Some of the most important bits of info we extracted (assuming the tipster is accurate, and it seems like he is). Oh, and take a look at our hands on with the device in case you haven't familiarized yourself with it yet.

• Yeah, it's $530 unsubsidized. Google's not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They're not going to save us from the "making money off of hardware" culture we've got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one
• If you want it subsidized, you'll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract and pay $180 for the phone
• There's only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total
• Existing customers cannot keep their plan if they want a subsidized phone; they have to change to the one plan, and this only applies to accounts with one single line
• If that doesn't fly with you, you have to buy the $530 unlocked version—this actually might save you money over two years if you already have a cheap plan
• Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscribers must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530
• You can only buy five Nexus One phones per Google account
• There is language in the agreement of shipping outside the US
• Google will sell it at google.com/phone, which explains what they were doing with that page a few weeks ago
• Google will still call it the Nexus One apparently, and not the Google Phone

And here is a big one:
• If you cancel your plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price, so $350 in this case. Or you can return the phone to Google. You also authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

One weirdness in the Terms of Sale that we quickly glanced through was that Google made sure you acknowledged that the manufacturer is HTC, and not Google.

While our connect's internal T-Mobile photo is rather small, we've broken down the text for you:

Google, with support from T-Mobile, is scheduled to launch a new Android device in early January. The Google Android phone will be sold directly by Google via the Web.

Support for the device including troubleshooting and exchanges will be managed by Google and HTC. T-Mobile will offer service support including billing, coverage, features, and rate plans. Additional details Streamline content regarding the launch of Google's Android phone will be coming in early January.

So… Google is simply selling the phone directly for now, as rumored, and T-Mobile will "officially" support it, even though they practically do the same for any unlocked handset on their network. Google and HTC will be fielding support calls from users, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Unless this is only the Android Development 3 phone. But it's not just that. And T-Mobile could possibly subsidize it in or around March. Ok, bye.

BGR features the latest tech news, mobile-related content and of course, exclusive scoops.

My source was very firm about no photography, and I didn't want to jeopardize anything on my source's end, so there are no photos, hence these photos are ones we've already shown you. But, based on all the leaked shots this week, plus the very pretty and very clear one last week from Boy Genius, everyone knows what the phone looks like already. Hell, there's even a complete UI walkthrough today that's on YouTube. So I'm going to focus on the experience, and how it compares to the Droid and the iPhone 3GS.

How it feels

The Nexus One is slightly thinner than the iPhone 3GS, and slightly lighter. No hard specs were thrown around, unfortunately, since Google didn't even let people who they gave the phone to know that. The back is definitely not cheap and plasticky, like the iPhone's backing, and feels like some sort of rubbery material. So, not smooth like the iPhone, but not as rubbery as the Droid. It's halfway in-between.

You can call the design the antithesis of the Droid: smooth, curved, and light, instead of hard, square and pointy. It feels long and silky and natural in your hand—even more so than the iPhone 3GS. There are also three gold contacts on the bottom designed for future docking (possibly charging?) use, but there aren't any accessories available for the phone now. It plugs in via microUSB at the moment.

That screen is damn good

Even though the screen is the same size and same resolution as the Droid, it's noticeably better. The colors are much more vibrant and the blacks are blacker, as evidenced by putting both side by side and hitting up various websites and loading various games. The pinks on Perez Hilton and the blues on Gizmodo just popped a lot more on the N1, and made the Droid (which was actually considered to have a great screen) seem washed out. The same feeling carries over when you compare the Nexus with the iPhone 3GS. And it's pretty damn bright, compared to the other two phones.

This is probably the best screen we've seen on a smartphone so far. Probably.

Why is it so fast?

Google just gave Motorola (and Verizon) a swift shot to the TSTS, because the Nexus One is astonishingly faster than the Droid. The speed dominance was most evident when we compared the loading of webpages, but even when you're just scrolling around, launching apps and moving about the OS, you could tell that there's a beefier brain inside the N1. I don't know the specs for sure, but there's talk of a 1GHz processor being inside, which would push it quite a ways above the 550MHz Arm A8 in Motorola's newest toy.

When comparing the three phones in loading a webpage over Wi-Fi, the Nexus One loaded first, the iPhone 3GS came in a few seconds later, and the Droid came in a little while after that. This was constant throughout many webpage loads, so it's indicative of something going on inside with the hardware.

I ran all three through a Javascript benchmark engine for some quantifiable numbers, and while the results were similar between the Nexus One and the iPhone 3GS, the Droid still came up at about 60% of the other two. Surprisingly enough, Mobile Safari on the iPhone scored better on the Javscript benches than the Nexus did, even though the Nexus was able to pull down and render actual web pages faster. Note that I didn't list actual numbers here, for privacy reasons.

That crazy video background

You've no doubt heard about the animated video backgrounds, but they're actually more than just animations: you can interact with them.

The default background is the square/8-bit like one shown above, where lines of colored squares come in from different sides of the screen. What's neat (even if it is superfluous and battery draining) is that you can tap anywhere on the desktop in a blank space and trigger dots to spread out from your tap. Basically, press anywhere to cause blocks to fly outwards. The same thing happens in the "water" background, except instead of blocks, you cause ripples in the water.

What's also neat are the two virtual sound meters, which act as a visualizer for whatever music you're currently playing on your phone. There's one analog one that looks like one of the old ones with a red needle, and a "digital" one that looks similar to ones you see elsewhere. Sorta neat in itself, but it shows that the interactive backgrounds can actually interact with apps, as long as one knows the other's APIs.

Other bits

The 5-megapixel camera is nice, and the flash works well enough for a flash on a phone, but it's not spectacular, as seen by early photos taken and uploaded online by Googlers. There is autofocus, and you activate it with the trackball on the face of the phone. There is no tap-to-focus as see on the iPhone 3GS.

There's no multitouch in the browser or in the map, but I think at this point that's more of a legal consideration than a technical one, since many phones that run Android have the capability of supporting multitouch on a hardware level.

Playing back music over the speakers sounded decent, but not great. It's definitely in need of a dock—like all smartphones—if you want to listen to music for a sustained period.

I didn't get a chance to call on it, because I wanted to keep this as anonymous as possible, and didn't want any sort of way to trace when I used the phone. From what other people say in their time with it, it functions fine as a phone, and should work as normally as other Android phones in the SMS/MMS department.

So what's this all mean?

If Google's planning on releasing this phone as their official Google phone, it'll certify them as the premium Android phone brand out there right now. Even though it doesn't have a hardware keyboard, it basically beats the hell out of the Droid in every single task that we threw at it. And face it, some people didn't like the Droid's keyboard because it was too flush and the keys were too unseparated with each other. N1's onscreen keyboard felt fine, and the speedy processor made sure that each key was interpreted well.

But in the end, it's still an Android phone. If you want Android phones, this is the one to get, provided Google goes ahead with the rumored plans of either selling it themselves or partnering with T-Mobile in a more traditional role. Droid, shmoid; Nexus is the one you're looking for.

Image courtesy anonymous tipster

Let's get this straight right away: We didn't test dropped voice calls, we didn't test customer service, and we didn't test map coverage by wandering around in the boonies. We tested the ability of the networks to deliver 3G data in and around cities, including both concrete canyons and picket-fenced 'burbs. And while every 3G network gave us troubles on occasion, AT&T's wasn't measurably more or less reliable than Verizon's.

It was measurably faster, however, download-wise, in 6 of the 12 markets where we tested, and held a significantly higher national average than the other carriers. Only Verizon came close, winning 4 of the 12 markets. For downloads, AT&T and Verizon came in first or second in nine markets, and in whatever location we tested, both AT&T and Verizon 3G were consistently present. If you're wondering about upload speeds, AT&T swept the contest, winning 12 for 12.

The Cities

Last year, we did an 8-city coast-to-coast test, and called Sprint the big winner. This year, we have results from 11 cities coast-to-coast, and even got to test (during what was otherwise vacation time) on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Also, unlike last year, we were able to test T-Mobile's new 3G network, active in all the markets we visited (except, at the time, Maui). For being such a latecomer, T-Mo did well, and the numbers show even more promise from them.

