The Google Nexus One isn’t just a phone: stuffed full of Wi-Fi and 3G, it’s a mobile communicator, and with its glorious touchscreen you’ll want to spend as much time surfing the web as making calls. How does web browsing on the latest Android phone stand up? Read on and find out in our in-depth review.

Part of the reason Google got into making mobile software was to make the internet experience that much more integrated on your smartphone (And, of course, to help it make it more money from search). And as you’d expect, the Android browser is nothing short of superb here.

If you’re connected on Wi-Fi or have a healthy 3G signal where you are, the Google Nexus One absolutely flies loading pages. Testing it on the same Wi-Fi network as the wobbly BlackBerry browser, it loads Fonehome.co.uk in an instant while the BlackBerry churns and takes several seconds to render. Pages load without any visible faults compared to on the desktop, but with so many sites offering a mobile view these days, it’s rarely an issue.

The options for viewing work perfectly too: tilting the Google Nexus One over into landscape mode switches the screen view as quickly as an iPhone, and because the AMOLED capacitive touchscreen is so responsive, it never misses a prod on even the tiniest hyperlink.

As the Google Nexus One uses the stock Android browser, there are no major surprises with web surfing, but the high screen resolution means it shows more of a web page at one time than almost any other Android phone (Other than the Motorola Milestone and Acer Liquid).

It’s also worth underlining how good the extra browser features in the Android browser are: you can add a site as a bookmark just by prodding the star icon, and you can have more than one tab open at a time. We still don’t get why Android won’t let you view the multiple tabs as snapshot images of a page rather than just the website name, as you can with an iPhone, but it’s a minor quibble.

What really stands out about web browsing on the Google Nexus One (And Android in general) is how Google treats it not as a mere application, but an essential part of the phone. You’ve got a Google search bar sitting straight in your home screen, which doesn’t just let you tap in URLs, but search for contacts, and general web queries. Rarely do you have to type them out in full either: Google’s impressive autofill guesses your search query most of the time just a few letters in.

There’s no denying that the Google Nexus One offers the best Android web browsing experience yet, if only because of the powerful processor and incredible screen. However, one word of warning before splashing down on one. If you used an iPhone, a HTC HD2 or Android HTC Hero, you’ll know and love multitouch gestures, which let you pinch and slide with two fingers to zoom in and out of web pages and pictures. Unfortunately, though the Google Nexus One is made by HTC, the model currently sold SIM free by Google, and the one we tested, doesn’t have multitouch.

Instead, you can only zoom in and out by tapping the magnifying glass icons – it works fine, but it’s irritating knowing that it’s within HTC’s power simply to flick multitouch on as well. We don’t know whether Vodafone’s version in Europe will come with multitouch (The Milestone did in Europe, but not as the Motorola Droid in the US), but as it stands, if you want multitouch, you’re looking at installing your own hack, and potentially voiding warranty.

Still, even if the icing is missing, the cake tastes delicious: the Google Nexus One is one classy way to get online…

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