Google Nexus Rumored To Cost $530 Or $180 w/Plan

wkurzius writes "The new Google phone, the Nexus One, is rumored to cost $530 unlocked and will work on any GSM network. A subsidized version is also available for $180 and will get you a T-Mobile Even More Individual 500 Plan for 2-years with a $350 termination fee. Access to the phone is supposed to be invite only at first, with January 5th being the supposed release date."

Comments

Invite only?

[MBGMorden]

Seriously? Since when the hell is the ability to buy a phone "invite only"? I swear the social aspect of phone ownership is getting ridiculous.

Re:Invite only?

[CyberLord Seven]

Consider yourself fortunate that you are not on the invite list. Remember the dorks who bought the iPhone when it first came out? Remember those same dorks just a few months later when Apple dropped the price? :)

I suspect this invite only thing is just to drum up interest in the phone. Soon, everyone and his brother will be able to buy one just like Gmail.

Re:Invite only?

[xch13fx]

umm, the razr was a status symbol, as soon as the price dropped and att stopped having exclusivity people began to hate theirs. Blackberrys, and treos then became the phones to have. The iphone is now the phone people want to be seen talking on and I imagine those who like that aspect best are getting tired of seeing other people with iphones. I guess your right that the mere fact that you had a cell in the 90s was a big deal, but now the type of phone you have is indeed a status symbol.

Re:Invite only?

[MBGMorden]

You clearly haven't been hanging out with the same people I have. It seems that every person between 14 and 30 is caught up in phones - what theirs can do, what yours can't, and new/shiny. Hell from what I've seen in the last 3 years or so teenage and early 20's girls get as geeky over their phones as geeks do over their computers.

A friend of my sisters was out with us a while back - overall a pretty superficial girl. Not bright about most things, and works in one of those trendy shops where they sell bath oils and the like. Somebody said something about their phone and my God she took off. Whipping out her phone showing what it could do - and not just "OMG it can do interwebs!" talk. Discussing various input methods, which phones did what better and how, connectivity, the works. It would be what you would expect if some clueless noob said something in passing about the GPL around a Linux geek - just about phones. She has been the most extreme of this I found, but certainly not the only one. The nation as a whole (well, the younger crowd anyways) is in love with the smartphone right now.

Re:Invite only?

[thePsychologist]

The _buying_ of the phone is not invite only. That's just the special event to unveil it. It's in the article.

A little more competition is a good thing

[DJRumpy]

I can only hope this brings down the cost of these phones. The prices are already greater than the cost of netbooks and bargain laptops/desktops. I realize that miniaturization is a factor, but we really need more strong competitors in this area. I would much prefer a non-subsidized phone except the price is a little daunting all in one lump sum.

Re:A little more competition is a good thing

[DJRumpy]

I think these smart phones have gone far beyond being an 'It' phone. This isn't some hot item that one quickly loses interest in within a few weeks. I bought my first smart phone (an iPhone) a few years ago. I still use it heavily. Having the internet in your pocket is a huge convenience for all sorts of circumstances. The apps are just icing. I use mine 5 times a week at the gym, I look up prices, I check release dates for movies, music, and media, all while I'm out and about. These have real purpose far beyond just being an accessory to one's clothes.

They are essentially a mini-pc in your pocket, and I hardly need to extol the benefits of a PC to this crowd ;)

No thanks

[TubeSteak]

Those wanting to buy the handset subsidized will pay $180 and have to sign up for a two year contract. There appears to be only one plan available for these customers, and that is the T-Mobile Even More Individual 500 Plan, which gives you 500 minutes, free weekend and in-network calls and unlimited SMS, MMS and data. That bring the total cost over two years to $2,100.

The unsubsidized price + a data plan is vastly cheaper

Subsidy lock?

