile labs”.

[Via Cory O'Brien's Twitter account, his thoughts]

Either this is a vast Twitter scheme or the dawn of a new era for Android. Over at Google headquarters there has been reports of many employees carrying large-screened handsets, and according to the employees themselves, their Google phones are unlocked.

So far according to these tweets the Google Phone: runs Android 2.1 on HTC hardware (possibly Passion hardware), is coming out in Janurary, and for employees they’re unlocked. And according to one paticularly happy employee “It’s beautiful, and is “a sexy beast”.

A Twitter user, aka “Great White Shark” said this about the Google Phone:

Yeah, it’s a hot, sexy mess. And I mean that in a good way. Similar form-factor to the iPhone, but with a smooth-brushed-metal-looking shell instead of a glossy one And perhaps a smidgen lighter Super fast, speech-to-text in EVERY app, awesome “live wallpapers” in the background that respond to touch in really beautiful ways. Like water ripples that emanate out from a touch.

Sounds good to me. We’ll see what comes out of this, but in the meantime — wait you know the drill:

Stay Tuned!

[Via TechCrunch]

In the recent Q1 2010 roadmap leak, something new has come out of it. The HTC Bravo (one of the Android phones in that leak), is actually the HTC Passion, and will be named the Passion when it comes to the US in January of next year. In Europe it will be called the Bravo, and will come out in April. So we get the Passion early, but not for Christmas, and it doesn’t look liked the Passion that was leaked not too long ago. But in the meantime you can feast your eyes on the Passion, the best looking Android phone since the Droid.

[Via Digitimes and ar.is blog]

It’s bewildering. A huge goldmine of HTC codenames for – let’s see, 20+ different phones? And who knows if they’re only phones? Among them is the familiar Hero, and an unfamiliar HeroC, as well as the Passion/Dragon. Here’s the full list of names: Bahamas, Bravo, DesireC, Dragon, Dream, Espresso, Halo, HeroCT, HeroC, Hero, Huangshan, Incredible, Legend, Liberty, Memphis, Paradise, PassionC, Passion, Sapphire and Supersonic. Pretty neat, huh? Over the coming year or so, we’ll know. By the way, HTC does have a weird way of naming stuff, no?

[BGR via AndroidSpin]

After some intense searching (and leaking), I’ve come across some detailed pics of the HTC Dragon running Android. It’s obvious that it’s running Android 2.0 with Sense UI. The codename is possibly “Zoom 2″, because of the high-res screen, which is 800×480 pixels. But what sucks, is that these pics are too small, and making them larger would distort them.

There is a screen though that gives the official URL for the Dragon, but redirects you back to HTC’s homepage.  So, what all of this means is that the HTC Passion is actually called the Dragon, it’s sporting a very pretty screen, 3G wireless, a 5 megapixel camera, and GPS.

[Thanks! - Anonymous]