How practical it is to use an Android phone, bypassing Google completely? One of the first things that I noticed on my Nexus One as I turned it on the first time, was GMail, Talk, Voice, Maps, Google Calendar and many other Google based services.

I know that even on a Windows or Linux PC it's very hard to avoid using Google... but it is possible, as there are alternatives to every service that Google offers.

On the Android, however, things seem to be very tight. You may recall the time in which Internet Explorer owned over 95% of the market share, simply because it was tightly integrated with Windows. Back then, Netscape was available but even if it performed as fast as Internet Explorer, starting it would take considerably longer.

So, my questions are:

(1) What are the non-Google alternatives to GMail, Talk, Voice, Maps, Google Calendar on the Nexus One?

(2) Do they really perform as fast as the "native" Google apps/services?
Android comes with an Email app that lets you use any POP3, IMAP, or Exchange account.
Talk can be replaced by Meebo, eBuddy Messenger, and many others.
Voice is a fairly unique service but some features can be sort of replaced -- you can use a SIP phone number and an app like Sipdroid for calls, or something like Kik Messenger for text-like instant messages (think BlackBerry Messenger).
Searching "Maps" in the Market shows several results that look promising, same with Calendar.

The Email app is very, very buggy and low on features.  I'm confident there are other mail apps that are better though.  On the other hand, Talk is also pretty buggy; I find eBuddy to be much better.  And many people have problems with Calendar.

When it really comes down to it, a quality app is a quality app, whether Google wrote it or not.  Android doesn't seem to be as biased toward Google's apps as Windows was towards Microsoft's apps.  My hodgepodge of Google and non-Google apps works well for me and I'm sure you can get a set of apps that will work at least as well overall as Google's apps do.