Now, just two months after the launch, the rumor mill is churning around a T-Mobile G2 that may remedy some of the first version's shortcomings. T-Mobile was not immediately available for comment on the timing of a G1 successor.

"There's certainly going to be a G2, G3, G4 ... we'll see continued iterations beyond the G1," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia. "The first iteration of the hardware itself wasn't nearly as stunning as some of the other devices on the market. It was a little clunky, a little brick-like."

The G1's Cool Features

The G1 phone touts touchscreen functionality, a QWERTY keyboard, and a Google-centric mobile-Web experience. The G1 builds on the promise of the Google mobile operating system, which gives users access to the Android Market. There, customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize the HTC-made handset.

The G1 is loaded with Google Search, Google Maps, Google Street View, Gmail, YouTube and other popular Google software that PC users are familiar with. The phone launched with price tags starting at $179 for some existing customers, with a two-year voice and data agreement.

With one-click contextual search, users can search with the touch of a finger. A full HTML Web browser lets users see any Web page the way it was designed to be seen, and then zoom in to expand any section by tapping on the screen. Users who don't want to launch applications and calls with the touchscreen can use a trackball device for one-handed navigation.

What the G1 Is Missing

If you aren't a Google customer -- or if you don't plan on becoming one -- the G1 phone won't be as user friendly as it seems.

For starters, consumers have to have a Google account in order to use the device. If your calendar and contacts are not up in the cloud , there's no simple way to get them onto the device. The lack of desktop synchronization is probably the biggest limitation in the short term, according to Gartenberg.

But that's not the only limitation. Another G1 weakness is the lack of video capability. That puts it at a competitive disadvantage against Apple's iPhone and other multimedia devices. And it could become an Achilles' heel in a market where shipments of 3G video-capable cell phones are expected to have 11.2 percent annual growth, reaching more than 641 million by 2013, according to In-Stat.

A G2 may remedy some of these shortcomings with a new iteration of Android. But releasing a G2 so quickly after a G1 may be a bad public-relations move.

"It would be hard to imagine that we'll see this as soon as January, as some of the rumor sites were reporting," Gartenberg said. "I would say if we saw a refresh in the early spring or summer, that would be as early as they could do it. If you are T-Mobile, the challenge is you don't want to annoy all of your early adopters who bought a device by releasing something brand new that would obsolete theirs within just a few weeks."