[alecto]

If someone buys the phone with the subsidy then subsequently leaves T-mo and pays the ETF, will T-mo unlock the phone? Also, is the ETF prorated? In any case, it seems that the combination of a cheap phone for voice and a netbook/laptop + WiFi or if ubiquitous access is necessary a data stick are a better deal for the money.

whining about prices

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Like all the other smartphones in recent memory, they cost a fortune if you're an early adopter. If you don't want to get mugged then just wait a couple of months for the hoopla to die down. Your old phone won't stop working in the interim if you don't have the latest whizbang handset the day after its release.

Re:This is just FUD

[signingis]

"just plain old FUD."

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

GSM + Google

[ground.zero.612]

Sweet! A decrypted protocol with an OS by a company that doesn't care about your privacy... Where do I sign up???

Re:So

[b0bby]

Actually, it seems T-mobile is doing just that now - "Even More" is their standard subsidized phones + 2 year contract deal, "Even More Plus" is the same plans but no "free" phones or contracts & $10/month less. Maybe the other carriers will follow if T-mobile starts getting people to switch because of this.

OTOH, if you want T-mobile & a Google phone, it makes more sense to pay the extra $10/month to get the subsidized phone, because the amount of subsidy (($530-$180)/24) is almost $15/month.

Re:prices?

[Seor Jojoba]

The funny thing is that T-Mobile offers a pretty decent plan with 3G data for $50/month which would be my first choice. But if you buy the subsidized phone, you get the spendy $80/month plan which doesn't really have good value to warrant the extra cost, IMO. Difference seems to be just more minutes and unlimited SMSs. So I could see buying the unsubsidized phone, and just getting the cheaper T-Mobile data plan separately.

Also, T-Mobile is one of the major carriers that refused to turn over customer information to US officials without a warrant. And they got KZJ, who is much sexier than the "Can You Hear Me Now" guy.

Nokia N900

[kurt555gs]

You can buy an N900 for $569.00. As long as you are going to drop that kind of change, why would you limit yourself to an Android fone?

Re:CDMA?

[caladine]

Like another poster says in reply to this, there's a lot you've gotten wrong here. You seem to have your technologies confused.

• AMPS (the original analog cell) is first gen.
• Next came GSM, a 2G technology
• CDMA rolled around first in the IS-95 standard, also 2G.
• GSM folks upgraded with GPRS (and later EDGE) making 2.5G networks
• CDMA2000 is a family of 3-3.5G technologies (1x, 1xEVDO/revA/revB)
• GSM people realized that CDMA > TDMA when they got together to make WCDMA (also called UMTS). From a simple view, UMTS is CDMA, but using a 5 MHz frequency band, rather than the ~1.25 MHz band that CMDA uses. There's more to it, of course.
• 3.5G networks use UMTS + HSPA/HSPA+. Not that there are really many networks that use anything more than the 3.6Mbps HSPA. (which, incidentally isn't much faster than EVDOrA @ 3.1 Mbps)
• 4G is LTE and WiMax (sort of).

The only reason that smartphones make more sense at the moment on GSM/UMTS networks has nothing to do with the technology involved, but the economics. There are a lot more people on GSM/UMTS networks than CDMA, mostly due to the fact that CDMA was a late comer to the cell phone game. My guess is that the CDMA follow-on will come later in the year.

Re:No keyboard = do not want

[natehoy]

Dial? What is this dial of which you speak?

Oh, you mean "dial" as in "push buttons". How quaint.

I use a bluetooth headset, and just press the button and read off the numbers I want to call (assuming it's for someone not in my phone book).

I get three benefits out of this:

1. Everyone around me sees what an Important Person I am, and thinks, "wow, someone that technologically forward and yet tastelessly rude must be important." Many of the females obviously think "and I must mate with him immediately!" but sadly I live in a prudish area, so they just look at me with longing, pass into a slight faint where their eyes roll back in their head, then glare because they are angry they can't have sex with me right away.

2. I get to announce to everyone in earshot what number I am trying to call. I just know everyone wants to know that. It's important.

3. When the phone misunderstands the number I meant to dial, complete strangers have the pleasure of speaking to me, albeit briefly. Most of them understand the value of my time and, once they realize it's me, they remind me that I have important things to do and end the call.