There have been whispers around the rumor mill for roughly a week now that Google was planning on throwing a press shindig right before CES – and sure enough, the invites just went out.
Google’s not saying much about the event, outside of the fact that it’s focused on Android — but really, what do they need to say? Google’s Nexus One handset has been given to employees, documented from just about every angle, spec’d out, and confirmed by T-Mobile; at this point, the press conference is a formality.
Either way, expect the TechCrunch network to be there with cameras in hand and live-blogging on the mind.
Oh, drool. I would love to go there. I also want to buy the Nexus One, even with the rumors of it being a phone you can only get via invite.
I also like the thought of having service for less than $70 a month: http://leifandersen.net/2009/11/30/droid-and-the-evils-of-telecommunications/
Finally, The stike of the Nexus is now so close, so close that we can order it on January 5 with Tmo. However, with the caveat of keeping the price away from the users …yet. Make it below 300 USD and surely this phone will make a blast.
More Details: http://bit.ly/google-phone-made-for-tmobile
All of our questions will surely be put to rest with this press-confe
Google is giving Microsoft and Bing a HUGE opening by building their own products.
MS should drop zune and commit not to build hardware.
Tell that to all of the people who are enjoying their XBoxs’.
xbox is obviously a different hardware category then mobile phones. Has the xbox actually made any money yet?
Has the XBox made any money yet? You are kidding right? Have you been living under a rock?
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/20346/Xbox-Division-Records-Second-Profitable-Year-in-a-Row/
Well, if I remember correctly, the XBOX doesn’t make any money, but rather, they somehow break even on the games. If your limiting yourself to strictly mobile phones, based on Windows mobile, I agree with you though.
Leif,
Your memory is wrong. The XBox division is profitable. Read the link that I posted above.
Yup, sorry about that. I would have checked the link first, but if you look at the time stamp, I have a feeling that we were writing those comments at the same time.
Wow. Luckily this comment can reign as the stupidest comment of 09 for only a few days. XBox is killing it. Geezus.
Leif,
Yup, looks like we were posting at the same time, sorry about that. :)
Ballmer has addressed this very well. Zune is not a phone. He sees the market for dedicated media players being dominated by 5 brands. Therefore, Microsoft builds OS only , and not the final devices.
I think it is a clever strategy, though I think the video of it was here on TC.
So is the phone only going to be available on T-Mobile or is Verizon going to get this too? If no Verizon, I’m going to buy the Droid, and that would be a let down.
Go get your Droid… Verizon turned down Google to support this phone, and for now this release is GSM only, not CDMA.
If this is official news, BOO! Maybe I’ll just get a Tour now, but I was interested in moving from BB to Android. Oh well.
This is like the most secretive unsecretive phone ever announced.
Thats a great news. Nexus One coming 5 jan.
Try Android OS 2.0 on Windows. http://goo.gl/7J8L
What concerns me is the level of hype. If Google announces just another phone utilizing Android without any signature impossible to get anywhere else features, what’s the big deal? It would be just another HTC Hero.
Waiting anxiously for the NEXUS one…Will see how the Android app market will evolve in FY2010…
Ooh, ooh!
The iPhone is dead as a January 5th.
The iPhone Killer has arrived.
@davebarnes..r u kiddin???
iPhone killer???
it took these ppl 3 years to come out with somthing that atleast matches the standard of an iPhone..n ur sayin is dead??
do u think Apple is sleepin for all these years without doin shit??? :P
I can’t wait for the 5 megapixel camera update for my iphone is June.
Yes, this phone is gonna crush the iphone in terms of specs/the phone itself. No, not eveyone is gonna go out and buy it – but those that do will be far happier.
Faster, slimmer, far better integration, better camera, video recording, doubleTwist for music syncing, background apps. What does your iphone have? Cause I can tell you that whatever is does the Nexus One is gonna shit on it. Shit. On. It. End of story.
i can’t tell if your comment was meant to be sarcastic…or if it was just stupid…
iPhone killer? I’m willing to bet it will do well but not well enough to cause panic in Cupertino. Any takers?
Haha.. biggest joke ever. Lets see if it can steal 1% of smartphone market share away from AAPL
In my opinion, until we stop looking for the ‘iphone killer’ the iPHone is not going to dye, sorry. With that being said, unlike the iPhone, I want this…
I agree. Let a phone’s capabilities speak for itself. and why does it matter if the iphone is “killed” anyway? no matter what comes out, some people will still prefer their iphone, and that’s entirely fine.
I think everyone should be prepared to be disappointed…but that’s just me.
I predict a phone not unlike most of the other iphone copied designs…but with tighter integration to google’s product line.
being an early adopter of technology is a great way to be disappointed.
http://digg.com/gadgets/Google_announces_press_gathering_on_January_5th
Digg is a joke, nobody bothers going there anymore.
So, than how do you get your news? (For the record, I also don’t use digg much, I prefer Google Reader with their ’sort by magic’ feature.
timing could not be any better for me.
My AT&T contract comes up in January. Their networks sucks donkey balls.
Was looking to buy a jailbreak iPhone to move to T-Mobile
Perfect Storm:
1) T-Mobile is offering unlimited talk, text and data plan for $70 per month
2) Google is selling an open phone
This is called a home run! So long as Google makes it affordable enough for the masses to buy to hit some type of critical mass.
In closing I’d like to wish AT&T the best of luck in ‘10 and that the senior management pull their heads out of their ass. Clearly, no vision and no sense of urgency. Oh ya, when my wife and fathers contract come up in February you can rest assured that they will also hop on to T-Mobile, you AT&T douce bags!
Sorry to inform you but T-mobile and at&t share towers and network. it’s the same shitty network.
