It looks like Google will finally start offering the Nexus One in stores. I know a lot of people who held off on buying the Nexus because they could not hold it in their hands and see how it performed firsthand. Also, not having a big carrier to back up the handset was another issue. Only T-mobile was offering it on their service, besides buying it full price for AT&T.
This comes to no surprise to me. All three other carriers ended up not supporting the Nexus One after they got their big phones like the Droid Incredible and then Sprint’s HTC Evo.
I don’t know about you, but I like being able to hold something in my hand and play around with it before I go out on blind faith. Slapping down close to $600 bucks for never using something is a big leap. So I look forward to the change.
Google has announced the following changes:
More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we’re working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.
From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we’ll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.
Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we’re announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.
Posted by Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering
We will be finding out more as Google I/O approaches.
Source: Google Blog.
