Is Google’s NexusOne a big Failure | Hacker News Reader

Is Google’s NexusOne a big Failure

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2 pointsomfut13 comments

ANECDOTE coming up:

I recently bought a Nexus One, and it's the BEST friggin phone I've ever owned. I am one very happy camper now

Responsiveness, Maps, speed of Maps, the browser (holy shit the browser), the screen... are all awesome.

Wrt. marketing: other than Internet mutterings, I first heard about it from a friend who is a Google employee - so I guess you can say it wasn't particularly well advertised.. NB, I'm a Linux-oriented software developer, so I might be counted in the presumable target audience.

Still, best phone ever.

Hows the video recording quality? Is it jumpyish? I really want one (and was going to place the order today), but wanted an opinion about the video recording.. I'm in Australia though, so I'd be ordering it from overseas (any tips of when it will come here though from your google friend?)

I'm hoping to get into android development and code a flight computer, because there don't seem to be any for android available, and pilots are being charged $150 for a glorified calculator.. The Android SDK is great in that regards from experience (I can code without a phone). And can barely afford a Nexus one, hence if its coming to Australia, hoping I could cut $100 off the cost :P

I have to agree to k-zed, it's the best phone i ever had. But if you count on a really good video recording performance, i wonder if there is any phone with proper video and cam out there. The Nexus One's videos are atleast ok, but not good. So was every video i've seen from mobiles (particularly the sony cybershot phones, where you'd expect best quality, but also other HTC, Samsung and more).

I'd rate photo quality as good, a bit better than iPhone but still not even near the quality of a middle priced digital cam. Video recording is about the same..

All in all it's still the same as years ago, i wouldn't use the camera for holiday pictures or anything other than a quick snapshot for a facebook upload.

Thanks,

I might wait a bit then, because I'm trying to find a mobile which I always have, which has good video quality (because I never know when I need one)..

As a recipient of the holiday bonus, my opinion is that it will amaze anyone who has never had a smart phone before. But the iphone still has better responsiveness. Further, in urban areas, the iphone has had better reception and download speed.

I don't think Google wanted to sell a lot of Nexus Ones. They certainly didn't act like a company who wanted to sell a lot of phones.

Google's mission is to get people sharing more and more information. They want fat, saturated networks with us passing data around nonstop. That kind of environment benefits them directly, because they basically get a payout every time someone looks for something.

The wireless networks, on the other hand, want to restrict us as much as possible. They want to put up as few towers as possible, while charging the most customers they can as much as they will pay. They want a network full of tollbooths where they can constantly slow us down and demand payment to keep uploading and downloading.

I think the Nexus One is Google's baby step towards challenging that. They want us to choose our devices and our apps first, and let the networks compete for the right to carry our data... the "dumb pipe".

If that's the goal, I think it's far too early to tell whether they have failed. They could have sold more phones by tying into the networks' marketing channels, but that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

the important thing here for google is opening a channel for unlocked phones.

For them it really doesn't matter if they sold 100,000 or 1,000,000 devices. their goal is an unlocked smartphone for everybody. they let the hardware companies work on making the device affordable , and they work on the unlocked part.

This blog entry fails to point out the most important indicator i see there. Look at the graph. iPhone -> top sales, Droid -> top sales, Nexus One -> not much.

The most striking difference between iphone, droid and nexus one? iPhone and droid had huge marketing campaigns, whereas nexus one only appeared in some tech blogs but wasn't perceived by the population at all.

I don't have figures to back that up, but to me it just looks like whoever does the most and best marketing wins. And apple is probably the outstanding company in terms of marketing.

What i know from personal experience: people looking for a new mobile know (of course) about the iPhone, they also know about the Droid. But they never heard of the Nexus One. Heck, i don't even know which brand to tell them. Googlephone? Nexus One?

Exactly. The Droid had a HUGE campaign from Verizon behind it to compete with the iPhone. The iPhone was hyped since it's announcement at Macworld 6 months prior to it's release, plus had, again, the power of AT&T behind it.

Google decided to do things in favor of the customer (not the big huge cell companies) and sell the Nexus One unlocked. It's now on AT&T's 3G network, and soon coming in a CDMA fashion to Verizon.

I'd be interested to see the actual profit from the big cell companies from their sales, minus all the marketing efforts. Verizon hit it pretty hard with all of their "Droid Does" commercials.

The Nexus, to me, is going to quickly become a thorn in every phone companies' side. All the phone companies have right now is their product differentiation. Lately they seem to be attacking each other on their network quality, but for the most part it's "I'm going with XYZ because they have ABC device that I prefer to your device on other-network". The N1 will shortly be available on any network, the consumer will have the power!

  plus had, again, the power of AT&T behind it.

Yeah, and nobody has heard about that company, how is it… Google!

Its a dodgy chart anyway, because it is comparing the iPhone 1G versus sales in an already saturated market, where many are concerned about now concerned about the economy? I wonder how it fared in recent sales vs the iPhone, or even against the latest generation iPhone?

In regards to reviews, the Nexus One is getting excellent reviews, and its more a marketing issue (as mentioned by Buster). Steve Job's stepped onto the stage and lied to the world that he invented multitouch (total BS), and that's why many people purchased the iPhone. In regards to pure usefulness, the iPhone 1G was a joke, and whilst it may have been able to compete against other smartphones at the time, the only useful thing about it, was the web-browsing capabilities. It didn't have application support, and I used to own an iPod touch (which is basically the same thing), and frankly, a nokia phone was more useful.

Sorry, but this isn't a failure. It has barely even launched yet, and assumptions are being made from a graph which isn't comparing Oranges to Oranges.

That's like comparing the sales of Windows Vista to OSX Snow Leopard.

EDIT: I'll also add that these are estimates anyway..

What about the fact that the N1 has only been available for T-Mobile customers until recently. It's now available for AT&T users, but unlocked at hefty $500+ price.

I personally can't wait for it to be available under CDMA (Verizon)--and I'm sure others are waiting. I plan to switch from AT&T's horrid network. The ability to use the data and voice networks simultaneously is useless if you can't get a proper signal... ie, if you can't do either.

Luckily, I don't have a contract w/ AT&T, so I can switch anytime. The Droid was somewhat appealing, but I'm waiting for the Nexus One and for Android to support Flash 10.1--so I can watch european football games on justin.tv/ustream.tv and be able to stream the Daily Show/Colbert report among other shows without having to pay Apple.

You can't judge within 3 months if something is a failure... ask me again in 3 years.

Google sales are mostly passive. The web site, the packaging and the promotion of the Nexus One all say that. "Hey, here is a cool phone, let me show you some of the features, up to you if you want one".

Not too many years ago everyone slated Apple vs Microsoft advertising. Apple were the sleek clutter free packaging, and Microsoft were the sticker happy, in your face advertising. Seems to me that Google are the new Apple (in this context)

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