Not fully true. They can roam, but t-mobile 3G is completely different than ATT 3G.
From my G1 experience, 3G coverage is sporadic – and one thing especially worrying to me about the nexus
I really hope I can just walk into a service provider, buy a NexOne at a discounted rate and walk out making a call on it. It is just a phone, people.
Although I’m not an Apple fan, and I’m certainly looking forward to the Nexus One, it’s unlikely to be an iPhone killer. I see it more like Apollo Creed vs Rocky Balboa; a giant in the field against the upstart that’s come from almost nowhere. It’s gonna go the whole 15 rounds and it’s definitely going to be a points decision!
Did Ivan Drago punch you before you wrote that?
Putting off my Droid purchase to see what final version of Nexus One looks like and what carrier plans are available. I’m sure other Android handset makers are not happy about this development. Remember when Andy Rubin said a few months ago that Google won’t make Android phone of its own?
Watching Android rollout to date, I am left with two conflicting data points. One, is that everyone I talk to within Google is supremely confident that the data (that they are looking at) suggests that they are poised to win in the market. Two, I am confused relative to the battles and war analogy, what is the battle they are fighting and what is the war that they expect to win.
By that, I mean at this stage they are not in the same league to win the potential iPhone buyer, as Android lacks on hardware design, developer tools, media, apps momentum and marketplace. Yet, based upon RIM’s last quarter, it’s not like they are taking share from the Blackberry. Hence, best guess is that they are REALLY going after the Nokia and Symbian ecosystem, which is fine and logical, as it represents a comparable structure in terms of variety of device form-factors, multi-carrier approach and Nokia/Symbian has a dispirited developer base, so low hanging fruit.
The only paradox is that to win that audience, you can’t be effectively competing with the handset guys (i.e., Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG) in either soft or hard form (by anointing a preferred device/partner or formally branding, marketing a Google device). Yet, to not do so is to guarantee that the distance between iPhone and Android only grows.
Personally, I think that they have misread the market, and face a choice between a fragmented market or abandoning their open credo and trying to go toe-to-toe with Apple in areas that Google hasn’t proven to be strong at; namely, hardware design, user experience, developer tools, etc.
Google makes money by selling advertising space. It’s in their best interest to make sure people use the Android platform for their phones in order to increase the amount of people that use google’s services therefore increasing the amount of advertising that they can sell.
If they sell their own hardware then other manufacturers will not utilize the Android system on their phones, and then Google’s plan to have millions of Android handsets (and other devices) will fail.
I believe it’s just a development phone, and if they sell it – it’ll be expensive (unsubsidized) and mostly targeted to developers so they can work on apps. This should also convince handset manufacturers to step up the game in terms of hardware so Android devices can compete against the iPhone – however I still don’t see this being done in any large scale, and I doubt this phone would sell for anything less then $600 – which means it won’t be sold in any volume whatsoever.
Even if they announce this phone and it’s subsidized on Tmobile – it’s still just another HTC phone. My guess is that they are going to talk about how many new phones HTC (and other manufacturers) are going to come out with in 2010, and the new software advances for Android.
Why will it sell for more than $600? These phones don’t have any substantial on-board memory which drops BOM costs by 30-50$ right away. Consider a low margin and I can foresee a $300-400 price point.
I need to get the Nexus One, wonder how much it is, got to buy it, and wonder when it’s availabe in Canada!!!
Well I’m going to buy a couple and get them shipped to Australia (our phone costs are ridiculous). I was looking at the price of the Palm Treo Pro and the Nokia 5800 unlocked for around $200. If the nexus one is close in price I bet it will be a much better phone than the two mentioned.
This will be wonderful if it’s offering something new or expanded. if they are just putting out another phone with Droid, to me, it will be a waste. Luckily there is room for everyone to pick their fav, as well as have opinions. i hope this phone is worth the hype, I am tired of my AT&T.
Are you selling anything????
The real exciting news hidden in all of this Nexus One hype is the T-Mobile connection, and their bold attack on the phone subsidy business model with their Plus plans. It’s not an easy sell for a few reasons, because people have trouble believing the math, and sticker shock on unsubsidized phones. Not to mention their sometimes maligned network coverage.
But in conjunction with the Plus plans, you can get a top phone with its price spread out over some months via an installment option. And the Plus plans have no contract and rates are as low as it goes among the big carriers. If you have good T-Mo where you are, you will likely save money in the long run with these plans, with their existing phones from $50 up, and soon, presumably, with the Nexus One as well.
Bottom line is, the big mobile telcos have long been making huge money on the status quo of knocking the price off the initial phone, and then building it into the service with a two-year commitment and an ETF. They get full retail price and then some from almost every unit they move. If you go past your 2 years and just keep using the same phone, your rates don’t automatically go down just because you are done paying Verizon, for example, back for the phone. It’s the gift that you keep on giving them month after month (I’m guilty of doing it now, and this impending Google announcement has me on hold for another week at least.)
So T-Mobile’s attack on this business model may be the desperate Hail Mary of a 4th place carrier, but this confluence with the Google announcement could be good PR for these Plus plans, and for the no-contract no-subsidy approach itself.
I’m with most of you all that this sounds like a cool gadget, the Nexus One, but it’s just another smartphone in and of itself. Whether Google goes whole hog into the handset market or not is interesting, but not as immediate to me as my monthly bills. The real cool thing will be if Google and a rogue carrier like T-Mobile put pressure on the rest of the telcos to move away from the 2-year contract and phony subsidy, and maybe even get us to ask the question that no carrier wants to hear: “why do I have to pay for talk minutes and text messages, if I could just do those things over the unlimited internet using VoIP and IM?”