Google Nexus
Google are touring the world giving out free Nexus One phones. I was lucky enough to be given one at the Android Developer Labs event in London.
Is this proof that Nexus just isn’t selling as well as they hoped? Or was handing out free Ones always the plan? (I could technically use a capital there). The Nexus, like Google claim about many of their products, is supposed to be a demonstration of what can be done, rather than necessarily being a money maker. Certainly an aim of the Nexus is to promote Android as a platform. With that, handing out free ones at Android events is certainly going to create buzz and excitement around the platform. (That’s buzz without a capital).
Hero
I bought an HTC Hero shortly before confirmation that the Nexus would be available. The Hero is a very good phone. It lacks Android 2.x Eclair w00t (disappointingly coming with Cupcake), but really it is a very well built phone, and the Cupcake OS is not much lacking to its younger baked sibling.
Decisions
Lumbered with the Hero, I was very tempted to buy the Nexus, but having one delivered to the office for development, a quick play led me to think it just wasn’t worth it over the Hero. Very good, but not £500 better.
Well a couple of weeks later the decision was made for me, and the very kind people at Google gave me a Nexus. I’m very grateful to them, and have since fallen in love with the phone.
Result
Google do a lot of things well, and a few things badly. I mean, Google Accounts are in my mind a fiasco of fiercely tangled interconnected tubes that are not unlike some kind of impossible maze. But they do a lot of things well, and are increasingly integrating themselves with our lives in any way they can. Sure, aiming to provide a service we desire, but surely with motives of profit above all else.
It’s the fact they’re one enormous company that is sucking data from our very movements, which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable about it all. For now, I just hope their motto holds true.
Anyway, they gave me a phone, and a very good one at that, so they’re awesome.
Tags: android, google, Mobile, nexus
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