Google’s Nexus One Device (super-smart phone) has arrived. The question is whether it is worth it or not. Engadget provided a really great review, so I won’t go into a complete review here. Instead, I want to build on Engadget’s review and (Eric Schmidt, are you listening?) provide my own take on what’s going on.

Google is definitely on the right track here, but is falling in to the same trap as Apple. The mission of Google has always been to do no harm, and the idea of launching this new phone as an unlocked, able to go to almost any network, device is very cool. The fact that the offer to existing subscribers of T-Mobile (and potentially other cell phone companies) to purchase the smartphone as an upgrade for their current plan is extremely limiting.

Google has always been about “power to the people”, and Android has been a great gift in that regard. I originally viewed (or at least hoped) that Nexus One would significantly move that mission forward. But perhaps even Google is not powerful enough to move the telecommunications “world” into better alignment with consumers’ rights. I guess I had hoped that Google’s Nexus One would not only be a great phone, which it is, but would also be a harbinger of a new movement to provide for the ethical treatment of customers. [Side note: Perhaps we should start a "People For The Ethical Treatment Of Customers" advocacy group?]

And on that count, I feel like Google is perhaps missing the boat a little in reinventing an industry that sorely needs to be reinvented.

For more information about Google’s Nexus One, go here.