The Down-Lo On The New Google Phone

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T-Mobile's new Android (Google's open source mobile software) phone is having it's official coming out party today, although it won't be available for purchase until late August.

It's called the MyTouch and reviewers are pretty much unanimous that it's a vast improvement over the G1.

The MyTouch will sell for that magic price point of $199 with a two year contract. It is twice as fast with twice the memory.

The big bragging points also include:

1. It's smaller than the iPhone, thanks in large part to doing away with the keyboard.
2. It has lots o' customization features (more than the iPhone), with a variety of skins, wallpaper choices, and tailored tabbing, etc.
3. It comes in three colors: black, white and oooh, la, la.. merlot!
4. Sherpa! Sherpa is a built-in app that is programmed to intuitively pick up on all your preferences and then guide you to other things it thinks you'll like. For example, if you lean towards barbeque joints and you are visiting Central Texas; guess what? Don't be surprised if a link to The County Line pops up on your phone. Sherpa knows your culinary preferences and location through its GPS feature; the rest is elementary dear Watson.

It's June 21st and our summer of the smartphone is officially in play.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio