Jonathan Richards in Barcelona

Google made its name making the web easy to use and its new operating system suggests that it will do just the same for mobile phones.

The new 'Gphone', as the device is somewhat disengenuously being called - Google didn't make it - is a simple, pared back device which puts ease of use above everything else.

It's been made so that, with very few exceptions, you need only three keys to operate it: 'select', 'up/down/left/right' and 'back'. All the rest is intuitive. A picture of the globe is the internet. (Microsoft could count this as a little victory - the icon is nearly identical to Internet Explorer.) A musical note is the music player. An envelope is mail.

Microsoft and Sony Ericsson's smartphone

Sony Ericsson's flagship phone for 2008 will run on Windows, the first time the two companies have partnered in a mobile device

• Microsoft to take on YouTube in online video

• Yahoo! set to revive merger talks with AOL after rejecting hostile takeover

• Microsoft is ready to oust Yahoo! board to achieve swift takeover

Related Links

• Google phone heralds scramble for mobile web

• Unlimited music comes to mobiles

• Vodafone: 'mobile web must improve or perish'

The first thing that you notice is how fast it moves. The clunkiness of even some of the faster phones is gone - a sign of the efficiency of the operating system which Google has helped to design.

On the one we saw, a bunch of icons - text, contacts, internet, maps and so on - are displayed in a bar at the bottom of the main page, which had a photo background. One of the the icons leads to a bigger menu - a bit like the one on the iPhone - where more specialised icons, like one for YouTube, are laid out.

The internet is quick - even over the regular GPRS network, which is significantly slower than 3G. The YouTube application, for instance, is very compelling - not surprisingly, given that Google owns YouTube. A simple version of the site opens, with a prominent search bar. Results from a search display quickly and effectively.

Otherwise all the functions that are now par for the course on a smartphone are there - easy synching with your computer's contacts and calendar, as well as web mail. A neat feature on the camera gives you the option to 'Keep' or 'Toss' the image you've just taken - a nod to the these disposable times. One button takes you to your gallery, another switches to video mode.

The device we saw, which was being demonstrated by ARM, the British chip maker, was a prototype, and is more a taste of what is to come rather than a definitive version. Overall, though, it's fair to say that phones running on Google's operating system will recall the simplicity that people have come to expect from Apple products, like the iPod.

This particular model was almost wholly 'Google-ised' - Gmail was the e-mail, Google maps provided the mapping services, and Google was the default home page in the browser - but there's no reason why an operator couldn't choose differently.

That's the point about Google's operating system, which is called Android: it's wholly customisable. If an operator has done a deal with Yahoo!, for instance, as T-Mobile did yesterday, then they will be able to organise for Yahoo! to be the default search engine when they release the device.

To be clear, this is not 'a Google phone'. Google has only helped design the software, which operators and handset manufacturers will be free to adapt how they like. So far T-Mobile, Motorola and HTC, the Taiwanese are among those who have said they are interested to release phones that run on Android. The first Android devices are expected to go on sale in the second half of the year.

Google, meanwhile, has not ruled out bringing out its own phone. All Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, has said is that were Google to produce its own device, Android would make a good platform for it to run on.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming

Times recommends

• Spore: make yourself a little monster
• Human search engines: Chinese web vigilantes
• Living with Google's double-edged sword