NEW YORK -- T-Mobile has taken the wraps off the much-ballyhooed Android phone with Google and HTC at a splashy media event here, helped by a surprise appearance by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Cole Brodman, CTO and chief innovation officer for T-Mobile, USA, predicted that the G1 phone would change the mobile browsing experience, especially for U.S.-based consumers, who until now, he said, haven't had many compelling experiences with the mobile Internet.

"We're going to change all that," he said. "How? By using open systems, and open standards."

Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms for Google, said open sourcing the Android platform will be key.

"Because the platform is open, we think Android is somewhat future proofed because it has openness built in."

The live announcement is here.

Expect it to be a consumer device first, said Brodman, but they hope to see some update with business users. That would help explain why there is no support for key applications such as Microsoft Exchange. But Rubin said the platform can read Word documents, PDF and Excel files.

"There's a great opportunity for third party developers to bring an Exchange components to the device."

Starting price is $179 when it hits the market. Commercial launch date is Oct. 22nd. It features a pop-up screen to enable users to use a QWERTY keyboard.