Slashdot Mirror
Google's Nexus One Phone Launches
The press conference at the Googleplex is over and Google's Nexus One phone has launched (official Google blog announcement). The NY Times confirms the bare details: manufactured by HTC; $529 unlocked, $179 with 2-year T-Mobile contract; coming to Verizon in the US, and Vodaphone in Europe, in "Spring 2010." The Times notes one desirable feature: "[Google] has also voice-enabled all text boxes in the device, so a user can speak into the device to, for instance, compose an e-mail, rather than type the text of the email." Walt Mossberg points out one limitation: "On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps. On the $199 iPhone, nearly all of the 16 gigabytes of memory can be used for apps." No answers yet to the obvious questions: can it tether on T-Mobile? Will it allow VoIP?
It seems like this is just another HTC (?) made device... Beside the tts capacity, does anyone know what really sets this thing apart from the Droid\G1\etc??? This may finally be the spark I need to leave ATT, so what makes this thing so great??
I know that Verizon and T-Mobile phones use SIM cards, so theoretically you could unlock those phones and switch networks, but why won't there be a Sprint version?
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but it seems either A) shortsighted of Google to ignore the largest cellular network, or B) stupid of Sprint to pass up such a kickass phone...
Google might be trying to pass this off as "just a showcase", but their other "partners", including Motorola, gave Google a lot of information that is now being used against them.
And yes, I told you so!
Mod me as troll if you want, but its not surprising that Mossberg rushes to defend an Apple product in the face of a new competitor. He also neglects to point out in his comparison that the 16 GB of storage on the iPhone is typically filled with music, leaving much less than that for applications.
I'm pretty underwhelmed by the announcement.
I have an iPhone, I live in NYC, and my network is terrible. That's exactly the kind of problem markets are supposed to solve, right? I should ditch AT&T and go with a competitor.
The problem is that my phone cost $300, the Apple Care costs $70 (and you need it because the battery is sealed into the phone, and won't last 2 years), and there's a $175 early termination fee. So walking away is pretty expensive.
This Google phone will have essentially the same deal. You'll still be tied to a carrier, and it will be expensive to walk away. Maybe Verizon or T-Mobile will be a lot better than AT&T. Or maybe when many millions of people buy these data hungry phones in a short period of time, their networks will sink just like AT&T's has.
We need to commoditize wireless bandwidth. We want a universe in which we buy our phones directly, we own them, and we can choose which networks to plug them into. And if a network is bad, we have to be free to walk.
These walled gardens are always going to give us crummy throughput, unreliable service, and restrictions on the apps we can run. Just swapping one corporation (T-Mobile) for another (AT&T) isn't going to fix anything. Maybe they'll be marginally better. But without a real market operating, and the ability for us to move around in response to the quality of service we receive, we'll never get a good wireless network.
Your expectations for cost are unrealistic, although it would help a lot if the US would ban bundling of plans with phones. The real cost of phones is now routinely subsidised by cellphone plans, preventing real competition on either cost.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
That will, likely, change though, going forward, don't you think? And when (if) it does change, it shouldn't instantly outclass a field of pretty usable devices. Don't get me wrong, I mean, I actually hope Android developers continue to write minuscule, beautiful code, that sips space and resources, into perpetuity; really I do...But I wouldn't wager on it.
Oh, and it's worth pointing out (as AT&T insists in their commercials against Verizon) that 2G should be good enough for anybody, and the Nexus One will work on AT&T's 2G network that they think is so awesome.
I hate to say this, but between my iPhone and my WinMo, I think I like my WinMo phone the best.
Don't get me wrong, it sucks. The UI is terrible. And it crashes. A lot.
However:
- Want to thether for free even though your carrier wants you to pay extra? There's a WinMo app for that.
- Want to thether for free via your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot so that everyone in your carpool can access the interenet at once? There's a WinMo app for that, too.
- Hell, I can even run two programs at once and mount my phone as a disk drive and fill it up with whatever I damn well please.
