The extended Nexus family: Google's golden Android standard

Google's Nexus line has long stood as the company's ideal vision of its widely adopted, open-source Android operating system. The devices, be they smartphones, tablets or even one-off media streamers, are built in conjunction with select hardware partners and represent an ideal marriage of tech specs with an unadulterated version of Android. It's Google's way of dealing with fragmentation (read: skinned versions) in the mobile OS market it created; a reference mark for manufacturers to aspire to, so to speak.

On the tail of the original Android handset's sixth anniversary and in the run-up to whatever new Nexuses come next, we take a look back at the hardware path that's been Google's gold standard for Android.

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The OG(1)

In 2008, Google launched its inaugural Android device, the T-Mobile G1. Built by HTC (and known as the Dream outside of the US), this handset was capable of 3G speeds and hoped to capture people's hearts with one-click search, widgets, rich web experiences and its open-source nature.

After just six months on the market, the company announced that 1 million handsets had been sold, landing it a spot in the top five selling phones in the US. The Android revolution had begun, but it would still be a couple of years until Google branched off to produce the Nexus line.