I think I may have accidentally unearthed a whole new untapped population online: the Android Army.

Reader feedback about my review of Google’s new cellphone yesterday was unusually voluminous and, in some sectors, vitriolic. Where I had written, “The Nexus One is an excellent app phone, fast and powerful but marred by some glitches,” some readers seemed to read, “You are a pathetic loser, your religion is bogus and your mother wears Army boots.”

A few of their beefs:

* “It’s ridiculous that you dinged the N1 for not having a physical ringer switch. Millions of phones have no ringer switches and they manage just fine.”

* “You are an idiot. You write that only 190 MB is available for holding apps, but I hear that Google is planning to fix that in software next year.”

* “You write that the Nexus One doesn’t have a multi-touch screen, but it does; Google just didn’t enable it. You should be fired for your incompetence.”

(My response: Come on, now. If a feature is disabled, it doesn’t count. Some of you mentioned Dolphin, an an alternative Web browser that does offer multi-touch. But that’s not the same as having a system-wide, reliable, built-in method of zooming and rotating, as other phones do.)

* “You write that the iPhone app store is many times larger than the Android store, and you make a big deal out of the missing features on the Nexus One. Well, guess what, fanboy? The iPhone was missing a lot of features when it came out, and it didn’t have any apps at all.”

How very true! But what sense would it make to compare Google’s new phone with the 2007 iPhone? The point is to guide shoppers who are comparing what’s out there *right now.*

The ferocity of the feedback, in the Comments and in my e-mail box, was surprising. These people were taking the review—which was, after all, largely positive—personally, as though their honor had been impugned.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen that. Where have I seen… oh, yeah, that’s right! It’s like the Apple/Microsoft wars!

See, veteran tech columnists know one thing very well indeed: If you write anything positive about an Apple product or negative about a Microsoft product, you get buried by hate mail and personal attacks. The only worse result is if you say something negative about an Apple product or positive about a Microsoft product, in which case you get exposed to the true ugliness of the human spirit (and sometimes, in fact, physical threats).

But guess what, gang? There’s a new religion in these holy wars. And it’s Google.

This, I think, is a fascinating development. Google gets more press than Microsoft these days. It has its fingers in far more of our pies (e-mail, phone, Web, shopping, books…). It has more access to our personal data.

And yet here is this new army of Google defenders, raising their spears and chanting as though you’ve insulted….Apple.

I’m at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, and I found myself in conversation with editors from tech blogs Gizmodo, Engagdget and Gdgt. To my amazement, all three had noticed exactly the same thing: that the Android Army is amassing, and they don’t mince words.

(Engadget also gave the Nexus One a generally positive review, and received similarly toxic feedback. Sample: “What a joke…They always talk about subjective things like how the device ‘feels,’ etc….lame.”)

We had fun trying to figure out what was going on. Why are these people so angry? It’s just a phone, for heaven’s sake.

Popular theories: Maybe it’s because Google has just become an electronics maker for the first time.

Maybe it’s the Nook Effect: a product’s advance hype becomes so intense that when it finally arrives, and it’s a letdown, people feel betrayed and angry.

The most plausible theory, though, is that Google’s Android phone software is a more open and hackable operating system than the proprietary software on the iPhone, BlackBerry or Palm.

Therefore, Android appeals to precisely the sort of frustrated, anti-establishment people who have no trouble writing abusive notes. It brings them out of the woodwork, gives them a new counterculture champion.

(The irony is, of course, that once upon a time, Apple was perceived as the counterculture underdog. But 200 million iPods later, some people obviously see the former “think different” company as the “you’re all a bunch of consumer sheep” company.)

Anyway, here’s a warning to you all: Be careful what you say about Android phones in public. Because the Android Army is out there, and its footsoldiers won’t tolerate disrespect to their cellphone-operating-system religion.