We tried to spread the love around this year, geographically, hitting cities we didn't get to last year (at the cost of losing a few from '08). Besides Maui, we hit Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco/Bay Area and Tampa.

The Methodology

Our testing regimen was based on the same scheme as last year: We picked five locations in each city, including at least one "downtown" location that was considered a suburb. The selections were arbitrary, or fixed but logical—landmarks, residences, etc. (Note: Due to timing constraints, Chicago and Maui only had three test locations.)

Our hardware consisted of two identical stripped-down Acer Timeline laptops running Windows Vista, and four 3G wireless modems requested from the carriers. We allowed them to make the choice of hardware, simply asking for their "best performing" model. Once up and running, here are the tests we ran:

• Bandwidth & Latency: Speedtest.net - Reports upload and download bandwidth in megabits per second, as well as ping latency in milliseconds. We performed this test five times at each location on each modem.

• Pageload: Hubble images at Wikimedia - A 4.42MB web page with 200 4KB thumbnails, it was fully reloaded three times, and timed using the Firefox plug-in YSlow. The three time readings were averaged.

• Download: Wikimedia's Abell 2667 galaxy cluster photo - This single 7.48MB JPEG is a clear test of how fast you can download stuff from the cloud, and again, we hard refreshed this file three times, and measured time using YSlow for an accurate human-error-free reading.

This was a test of 3G performance. Even though Sprint and its tech partner Clearwire have intrepidly released 4G networks in half of the tested markets—Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Maui, Portland and Seattle—we only tested Sprint's 3G network. The reason should be obvious: While we performed the test with laptop cards on PCs, it's supposed to serve as a test of the network's ability to deliver service to all devices, including smartphones, dumbphones and laptops. Show us a Palm Pre WiMax edition—better yet, sell 100,000 of them—and then we'll switch it up. And while you may argue that this 3G test still doesn't adequately reflect your experience with your iPhone, at least it's the same network, and may serve to rule out AT&T's data pipe as the independent cause for all those infamous dropped calls.

(On a side note, when multiple carriers release 4G networks, we'll definitely conduct a comparative test of them all, using new parameters, and focused around laptop use.)

The Results

Now that you know how we ran the test, here are the top finishers in each market, plus some pretty bar graphs showing you how bandwidth compares.

Though we tested for uploads and downloads, we focused our additional tests on the downstream, as it's the more important direction, in the minds of most consumers and most carriers. The anomaly there is AT&T, which has dramatically good upload bandwidth, even when its download bandwidth doesn't keep up. Fast uploads are a priority for AT&T, and will soon be for T-Mobile, which recently turned on faster uploading in NYC, which you can see in our test results. Meanwhile, although Verizon technically came in second in uploads as well as downloads, it doesn't seem to treat this as a major priority.

When it came to downloads, though, the competition was markedly stiffer:

Atlanta - AT&T, followed by Verizon
Bay Area/San Francisco - AT&T, followed by Verizon
Chicago - AT&T, followed by Verizon then Sprint
Denver - AT&T, followed by Verizon
Las Vegas - Verizon, followed by AT&T
Los Angeles - AT&T, followed by Sprint
Maui - Verizon, followed by AT&T
New York - AT&T, followed by T-Mobile
Phoenix - Verizon, followed by T-Mobile
Portland - T-Mobile, followed by Verizon
Seattle - Verizon, followed by T-Mobile
Tampa - Sprint, followed by AT&T

Is That The End?

No. We've compiled the following gallery with all the data from each test location in the 12 markets, so you can see on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level who won what. This also includes latency, pageload and download numbers, so you can track the performance in several ways. (The data above is bandwidth, though as you'll see, that was generally representative of the overall performance. If a carrier was tops in bandwidth, it was usually tops in download time.) These tests are all just "snapshots in time," as the carriers like to say, so feel free to bitch about where your experience doesn't reflect our results. We stand by them, but acknowledge that network performance is changing all the time, and experiences very regular hiccups.

