Google Stops Selling Its Own Phone

Dave Knott notes that Google has announced it will close its online cell phone store and no longer sell the Nexus One smartphone directly to consumers. "While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not," wrote Andy Rubin, a Google vice president of engineering, on the official company blog. "It's remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it's clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from." From the Globe and Mail article: "At least one aspect of Google's attempt to disrupt the world of mobile communications — selling phones directly to customers — has failed. ... [T]he decision to design and sell the Nexus One was perhaps more potentially disruptive for carriers. ... Google plans to continue marketing the Nexus One through 'existing retail channels, essentially partnering with carriers around the world. The Nexus One web store, meanwhile, will essentially become a marketing portal 'to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.'"

Nice try

[jlechem]

But after looking at buying a Nexus One there were 2 primary options. Bend over and pay full price or bend over to T-Mobile and pay their price and lock in. And they only had two plans that were complete shit. I support as many new phones as possible but this wasn't priced well and the plan options they did offer just plain sucked.

Re:Nice try

[yincrash]

if you pay full price, you could get $20 / month off the t-mobile plans for people who are not on 2 year contracts, that worked out to be less than getting the 2 year plan over 2 years. i think they didn't advertise that well enough.

Re:Damn it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it was sold unlocked and working with every service provider. It was also available for about an year. Why didn't you order one if you wanted it so bad, then?

Re:It never should have sold one in the first plac

[Anonymous Coward]

Bosh. I paid for my Nexus One outright, and I probably wouldn't have even looked at it if I had to stop in at one of the phone stores. Those places are sleazy.

T-Mobile has month-by-month rates. A little more pricy, sure, but you are able to switch carriers at any time. Works for me.

It's unfortunate that Google is throwing in the towel so quickly. They're spending fortunes on ads, right now, they must have the money to spare. I don't think they've considered what they're doing.

But I do love my Android phone. It could stand minor hardware tweaking. The software resources are phenomenal.

Re:The carriers have won.

[cervo]

For ATT there are no savings. And you can't port the ATT phone to T-Mobile and still get 3G. And Verizon/Sprint use a different technology.

For ATT you are always subsidizing a phone, there is no cheaper price for no contract. So by not having a phone you are throwing the subsidy dollars to waste. The only thing I can think of is finding the most subsidized phone, selling it on e-bay and then using the proceeds to buy the nexus one (in effect subsidizing one). T-Mobile does offer a discount for no contract so there it seems to make more economic sense to buy the Nexus unlocked and then save the money each month. After two years you will be ahead, and if you keep it longer then you make the phone an even better value.....

Someone needs a history lesson

[cybereal]

I'm not sure which revisionist idiot informed the general OSS/Google fanboy world that selling unlocked phones directly to consumers was somehow innovating. Nokia has been doing this for years. I bought my last Nokia phone, the E70, well before even the iPhone was out directly via Nokia's website. You can still buy many Nokia products this way, including the venerable N900.

The prices may not always be the very best you can find but at least they are a trusted source.

Even More Plus

[tepples]

Wait, what savings do you get over time from going off contract?

Unlike AT&T, T-Mobile has a discount [t-mobile.com] if you buy your phone up front.

Opening to other markets would have helped?

[dindi]

Well, maybe if most people would not have gotten the "not available in your country or region", most people would have ordered online. I wanted one, and I am happy I did not: I tried a colleague's Nexus one, and found to phone to be ... well .. not satisfactory...

While Android is a cool thing, after an iPhone all HTC phones feel like cheap plasticky toys. And do not even get me started on the touch screen.

I am in the search for a 850Mhz HSDPA Android phone for some time and haven't found a unit that even remotely challenges the iPhone's quality. Maybe when idroidproject advances a little I can have my 2G running Android....

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[donatzsky]

You may want to read the announcement [blogspot.com] again.
Actually they are going to keep selling it - just not directly, but through resellers. In fact it's scheduled to be released across Europe, through Vodafone, sometime soon.

Rumour has it that the Nexus Two is going to be a slider, made by Motorola, in the style of the Milestone/Droid.

Re:While android is leading iphone

[beakerMeep]

Whoops math fail. Forgot to account for the difference. It should read 30*24 = 720, so you are paying $350 up front for $720 in savings.

Re:Not a failure in one aspect: Unlocked

[Timmmm]

If it's GSM you don't need your network's approval to use an unlocked phone. At least, not in any sane country.

Re:The 'unlocked' price was too high...

[Totenglocke]

Actually, due to the reduced monthly fee with T-Mobile if you bought the phone unlocked, after 2 years savings the phone would cost around $55 - so about $145 LESS than if you bought the phone subsidized by a 2-year contract. The real reason for the "failure" you speak of is that the overwhelming majority of Americans suck at math.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[mlts]

I will give a concrete example of this: Motorola's CLIQ. It has fastboot disabled, and its initial root was done by a RAMDLD exploit. About a month later, it had an OTA radio ROM update. What happened is, if you had a custom ROM on your Cliq and that update went through, you would end up with an inoperable device until you flashed a factory stock .SHX file onto your phone. Of course, guess what? The RAMDLD exploit was fixed, and the phone was made unrootable. Source: modmymoto.com's CLIQ forums.

Unrootable, until an European carrier had their version of the CLIQ ROM which happened to ship with ro.secure set to 0. This meant you could flash a custom recovery module via adb, then reflash a custom ROM as part of the root process.

Even HTC has had reports of this (IIRC). Some of their models, if you go to xda-developers, the ROM makers have noticed that some of the filesystems cannot be remounted read-write, even with root.

The Milestone from Motorola also appears unflashable with a custom ROM: http://androidforums.com/motorola-milestone/44177-motorola-locks-milestone.html [androidforums.com]

This is what we don't want. We don't want supposedly open devices which in reality are locked down in subtle ways. This is why that my next phone is going to be a phone that doesn't use hidden signatures, disabled fastboot ROM, or other items to prevent rooting or modding with custom ROMS.

Re:dew neh

[ctd1500]

Really? You checked? [t-mobile.com]
They are kind of new, they came along with all of the "Project Dark" talk that was going around back in October. Even More Plus plans, no contract, and $20 cheaper than the corresponding standard Even More contract plans.

Have you actually called tmobile lately to get the rates, plans you mention? I couldn't find a way to downgrade then either online, or via customer service operator.

I just switched from a contract plan to a contract-free plan a few days ago. Unfortunately there was an error on the my.t-mobile site so I had to call them, but it still only took about 10 minutes to get everything switched over.