The Nexus One

Google's Nexus One

The Google phone.  What more can be said about it?  From the start, the Internet rumor mills has been running with the logic that this particular phone would revolutionize the mobile phone industry in the United States.  It’s not hard to understand why.  Google has a corporate history of “motherfucking” other companies.  The biggest example of this, when Google announced that they’re going to release a free GPS Navigation add-on to Google Maps on Android and iPhone/iPod Touch devices.  The result: the stock prices of TomTom and Garmin collapsed in hours!  Why pay $200-450 for a stand-alone GPS unit when your T-Mobile G1 or Motorola Droid can do the same thing, but for free.

When the strong rumors that HTC was manufacturing a phone with specs directly from Mountain View, everyone was excited.  Through bloggers and other leaks we discovered that it has features such as a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.7 inch capacitive touch-screen (bigger than the iPhone), thinner than an iPhone at 0.45 inches thick, was running Android 2.1 and a 5MP camera with LED flash.  Exciting stuff.

The Problem…

Leaked internal keynote slides state that the Nexus One will be on T-Mobile USA.  Not a surprise, considering that the G1 and MyTouch 3G appeared on the network first.  It also dropped a bombshell on all of us… If you want to buy the Nexus One with a subsidized price, it requires a MANDATORY $80 per month plan that only includes 500 minutes (but it does have unlimited web and texting).  If you have a family plan on T-Mobile, you can not purchase one on a 2 year contract like you can a G1 or MyTouch 3G.

This is NOT disruptive to the US mobile industry, nor does this position the Nexus One as a purely consumer device.  I do agree with a data-pack add-on, like the current android phones and iPhone require, but as far as minutes go, I need FAR more than 500 day-time minutes.  I also have 5 lines on my T-Mobile account, so unless I want to spin one off the accounts or open a new line altogether, I’m out of the running to purchase one at the subsidized price (unless I purchase one at $530 unsubsidized).  What happened to the apparent Google philosophy of releasing products “at a loss” or heavily subsidized and making the revenue up with advertising, like MANY other Google products?  Why should the Nexus One be any different?

Now, this is all based on conjecture and leaks.  We won’t know the full story until Google’s press release on 5 January, 2010 at CES, but I am indeed worried.

-A. Payne