Regarding latency, you'll notice it didn't appear to affect actual user experience—3G isn't really up for Modern Warfare 2, if that's what you're thinking—we will gladly show you latency averages, as well as pageload and file download averages, broken out for every market on the test.

Special thanks to all of the excellent testers we enlisted, Mark Wilson, Chris Mascari, John Herrman, Kyle VanHemert, Dan Nosowitz, Matt Buchanan and Rosa Golijan from our own team, along with Tamara Chadima and the indefatigable Dennis Tarwood. You guys were troopers, and I'm pretty sure FedEx either loves you or hates you. Thanks to John Mahoney for helping develop the initial tests that we've continually refined, to Chris Jacob for mapping all the locations, and to Don Nguyen for the mad number crunching—you truly are a spreadsheet pimp.

Note: Some of you may have noticed that San Diego is among the cities highlighted on the top illustration—and that Maui is not. The reason is that while we did testing in three great San Diego locations, one of the locations didn't get any Sprint or T-Mobile service, and the already fairly thin dataset was rendered too compromised for any kind of usable report. As for Maui's absence, Maui's just too far out in the Pacific to make for a pretty map shot.

Android's most serious problem right now is fragmentation: with each new phone, it seems, comes a different version of the OS. In theory, these differences are superficial, and come down to handset manufacturers' and carriers' custom interfaces, which sit atop a mostly unchanged Android core. In practice, it's much worse.

Just look at the current top tier of Android devices. The Motorola Droid runs Android 2.0. The HTC MyTouch 3G and G1 on T-Mobile run Android 1.6. The HTC Hero, a newer phone than the MyTouch and the G1, is still stuck on 1.5, along with the even newer Motorola Cliq, which shares one parent—Motorola—with the 2.0-loaded Droid. Why is this something to worry about? Remember Google Maps Navigation, the free turn-by-turn app for Android? It only works on Android 2.0 and 1.6. An app written by Google doesn't even work on every new Google phone. Imagine how things are with third party apps. (Spoiler: it's a shitshow.)

Google's been fairly diligent about updating the free, open-source heart of Android moving forward at a steady pace, and supplying handset manufacturers with the tools they need to keep their handsets running the latest software. That said, Google still deserves some of the blame here. That their software updates include new, exclusive functionality is fine on its own. And yeah, their eagerness to allow for Android to be skinned and deeply customized by handset manufacturers is fine on its own—in fact, it's implicit in the project's open source ethos. But mixed together, these ambitions create a gurgling software slurry of incompatibility, user experience inconsistency and general frustration. (See: Samsung Behold II) So what happened?

The problem is in the model. Android updates seed out through carriers, over the air or with special installers. This is because the updates are their responsibility: once handset manufacturers (and carriers, through handset manufacturers) have built their own version of Android, they've effectively taken it out of the development stream. Updating it is their responsibility, which they have to choose to uphold. Or not! Who cares? The phones are already sold. And there's very little to motivate a carrier or handset manufacturer to update their Android phones, because the consequences tend to fall on Google: If Android fragments, the App Market doesn't work. The public sours. Android starts to suck. This is where the Nexus One comes in.

Sold without a carrier, software updates for the Nexus One will be in Google's hands. They will be able to keep it up to date as Android develops, without having to depend on some other company—or companies—not to drop the ball. Users won't have to bother learning Google's esoteric dessert-themed version codenames, and life will be better. This approach to software updates already has a case study: the iPhone. There's a good reason Apple didn't entrust AT&T with keeping the iPhone up to date, and that they didn't want the company that actually manufacturers the phone—Foxconn—to have any responsibility for its software. Smartphone software is finicky and complicated, and so is the experience of using it. It needs to be tightly controlled to remain consistent, and because apps are the most important part of a smartphone platform nowadays, consistency is life or death.

Without totally changing what the Android project is, Google can't put an absolute stop to fragmentation. What they can do is provide an example of how an Android phone should be done. With the Nexus One, Google probably isn't getting into the business of making hardware; they're just trying, in their passive, Googly way, to regain control of a project that's spiraling toward chaos.

