As T-Mobile USA prepares to show off the first version of the so-called, Google Phone next week, it has been reported that the company is aiming to sell the smartphone for US$199 with a contract. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources disclosed the retail price, and said that T-Mobile would launch it with an aggressively priced data tariff.

The touchscreen based smartphone will be supplied by Taiwan's High Tech Computer, or HTC, a company which has traditionally focused on Windows Mobile based handsets. The paper also claimed that Google is helping to reduce the retail cost of the OS by contributing significant resources to the Android OS which underpins the handset.

Although T-Mobile intends to demonstrate the phone next week in New York, the handset isn't expected to be available in stores until next month. There is also a question hanging over the 3G capabilities of the handset as T-Mobile has limited 3G coverage in the conventional spectrum bands, and the handset would need to work in the AWS spectrum band as well.

Google, HTC and T-Mobile USA declined comment on the pricing for the phone, which would match the retail costs of the Apple iPhone.

A Chinese version of the handset is understood to be under development for China Mobile - although the company is said to be having problems getting the OS to work with the Chinese language.

Source: Wall Street Journal