So, Nexus One or not?

January 6th, 2010 • chatter, phones
Tags: google, journalism, nexus one, t-mobile, technology

Yesterday, Google announced their first foray into direct sales of a phone running their Android OS. Most tech bloggers and readers weren’t surprised by any of it as it had all been leaked out before. There’s a few reviews out there, which make interesting observations based on two key things about the device:

What I find more important than the reviews themselves are the slowly coming negative comments about a device that, up until roughly Christmas time, no one outside of Google had ever touched. These comments are coming out from various tech bloggers and their disappointment with the device and then squarely blaming ol’ Goog without looking at themselves directly. Reading sites such as Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CrunchGear (the illiterate son of TechCrunch), and countless others during the months of November and December showed nothing but admiration and idolization for the device, all without as much as a peep about it from Google officially. They too know that all the higher ups at Google loved all the free press and speculation, even if the device that was to be released was the worst phone released in recent memory. All of this then makes it difficult to get a clear draw on the phone itself without combing all the reviews that are currently up, most of which are still excited about the device but realize its flaws. Of course, one still has to rule out those out liers which either completely lambaste the phone or purport it to be the iPhone’s death knell — I read one such review just about an hour or two ago from one of the aforementioned sites, whose big shot owner lauded the phone and said it was the best phone on the market to date.

If I were to look at reviews alone, I’d be fairly convinced that no one has a clear idea if the phone is worth a purchase or not, but they do know that it’s a very nice phone with some very nice capabilities. I came across a worthwhile price breakdown of current smartphones on the market. While I think the “average” plan of 1000 minutes is a bit high personally, it’s probably a lot more average than I care to think. The whole top 70% of the infographic is what most people care about but I’m very interested in the total cost of ownership over two years. Then I came across the following price breakdown for current T-Mobile customers as well as new customers. I took this and compared it to Ben Ferguson’s TCO breakdown over two years with only a data plan.

I’m going to guess that a lot of people aren’t going to pick up on this but the plan that Google wrangles you into with T-Mobile is $20 more expensive than the Even More PLUS plan with the same amount of minutes. That’s a very sly move, Google. I’m not concerned about how much profit they’ll make off of these walled plans but it does make me wonder why new customers get hit with a $20 fee every month for an already set T-Mobile plan. I can say that it’s a pretty slick move on both parts; I wonder what kind of Nexus One premium Verizon customers will get to enjoy in the next month or two when it’s released on the Big Red network.

With my Sidekick LX ailing pretty heavily these days, the Nexus One is looking like an upstanding option. As usual, T-Mobile’s always on the lower end of phone hardware in comparison to Verizon and AT&T, they now have another smartphone to help prop up their sales of Blackberrys. I’ve been considering jumping ship to Verizon for the Droid but I absolutely hate their plans and extortion level early termination fees, and I will be damned if I’m switching to AT&T’s working-not-working network for an iPhone. Will the Nexus One be the phone that helps me stay a customer of the purple T a few more years? We’ll know at the end of the month when I try to order one.