Update: Some input from someone who works in a major carrier's device development group:

There is TONS of incentive for carriers to update their
software. Take a look at Verizon hosting the only Android 2.0 device.
Are you going to tell me that Sprint and T-Mobile wouldn't love to
have their Android devices on 2.0 yesterday?

The truth is, there's very little incentive for the Handset maker to
provide an update. All those phones are already sold and in the
carrier's inventory. Any investment in updating those models will
bring them no additional cash flow. However focusing on their next
model will.

He's partly right: carriers have a motivation to keep their software up to date, in that they are the ones who have to deal most with customers. Handset manufacturers are the one's with the least motivation, since their sale has already been made. But in branding a handset with their name, effectively selling it as their product, and assuming responsibility for seeding updates, a carrier becomes responsible for making sure their customers have up-to-date software, and exerting pressure on handset manufacturers if they don't hold up their end. —Thanks, David!

If you want them all on one page, click here.

If we've missed anything or you've got a superior alternative, let us know in the comments, since you vastly outnumber us. By 'us' I mean me.

Yes, in 19 of the 26 cities surveyed, AT&T was ranked dead last in every category. Verizon was ranked the best, followed by T-Mobile, then Sprint and then, of course, bringing up the rear is our friend AT&T. You can compare their results to the results of our own nationwide 3G test here.

You've got to wonder if Apple can afford to stick this exclusivity contract out another year, what with decent competitors such as the Droid and the Pre now available. AT&T is as big a black mark on Apple's customer service reputation as they've ever had. And hell, for AT&T's sake it'd be nice to see some other carriers share the burden of iPhone data hogs. [9 to 5 Mac]

If you hate the gallery format, click here.

All pricing shown is with a new 2-year contract, and some deals may be temporary.

AT&T

iPhone 3GS
The iPhone 3GS is the best overall smartphone you can buy. It's really that simple. Best user interface, best internet, best apps, best media support—the list goes on. Okay, not the best network, but nothing's perfect. $199

BlackBerry Bold 9700
I miss the original BlackBerry Bold's king-sized keyboard, but the Bold 9700 squeezes the best of the BlackBerry for CEOs into an impressively tight form factor—faux leather back included—making it very possibly the best BlackBerry you can buy. $10

Bonus: Nokia e71x
It's free, and an actually good smartphone—my favorite Nokia phone on the planet. Free

Verizon

Droid
It's a terminator. A huge, disgustingly high-res screen, Batman-worthy industrial design, and the full power of Android 2.0 make it the best phone on Verizon—and the fact that it's running on arguably the best network in the US make it the second best smartphone you can buy, period. $150

BlackBerry Tour
Sure, it's notorious for trackball problems and it's missing Wi-Fi, but this is the BlackBerry of choice for email warriors if they're not on AT&T or T-Mobile—and it sure as hell beats anything running Windows Mobile. $50

Bonus: Droid Eris
If you're desperate to save $100 over the Droid, the Droid Eris will run Android 2.0 soon enough, and is smoother, smaller, and friendlier, if a little blander. $100

Sprint

Palm Pre
The Pre offers one of the best user experiences of any smartphone with Palm's webOS, and it's probably the best phone on Sprint, hardware build issues and comparatively dinky App Catalog aside. $80

HTC Hero
The best Android phone not running Android 2.0, HTC's Sense UI makes the sometimes confusing Android interface more digestible and has a few nifty tricks of its own, like integrated social networking. $100

Bonus: There is none. The Pixi's close ($25), but the fact that you can get the Pre for nearly as cheap undercuts a lot of the value, as much as we like the design and form factor.

T-Mobile

Motorola Cliq
Motorola's other Android phone is gussied up with Blur, a custom interface that's bright and friendly, with widgets for keeping track of everything happening on your social network. It's our favorite Android phone on T-Mobile. $100

Unlocked iPhone
No, I'm not kidding. A jailbroken and unlocked iPhone, even without 3G powers, is the second best smartphone you can use on T-Mobile.

