Available in UK
Hmm. I keep reading that you can't buy the Nexus One in the UK. You can - direct from google.com/phone. It will cost around £404 inc VAT and taxes. Expensive but its sweet...
Sony Ericsson turned down the chance to make the Googlephone, because it didn't want to become a contract manufacturer - not even for the Chocolate Factory. Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Nordberg told Swedish newspaper Sydsvenssan (Swedish only) about the discussions. In the interview Nordberg says relations remain good with Google, …
"Google upset its ODM (original device manufacturer) customers.. when it decided to.. compete directly with licensees of its own Android OS"
Erm, isn't Android open source, i.e. free for these ODM licensees to use? They're getting something for nothing, probably saving a substantial amount of money by avoiding having to develop their own proprietry OS, or licensing Windows Mobile.
What right do they have to be upset that Google are making their own branded phone? Surely that's what a free market is all about?
The Nexus One is actually a bit better than the other HTC Android phones. It has a better quality camera with a flash, and a much better processor. It is probably very similar to some of the higher end HTC phones that don't use Android. Plus you get immediate updates, rather than waiting for them to update the user interface that HTC have dumped on top (which looks and works much nicer than standard Android, plus you get multitouch for everything) and means that nearly all are still using version 1.5 rather than 2.1.
Sony Ericsson would have produced the GodPhone and just dropped support after a short period of time, leaving people holding the bag for a $500 phone with firmware and application bugs and no chance for new firmware updates unless you buy the next phone in the line.
Paris, yeah, she is a little butt-hurt, too.
Prime case of pride getting in the way of progress - could've worked brilliantly for both sides. Sony Ericsson makes about the best non-Apple hardware, but suffers from poor brand awareness. A G-branded SE device could've been a huge hit, and I'm not surprised Google went to SE before HTC.
SE is hardly in brilliant shape at the moment either. Bit stupid of them to pass this up.
Some may like it, but I think that is the biggest downfall with Android....You have a vanilla UI with the Google phone...HTC do a little bit of their own, Motorola does a lot and then the Sony Ericsson models feel different yet again....Where is the consistency in user experience? I think its greatest strengths open platform and flexibility are at the same time its biggest downfall....