When you buy ‘the best available product’ from one of ‘the largest companies in the world’, you expect customer service. Good customer service. Take Lexus for example. If you buy one, you can expect red carpet treatment from the dealer, the manufacturer and the certified service center.
That’s not the case with Google’s latest ‘superphone’, however – the search giant released their new smartphone Tuesday and now consumers are complaining bitterly.
According to PC World,
Google appears to be only accepting e-mail customer queries, to which it pledges to reply in one to two days — far too long, say most people who are complaining online.
A visit to Google’s mobile help forum turns up posts like this:
I’m having this same problem. My G1 has 3G with full strength, but sitting right next to it my Nexus has 1 bar of 3G and keeps switching to Edge. If I let it sit for a while it may go up to 3 bars of signal strength but as soon as I start trying to use it the signal strength drops back down to one bar.
I called T-mobile to make sure that I didn’t need to activate the phone or something to get 3G service. They said my account looked fine and that they couldn’t give me any more support since I had a Nexus One, that I had to call HTC. So I called HTC and they said that your 3G service is a T-mobile issue and they couldn’t help me. The fact that my G1 works perfectly sitting right next to the Nexus though makes me think it really is a problem with the phone.
I’m at the point where I’m about to send this thing back. It ruins the whole experience if I can’t ever stay on 3G for more than a few seconds.
Will Google be able to overcome the many upset customers who paid a hefty price for the Google Nexus?
Other concerns also swirl about the Android phone – Microsoft isn’t displeased, as they feel Google is shooting themselves in the foot by creating their own phone and appearing to show favoritism towards it, according to the Microsoft blog:
Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, commented on Google’s move: “Doing both in the way they are trying to do both is actually very, very difficult,” Bach told Bloomberg at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “Google’s announcement sends a signal where they’re going to place their commitment. That will create some opportunities for us and we’ll pursue them.”
In addition, the rest of the world is out of the loop and out of luck for the time being as far as the Nexus goes, according to Moneylife:
Google will sell the phone through its Web store. However, it will currently be available only for US consumers.
“The Nexus One belongs to the emerging class of devices which we call ‘superphones’. It’s the first in what we expect to be a series of products which we will bring to market with our operator and hardware partners and sell through our online store,” Google said in a release.
Google said the Web store would allow consumers to purchase the Nexus One without operator service or with service from T-Mobile USA. Google further said that it expects to add more operators, more devices and more countries in the future, including Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone in Europe.
Google will have to come up with better and more widely available service and coverage if the Nexus can hope to rival the iPhone.