Seems like pretty basic/essential functionality to me.
according to the nexus one specs, the UMTS Band (2100/AWS/900) will not support ATT network 3G but does work on T-Mobiles 3G network. T-Mobile 3G and voice coverage is one of worst in US.
as far as i know, no smartphone covers both AT&T and T-Mo's 3g network. no existing android phone does, and the iphone doesn't. blackberry sells two different hardware versions of it's phone models, one to cover each band.
it's not some insidious plan, it's the economics of supporting two different 3g networks.
Banning bundling would be harsh for users who "can't afford" to pay full price up front, and would rather spread the real cost of the phone across the length of the contract. This scheme greatly increases sales in markets where consumers are focused on short-term benefits (at the cost of long-term payment/debt).
Making an unbundled option mandatory would be a better goal. Good luck getting either option legislated, though.
They don't need to ban subsidizing. Just mark the subsidized portion on the Bill and if I bring my own hardware then don't charge me the subsidy. I think the average person might even start to think more of buying unlocked phones if they saw how much of their bill was a subsidy. But in reality there's nothing wrong with subsidizing phones, as long as you give me a discount for not taking your subsidized phone.
Its not like you get a reduced monthly price if you bring your own phone.
you do on t-mobile, albeit not as large as you might expect.
the whole subsidized phone paradigm has more to do with limiting competition among carriers. as it stands, carriers compete on the new cool phones they have this week. once they get you on the shiny new phone, you are stuck with them and they don't have to compete on the things that really matter like service, customer service, lack of restrictions, etc. much cheaper for them. the best example of this is the iphone. just look at all the people paying their $80+ per month bill for terrible service because they just have to own an iphone.
whether consciously or not, google is potentially breaking this scheme by offering a desirable higher-end smartphone, unlocked. personally, after being bound to AT&T's crappy service for almost 2 years now i will never buy a subsidized phone again.
You're totally right, but here's what I foresee happening:
Disruptive cell phone company builds a phone that has all that hardware to support consumer choice.
A few people buy it, and maybe 1/10 of those people actually move from provider to provider. Once those folks have moved a couple of times, they run out of choices unless they move to a new region.
Within the product's two-year life cycle, a brazillian new features come into existence.
Purchasers of the disruptive phone decide to go with a less hardware-laden model which costs $100.00 less.
The CB App. What's your 20?
But wait, aren't there also some phones out there that cost under $100 unlocked? Licensing is surely a part of it, but there must be more to this story, like having little competition so far, and charging what the market can bear. I would agree with GP logic and guess that $300 could be a realistic price for a device like iPhone or Nexus One, possibly with a few tradeoffs.
Maybe someone like Samsung will bring it to us - they have an $165 (unlocked) Corby touchphone with a proprietary OS, and some $450-500 Android phones. They might build something in between.
Well, in this country, we have a bunch of besotted couch-potatoes whose idea of fixing this problem is to Wait For the Free Market Fairy to Come Solve It For Them.
Meanwhile the Free Market Fairy is alive and well and giving oral service in the Verizon executive washroom. One of the funniest parts of being alive in 2010 is listening to people talk about free markets who wouldn't know one if they were clapped in stocks and sold at auction in one.
The FCC could solve all of this with a few modest policy changes. Transparent billing, disclosure rules, contract practices. All that would help the economy and would be universally popular except among a tiny group of startlingly well-paid bribery facilitators ("lobbyists"). Regulating this industry is not rocket science; you could imitate virtually any other country's approach to cell phones and do better. Too bad I don't hear much of anything coming out of this FCC besides occasional bold statements. I expect better from Democrats, especially since their brand could use the popularity more than the bribes right now. Cest la vie.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Google is an international company based in California, HTC is an international company based in Taiwan. The Nexus One is intended to be sold internationally.
I can use the N1 on any Telco here in Australia as well as in Singapore, Malaysia and most of Europe because it uses the 2100 MHz frequency. The problem is that US telco's don't want to have a common frequency and why should HTC go to the extra expense of adding additional or more expensive transmitters to cater for a tiny percentage of the global market. If the US had a single common frequency then the N1 would most likely support it. This is not Google limiting your choice, this is the US telco's limiting your choice. Google and HTC made their decisions based on the global market, not the US market which means they chose to support the GSM 2100 and 900 MHz frequencies.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you care about opensource, then you should be getting a Nokia N900, not Google's half proprietary system.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.