Bonus: BlackBerry Bold 9700
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is the first BlackBerry with 3G on T-Mobile, which is reason enough, really, but it's good the reasons listed above, too. $130

There are two main problems: We like bills to be consistent, and we're risk-averse consumers.

To the first point, Sprint tried to offer a plan in 2004 where 300 minutes cost $35, and $2.50 for each additional 50 minutes. Seems great to me, no outrageous overage charges. But customers didn't like it because their bills would vary so much from month-to-month, so Sprint switched back to age-old tiered minutes plans.

Because we like consistent billing, the carriers institute ridiculous overage charges to convince us to spend up. That way we don't have to worry about any unforeseen costs, even if the fixed price plan ends up costing more than a variable pricing structure would.

The article also goes into how stupid expensive text message rates are subsidizing falling voice revenues, how wireless carriers would love to stop subsidizing phones, and more.

I know the average Gizmodo reader would like nothing more than to pay as little per minute as possible, but the average consumer thinks differently.

What's interesting is that this wholesale mentality does work, at least in terms of raw pricing. One minute of talk time costs 5 cents, and the average text message costs 1 cent. According to the article, that's the lowest average pricing in the developed world. The minutes do come at a bulk discount, it's just a matter of whether or not you use all of them.

I'll leave it to you commenters to discuss, but it's a good read into how wireless pricing in America got so complicated. [New York Times]

Succinctly, it's the new BlackBerry to buy if you're on T-Mobile or AT&T. Doubly so on T-Mo, since it's their first 3G BlackBerry.

It's not very much like the original Bold at all, which was the Escalade of BlackBerrys: big, obnoxious, but seriously comfortable to drive because it gave you tons of room to spread your legs (err, thumbs). If you're used to that, at first the 9700—which is even smaller and lighter than the Tour on Sprint and Verizon—feels like you've been shoved inside of a clown car because the keyboard and screen, while retaining the same shape and resolution, respectively, have been shrink-rayed. (Update: Actually, the resolution's been bumped up 40 pixels, to 480x360, from 480x320.)

But, then you realize you're not typing any slower, or less precisely. The 9700's keyboard isn't as flat out comfortable as the original Bold—purely a matter of physics—but it's a minor marvel of ergonomics that RIM has recession-sized the keyboard this effectively. They're simply brilliant at building keyboards. The screen has the same resolution as the Bold's, but in a smaller size, meaning it has a higher pixel density. Despite that extra clarity, I felt a bit constrained by it, especially browsing the web.

It's the second BlackBerry to ditch all-too-easily-slain-by-lint trackball for an optical trackpad, and the first that's not built for Walmart. You'll miss the trackball for about 15 seconds. Like I said before, the trackpad's 90 percent as good as the ball. You might miss the physical feedback, and it sometimes doesn't totally accurately interpret a diagonal swipe that you know wouldn't be a problem with the ball but it's good enough, and by far the most accurate and responsive trackpad I've used on a phone.

It's running BlackBerry OS 5.0 which isn't tons different than the OS that shipped on the original Bold or Curve 8900, but it's definitely springier and it has a few brushstrokes of added polish here and there. One place you notice is the browser—while not as fast as the iPhone 3GS or Android, it has some extra zip to it, and it even sped past the Storm 2 loading pages, despite racing on T-Mobile's 3G network vs. Verizon's.

Note: In the gallery, the T-Mobile one is the Bold 9700, the AT&T phone is the original Bold.

Basically, barring any major bugs that pop up over the next couple of days, this is the BlackBerry you probably wanna bug your corporate overlords to handcuff to your pants if you're on AT&T or T-Mobile, since it'll slide into them easier than any BlackBerry yet. I just hope you enjoy the feel of faux leather. [BlackBerry]

Android and Me is suggesting that T-Mobile customers try checking their data speed using Xtreme Labs Speedtest or Mobile Speed Test. I encourage you to do so and post the results after a few tries along with your region. In the meantime, we're waiting on official word from T-Mobile to confirm this potentially great news. [Android and Me—Thanks, Slacker!]

