Google set to launch branded smartphones

Google will this week launch the first smartphones that carry its own brand and design, as part of a batch of new devices aimed at competing in markets with Apple and Amazon. The new gadgets, which will include a voice-responsive "smart speaker" modeled on Amazon's Echo, are the first products of a new hardware division set up earlier this year. Google has in the past mainly developed hardware to show off its software and services and to encourage other consumer tech companies to create a mass market for the technology. But like Microsoft, whose Surface has become the leading product in a new category of tablet/laptop hybrids, Google has been drawn deeper into developing its own distinctive products. The new devices are about Google "owning more of the hardware category", said Jan Dawson, senior analyst at Jackdaw Research, though the main impetus will still be "about showing partners the way forward".