Google revealed their new Nexus One phone Tuesday, to mixed reactions. Some think the new Android powered phone is the latest and greatest, but others felt it didn’t live up to the hype.
Danny Sullivan live blogged the event:
I asked where’s the revolution here. Google’s said they won’t do me too products. Voice rec is cool, but rest of phone isn’t a revolution. It doesn’t even support all GSM 3G frequencies, much less CDMA. Nor are the pricing plans revolutionary. Same old same old. Eric Schmidt once predicted we’d have free ad-based phones. If Google’s not rolling that out, who will.
Andy says that first, Google needs a mechanism to sell products. Let’s get an online store going. Let’s put the best in class product in that store and figure out the best way to enhance it in the future.
Other than the voice recognition, others also felt the phone was more of a rehash. Mahable said:
Overall, it’s what we expected: a slick, fast Android smartphone meant to be a true competitor to the Apple iPhone. It provides some new features (the voice technology is especially impressive) and is fast, but we’ll have to wait to see whether or not this is the phone that will give Apple a run for its money.
Google calls their new creation more than a smartphone – it’s a superphone. According to their blog:
Nexus One is an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile devices through Android — when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket. The Nexus One belongs in 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.
Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc., a large 3.7″ OLED display for deep contrast and brilliant colors and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset for blazing speeds. Running on Android 2.1, the newest version of Eclair, the software includes innovations like a voice-enabled keyboard so you can speak into any text field, fun Live Wallpapers, a 3D photo gallery for richer media experiences and lots more. Of course, it also comes with a host of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation.
The phone is advertised on Google’s home page, and according to Mashable:
You’ll be able to buy the phone at the Google web store, which was leaked last week. You can find it at Google.com/Phone. It costs $179 on T Mobile with a two-year contract.
- It will be on Verizon in Spring 2010. Europe’s Vodafone will also support the Nexus One later this year.
Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land notes that the price for a no-contract phone directly from Google is $529:
Whether or not Google will manage to make teh Nexus One a serious contender with the iPhone is debatable – Droid is still not jeeping up with the popular Apple phone – but the Mountain View company is definitely not backing down in the race for mobile supremacy.