On Tuesday, some T-Mobile customers may have experienced service disruptions impacting voice and messaging services. We restored full service to all affected customers later in the day. After investigating the cause, we have determined that a backend system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network. T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future. We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced.

Basically, everything should be back to normal, but if you're still experiencing service issues outside of the ordinary, please let us know in the comments.

As Twitter and forums are filled with annoyance over the issue, T-Mobile is assuring us that they are aware of the problem and working on it:

T-Mobile customers may be experiencing service disruptions impacting voice and data. Our rapid response teams have been mobilized to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as more information is available.

We're waiting on further information from T-Mobile and will update as we learn more.

Update 1: Several commenters are reporting that both incoming and outgoing calls are working if routed through Google Voice.

Update 2: Many reports that T-Mobile @Home is out as well.

Update 3: We got a note from a T-Mobile spokesperson:

We're making good progress restoring voice and messaging service to affected customers. At this time, approximately 5 percent of T-Mobile customers are experiencing service disruptions. Issues began at approximately 5:30 p.m. Eastern time. Our rapid response team is working continuously to fully resolve this disruption. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers

Update 4: The latest word from T-Mobile:

We continue to work on restoring full services for the small percentage of affected Customers. Please stay tuned for the latest updates. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers.

Update 5: T-Mobile says the fix is in, but the cause is still a mystery:

T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday. About five percent of our customers across various geographies were affected for much of Tuesday evening, and by late Tuesday PST their service was restored. Our sole focus has been restoring full services for all customers; we are now investigating the root cause of the incident. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers.

Apparently all that it took to terrify many Dutch iPhone users was a "trivial" port scanning technique and "a modicum of networking know-how." After the hacker gained access to the jailbroken phones with unchanged root passwords and SSH enabled, he sent the pictured message which led to a demand for a €5 PayPal payment and words of caution:

If you don't pay, it's fine by me, but remember, the way I got access to your iPhone can be used by thousands of others-they can send text messages from your number (like I did), use it to call or record your calls, and actually whatever they want, even use it for their hacking activities! I can assure you, I have no intention of harming you or whatever, but, some hackers do! It's just my advice to secure your phone.

This particular gentleman was almost kind. He didn't inflict any serious harm, only demanded a small optional payment, and limited his activity to the Netherlands. Whoever learns from his approach might not be as nice. The lesson, my darlings? Change your root passwords or disable SSH if you've got a jailbroken iPhone. I finally did. [Ars Technica]

As you can see on the invite, the HD2 will be getting all official like on Wednesday. No doubt we'll hear something about U.S availability and pricing then. Stay tuned. [T-Mobile UK and PocketNow]

Size: 93 x 50 x 14.1 mm (approx.)
Weight: 95 grams (approx.)
Available colors: Carbon
(Custom light features come in Amber, Sapphire, Beryl, Diamond, and Amethyst.)
Main screen: 2.2"(5) QVGA 262K TFT
Resolution: 240 x 320 pixels
Networks: GSM/ EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 + HSDPA 2100/1700

The new T-Mobile Unlimited plans match Sprint's all-you-can eat $99 deal with its unlimited $99 voice/text/voice plan (as seen in the image, with discounted handsets). Update: The $79 price point comes into play with regular priced handsets, two-year agreements, as seen in T-Mobile's marketing materials:

As a fellow iPhone owner I'm with Jesus on this one. Apple, please drop this exclusivity BS in the US. I completely understand that all cell phone companies are guilty of bending over their customers with overpriced text messages and fees and the like. I really do. I accept that. It's just that I'd love to be bent over for less.

Editor's Note: Pardon the pun, but hold the phone. Fresh from the comments, Gizmodo's own Brian Lam weighs in on whether the "deal" here carries with it some not-so-hidden baggage:

No one is mentioning that you can't compare TMO's 3g network to ATT's. TMO's isn't rolled out very thoroughly and it would get crushed if more people used it.

A fair point. It's also been mentioned that deals like this one exist specifically because T-Mobile doesn't have the iPhone (again, from the comments). T-Mobile users, care to weigh in, one way or another? [Fone Frenzy]