G1 is free on £40/month from T-Mobile

25,000 people have registered their interest for the G1 on T-Mobile UK’s site.

I guess that means I won’t be in with much of a chance to win one. But this does point to a lot of interest from the UK mobile community.

It most certainly won’t get the iPhone-style fan-fare — and if T-Mobile’s chaps are sensible, they will heavily test their online ordering systems to cope with demand and avoid screwing up like o2 and Carphone Warehouse did.

If I was T-Mobile UK PR and feeling a little bit spindoctorish, I’d send 2x G1 devices to every T-Mobile UK store and dribble the devices out to market over a few weeks to really annoy the geeks and ‘build demand’.

The one thing the iPhone 3G screw-up did was create an unnatural amount of demand from people ‘wanting one’ and not being able to satisfy the craving.

So, £40 a month and you’re good — the handset is free. At that monthly price, you’ve a choice of Combi 35 (800 minutes and unlimited texts) or Flext 40 (up to 1,250 minutes, 2,500 texts or any combination of the two).

Unlimited data comes thrown in on both price plans.

I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of pre-loaded applications the device comes with — and how the Android Market shapes up.

The critical stats:

* Available in two colours – black and white
* GPS and compass
* Rich HTML email client which seamlessly synchs email with POP3 or IMAP services
* 3.5G (HSDPA/HSUPA) and Wi-Fi connectivity
* 3 Mega pixel camera
* MP3 music player
* Pre-installed 2 GB Micro SD memory card (device supports up to an 8 GB card)
* Bluetooth-enabled
* Up to 130 hours standby and up to 5 hours talk time
* Dimensions: 117.7 x 55.7 x 26.5 mm
* Weight: 158g

Yes… I think I might get one.