As expected, Google announced today that they would start shipping their Nexus One, the latest in a string of ever advancing Android based smartphones.
You can get it unlocked for $529, or with T-Mo service for $179. Verizon and Vodaphone are also listed as options, but greyed out with “Spring 2010” off to the right.
Am I going to get it? I don’t know. My AT&T contract is up in a month or two, which would be prime switchin’ time. And I do like the idea of going back to T-Mo, especially since they just announced today that they have upgraded their entire 3G footprint to 7.2Mbps speeds, and will be the first to hit HSPA+ speeds of up to 21Mbps. So that’s a good thing, for sure. But I really like the idea of a hardware keyboard, so I think I’ll just have to find a Nexus One at a T-Mo store to play with and make my final decision.
There is a TV channel I watch called Current TV. Think of it as like a YouTube for TV, since everything they play is created and submitted by viewers. Unlike YouTube, though, there is an approval process so only the better made or funnier submissions get on the air.
A while back they showed a video about a service called Home James. That’s a service in LA where a chauffeur will drive a little motor scooter to where you are, then fold the scooter up to put in your trunk, then drive you home in your own car. It’s targeted at people who have been drinking, but already have their own vehicle with them.
In the clip, a chauffer named Lawrence talks about the service and then goes out to pick up a customer, who happens to be a very drunk and very funny German DJ named Flula Borg.
It’s pretty funny stuff. And it’s not a very long clip, but skipping to about 2:00 in will get you straight to the funny parts if you’re the impatient type.
So then it came on TV again recently, and reminded me how funny I thought the clip was. I went online to see if I could find the clip on YouTube – where I ended up finding the clip you just watched above.
After I finished watching the clip, I noticed one of the “related videos” that YouTube had decided might also be of interest to me. It was a video made by Flula Borg, the funny German who was in the Home James clip. He was responding to his fans and also introducing everybody to his roommate. I decided to give that one a look too, and it turns out that I know Flula’s roommate!
The David in that clip is David Giuntoli, a gradeschool and highschool classmate of mine. We weren’t friends in school, so we don’t keep in touch, and that made it even more surprising to come across him in this way. It’s a small world…
I’ll admit it. Google could put poop in a box and slap their logo on it, and I’d probably blog about how great it was. So yeah, I’m biased.
But I like cell phones, and I like Google. How could I not be excited about the prospect of a Google Phone? Rumors have been floating around for a few months now that such a beast existed. Then blog chatter ramped up earlier this month when Google supposedly passed out the device internally to employees for testing. Pictures and videos started to leak out. Then today, Google made an announcement… that they were going to make an announcement. A press event has been scheduled for January 5th. That’s the weekend leading into the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which is when most major phones for the year are announced. So is the Google Phone imminent?
Yes it is. Well, a really snazzy Android phone is coming that Google is going to sell. It’s not really any more of a “Google Phone” than Verizon’s Droid, Sprint’s HTC Hero, or T-Mobile’s G1. If you go to google.com/phone you’ll get a phony 404 error page – meaning that the server is finding a page designed to look like a 404 error page, instead of not finding anything at all, and returning a true error. Go to google.com/donkey and you’ll see what a true error message looks like. So what is hiding behind google.com/phone? An order page for the new Googletastic Nexus One phone, I’m hoping.
Brendan, what about that Nokia N900 you’ve been blogging about? Do you not want that anymore?
Good question, blog. I do still have the N900 at the top of my list. Apples to apples, I would go with a N900 over a Nexus One. The problem is, no cell carrier has decided to offer (and subsidize) the N900. That means the only way I can buy one is if I get an unlocked version on Amazon for $550. And that amount of money for a phone is just crazy talk. The Nexus One is also high on my list, but if it is offered by a carrier (Google & T-Mobile) then that means the price will be greatly subsidized. The Nexus One then costs hundreds of dollars less than the N900, and my choice is pretty easy to make.
So mark your calendars for January 5! Google’s Nexus One is coming!
What’s that? I’m the only one marking my calendar? Fine then, be that way. More Nexus Ones for me.
