Google Announces Jan. 5 Android Event

This just in: Google will host an Android press gathering at its global HQ on Jan. 5 (click on image below to enlarge). Presumably, the event will have something to do with the company’s Nexus One, an Android phone that Google plans to sell on its own Web site and perhaps through T-Mobile as well.

Google’s (GOOG) choice of date here is an interesting one. By scheduling the event just before the official start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 7 (and hours before the first CES press briefings begin), the company would seem to be taking a page from the Steve Jobs’s playbook–sucking some air out of the annual event.

Remember, Apple (AAPL) upstaged CES in a very big way back in 2007 when it announced the iPhone. It appears that Google is attempting something similar here. Question is, does the Nexus One have the same sort of…gadget gravitas to pull focus from CES?