Monday marks 5th anniversary of T-Mobile G1 unveiling; Android, you've come a long way

On this date five years ago, we told you about the unveiling of the first Android smartphone. The T-Mobile G1, built by HTC, was introduced to the world on September 23rd, 2008. While T-Mobile allowed a limited number of pre-orders for the phone, the actual launch came on October 22nd. You might recall that the device failed to include an on-screen QWERTY and a video player out of the box, although both were eventually added via software updates. By April 2009, 1 million units had been sold.

The last words of our story back in 2008 were "Let the revolution begin." And while the G1 was the beginning of an amazing run that has made Android the most popular smartphone OS on the globe, it really wasn't until the Motorola DROID was released late in 2009 that Android took off. Powered with Android 2.0, the DROID became a challenger to the Apple iPhone 3GS and put Android on the map.

Five years after the T-Mobile G1 was announced with a 3.2 inch screen with 320 x 480 resolution, we now are used to glass larger than 5 inches with 1080 x 1920 resolution. The single-core 528MHz Qualcomm processor has been replaced with quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors and if you have the right model, 3GB of RAM just might be onboard your new Android phone. That compares to the 192MB of RAM that G1 users had to deal with. The 3.2MP snapper on back has become a 13MP or even a 20.7MP camera. And the 1100mAh cell found on the G1 pales in comparison to today's 3500mAh powerhouse found on the Motorola DROID MAXX.

It is hard to imagine that only 5 years have gone by since the T-Mobile G1 was introduced. What will see with Android smartphones in 2018?