Nexus One RELEASE: Google Phone Goes On Sale

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — It's official: Google Inc. will sell its own mobile phone in an effort to protect its online advertising empire as people increasingly surf the Web on handsets instead of personal computers.

The phone announced Tuesday had been widely anticipated since Google handed out the device, called the Nexus One, to its own employees three weeks ago.

Consumers will be able to buy the Nexus One for $179 if they commit to a two-year service contract with T-Mobile USA. The phone is going on sale Tuesday online.

Google also will offer versions of the Nexus One that will give people the option of selecting the wireless networks of other major carriers. That's a departure from the way most mobile phones have been sold in the U.S.

The price of these so-called "unlocked" phones will be $529.

Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone in Europe will begin offering subsidies on the Nexus One this spring, according to Google executives.

The Nexus One escalates Google's budding rivalry with former Silicon Valley ally, Apple Inc., which has sold more than 30 million iPhones in the past 2 1/2 years. Apple announced a deal Tuesday to buy mobile advertising service Quattro Wireless to counter Google's proposed $750 acquisition of Quattro rival AdMob.

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On the Net:

http://www.google.com/phone

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Comments

[MIKEinNYC]

06:33 PM on 01/06/2010

All cell phone should be able to be used on any cell phone network.

They wouldn't make a car that only ran on one brand of gas would they?

[DRaymond]

12:25 PM on 01/06/2010

Maybe it is just me but I see these smartphones as being a big lump in my pocket with too tiny a keyboard to be efficient at all. I use my phone for talking to people, not texting, which I find quite inefficient on such tiny keyboards.

Here is what I would rather see:

A very slim and small flip phone using bluetooth to communicate to the headset. The same phone then also uses bluetooth to communicate to a laptop, netbook or tablet device of the user's choosing with the display and keyboard size and operating system of their choosing.

Why won't anybody make this? Mostly because they enjoy closed system. Apple sells you the phone, Apple sells you the apps, Apple sells you the tunes. How nice for Apple.

[yogandclimber]

01:24 PM on 01/06/2010

Apple also sells the computer and it's open to PCs. That's what I use. You can also use different phones and use the tunes from Apple on them or go to Microsoft and use Zune. You don't even need to use itunes. It is open and there are competitors but the offerings from other companies are not that great.

The phone you're describing that you want sounds a lot like the razr.

[DRaymond]

02:11 PM on 01/06/2010

Actually a razr clone is the phone that I use. What it doesn't do that I wished it did was to be able to use bluetooth so that I could use the web/email/messaging on a laptop or notebook without having to buy essentailly another phone and another plan. Even as it is the phone blocks many of the even basic things that you would like to do like upload songs from your PC to the phone or download pictures from the phone to the PC. Why? So they can control the charges for buying the music and sending the photos.

Way too much usefull technology is being blocked for the sake of stupid marketing games.

[simjen]

10:23 AM on 01/06/2010

Questions if Nexus One is competitive enough to go head to head with the iPhone kind has been answered and so far, the answer is yes! It's funny coz when you hear what the nexus one developers said, if Nexus One was an iPhone killer they replied instead, "This is our superphone". Now, that's more like it. Droid, iPhone, Palm Pixi VS Nexus One details: http://bit.ly/nexus-one-matchup-droid-iphone-palmpixi-details

[lockDown]

08:27 AM on 01/06/2010

Copycats are calling their devices rivals and killers while actually COPYING the iPhone. Try doing something ORIGINAL.

The iPhone killed the Razr's popularity, eg. Two different devices, the Razr was the it phone, as was the BB. But the iPhone came along, which was NOTHING like the others, and completely stomped them in popularity and now functionality.

If there's any killer or rival in cell phones, it's the iPhone.

[yogandclimber]

03:22 PM on 01/06/2010

agreed. iPhone was the killer. It killed the Razr and other Razr copycats and started something new. This google phone will not kill the iPhone and is an attempted copycat that is still not even better than the iPhone. This should compete with the Droid though because it looks more iPhone-like.

[wilray]

08:21 AM on 01/06/2010

Nexus One comes preloaded with these apps

http://www.google.com/mobile/android/index_.html

[I once had a Crysknife]

08:15 AM on 01/06/2010

I am very exited about this phone. Of course I am biased and I love Linux and all Open source development. I currently have an Iphone and I love it, but AT&T just has horrible service where I live. I also would like to get away from the proprietary nature of Apple and Microsoft.

[jdbond]

08:03 AM on 01/06/2010

lame....ooo..

[maxbianco]

07:54 AM on 01/06/2010

hmmm, lets see....

should i go with the original (IPhone) or do i take a chance on the wanna be imitator????

im gonna stick with what works... the Iphone.

yet another johnny come lately!!

[wilray]

07:53 AM on 01/06/2010

The true beauty of this phone seems to be how easy it interfaces with Google Applications. G-search, Gmail, G-voice, Gmaps, Picasa, You Tub, Gvideo, Chrome, Earth. All free services. The list goes on and on, and Google Labs is always cranking out more. Which will probably be offered for free. Most likely when the firmware updates you have interfaces installed for the new apps. I always like to guess where Google's going. Here is my guess. Someone at Google is working on their own mobile web access. That will work with android devices. Google is all about web service and that would be the next logical step for their mobile services. Google has done it again. This changes everything.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleNexusOne

[yogandclimber]

04:38 PM on 01/06/2010

the iPhone has been doing these things for 3 years. That's when the change happened. Google will not limit their services to the google phone because that would not be very smart to exclude the iPhone.

[wilray]

05:11 PM on 01/06/2010

That's sort of the whole point about Google. Unlike a lot of software companies, they are not about exclusion. Basically, its the whole open source idea. Whatever else Google is a web driven company. It makes a lot of consumer friendly products on the web for free.

Apple's model is very different from Google's model. For example, with Iphone you have one choice of carrier. Don't like AT&T - too bad. But if you do like AT&T that's okay cause Google will probably allow them to have their device also. That's sort of the idea behind sim cards anyway. If my new phone were to stop working; I could plug my sim card into old phone and not miss a beat. Google forces a paradigm shift. The other companies can not ignore it. The point for me personally: if there were no Nexus One, I would still not consider an Iphone. What does it say about Iphone and Google, if the stuff that makes your Iphone cool is a lot of stuff from Google. How many of Iphone 100k apps will you get as opposed to using everything that comes for free from Google.

[Simon Fine]

07:36 AM on 01/06/2010

Interesting. Any idea of unlocked price in Europe?

[sadmonkey2]

07:36 AM on 01/06/2010

I'll just wait for a china-made phone. Hopefully, they would come up with something I would actually need. But for the meantime, I'm happy with my 2-year-old brick for a phone. I have an iFONG. lol

[Nanaama]

08:06 AM on 01/06/2010

I am converted. I'll be waiting too.

[Liam Ward]

07:20 AM on 01/06/2010

Any idea when this will be available in Europe?

[Thaigold]

06:52 AM on 01/06/2010

$600 phones. What about homeless children?

[Haastnooit]

07:19 AM on 01/06/2010

still homeless

[RButler]

05:11 AM on 01/06/2010

Whatever happened to bras for cars?

I love it when things that are purported to have a real purpose are fads after all. Twitter?

[RButler]

05:00 AM on 01/06/2010

Oh, boy. Now, Apple users will have Google to argue with in addition to Microsoft. They don't get along with anybody.