I was really starting to believe, with the talk bantered about, that this was going to be a game changer. If these new prices prove true, it's looks to be just another high-end Android. Oh well, looks like I'll keep my old Razr a little while longer. 4 years a counting!
I think that like the iPhone, the Nexus One
is a game-changer. However, Google shoots themselves in the foot with the roll-out. They borrowed the wrong page from Steve. They borrowed the innovation page which was correct...Put out a phone that makes others pale in comparison. Check.
The epic fail is that on page
two, they should have borrowed a page from Bill's play book and "put a chicken in every pot." That is why Bill is the richest man in Babylon. While Steve was being elitist and exclusionary, Bill saturated the market and got "bank" for his efforts. His bottom line is irrespective of the product's performance.
Google could have nailed this one had they not been greedy. They should have brought the subsidized phone in at $99 and the unlocked phone at $199 and made up in volume what they will certainly lose per unit in an uber-ultra-too-rich-for-recession-blood $530. Even the price of the iPhone was lowered just weeks after its release, much to the consternation of the early adopters. Hindsight...
We must not forget that word is also leaked of an impending Tmo release in April of an HTC Bravo/Passion or whatever it will be called by then. And I hope that Tmo won't be stupid enough to alienate all of its users by putting that phone so far out of reach. Tmo will remain a contender because of the Nexus One connection and it's own Bravo (or whatever), come April. Smart move, Tmo.
Lessons should have been learned by the Behold 2. Samsung gave away a plethora of Behold 2's just last week...one every hour! - It's like the joke by Henny Youngman, "Take my wife...PLEASE!" - I don't know how wise that move was. It made them look desperate IMHO. They would have done better to push an update to the phone to fix the glitches. Who wants to bet that a lot of those give-aways are pushing up daisies on eBay?
Polar opposite Google is in the position to take it all. But insisting upon a lousy calling plan and an exorbitant (by today's standards) unlocked price, they shoot themselves in the foot. When my Blackberry WE dropped, it had a price tag over $500 - I got it the week that it came out, for $149. So, while I am an early adopter, I have no intention of ever paying the advertised (read: sucker price) for any of this soon to be obsolete loveliness.
And like all the others, the Nexus One will drop in price and make many of the early adopters cringe that they didn't wait. But there will always be that die-hard contingent who just want to be FIRST and they are not going to argue about price. Companies LOVE these people. The companies have a bait and salivate marketing plan that works every time. Hey, I'm into the hype myself...right up until they ask for my paper. Then, it's ON!
I become...the master negotiator. And I don't have a problem walking away if the deal doesn't suit me. I LOVE the game!!! And just think, men used to keep this action to themselves. Shame on you for keeping all the fun away from us girlz. LOL
. You can get a cheap handset without contract for about 100-150 € or a normal mobile from 30 €, but this devices don't even come close to the N1. At least in Germany it's by the time quite common that you'll buy your mobile phone without contract (see another post in the N! forum from me). If the N1 would be sold with a contract in Germany probably it will be for 0 €. So it depends on the point of view.