SigSays - All Things Reviewed

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First, here’s the Engadget Article.

From Engadget:

• Yeah, it’s $530 unsubsidized. Google’s not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They’re not going to save us from the “making money off of hardware” culture we’ve got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one
• If you want it subsidized, you’ll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract and pay $180 for the phone
• There’s only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total
• Existing customers cannot keep their plan if they want a subsidized phone; they have to change to the one plan, and this only applies to accounts with one single line
• If that doesn’t fly with you, you have to buy the $530 unlocked version—this actually might save you money over two years if you already have a cheap plan
• Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscribers must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530
• You can only buy five Nexus One phones per Google account
• There is language in the agreement of shipping outside the US
• Google will sell it at google.com/phone, which explains what they were doing with that page a few weeks ago
• Google will still call it the Nexus One apparently, and not the Google Phone

And here is a big one:
• If you cancel your plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price, so $350 in this case. Or you can return the phone to Google. You also authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

I gotta say, I’m disappointed. And I’ll admit off the top to that position being unfair. In all fairness, remove all the hype and hold this phone to the standard others are held to and it’s pretty good. If the current best guess at the specs are accurate, it’s a pretty impressive phone. The problem is, I expected more from Google.

Since the rumblings started about a google phone, people were speculating about it being sold direct through google at or below cost, especially with the activity at google.com/phone. Hopes were high that Google would make good on it’s overarching message of openness espoused since Android was in the early stages of development. Hopes were high that they would roll out a real iPhone competitor, devoid of the almost schizophrenic control Apple is known to hold over the iPhone. A phone that, at the very least, had full functionality on the two US GSM Carriers, T-Mobile and AT&T.

Turns out this isn’t the case. The Nexus One will technically work on both AT&T and T-Mobile, but due to a difference in the frequency used on their respective 3G Networks, it will only have 3G speed on T-Mobile. Meaning you’ll be limited to EDGE on ATT. For an entry level handset, this isn’t a big deal. For a full featured media phone like the Nexus One, iPhone, etc. It’s a deal breaker. Let’s do a test on my iPhone 3G.

First on 3G. 1.86Mbps down, 0.21Mbps up

Now on EDGE. 0.03Mbps down and 0.10 Mbps up.

Needless to say, the real world speed difference is astounding. On 3G, it basically loads pages as fast as the phone can render them, and file downloads are generally limited to the server’s speed. It’s comparable to your average DSL connection. On EDGE, you’re basically going back to 56k speeds, if that. This is pretty much a deal breaker for those of us not willing to break a contract and go with T-Mobile, assuming they even have 3G coverage in your area (And odds are they don’t).

From T-Mobile’s site:

As you can see, their 3G coverage leaves a lot to be desired. While AT&T has been chastised for lacking in 3G coverage, even they blow T-Mobile away.

That pretty much immediately removes it from the running for my sole mobile device, but had they done something like the speculation that they would sell it at or below cost directly, subsidizing the cost via advertising in the built in browser/email app, or some similarly innovative business model, I could have easily justified paying $200-300 for a device that works very well most of the time, and keeping my iPhone 3G in my bag for travel, tethering, etc. At $530, that’s not an option.

I’m guessing, and it’s just that, a guess, that the decision to use a radio compatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network was made to avoid a perceived snub, as they worked with T-Mobile for the original Android Device, the T-Mobile G1 , but I feel they’re limiting themselves in an attempt to maintain a good relationship with T-Mobile. The obvious aim of the device is to take some market share from the wildly successful iPhone line, but the problem is that the vast majority of iPhone users are on AT&T’s network and under contract. While AT&T’s network is far from perfect, it’s still better than T-Mobile’s, as evidenced above. Not many iPhone users are going to be willing to jump ship to another carrier, especially one with worse coverage, and especially given the cost of breaking a contract, around $200, last I checked.

Hopefully an AT&T 3G compatible iteration arises soon, and hopefully their press conference on the 5th still has surprises in store. Maybe they have something big up their sleeves, and I will be forced to eat my words, but as it stands, I feel they’ve failed to deliver on their promise to revolutionize wireless devices. The Nexus One and associated business model, at least based on the information available as I write this, is evolutionary at best.