Today, tech blogs were humming with news of Google's hardly-secret new phone from HTC, the Nexus One. But unless you're one who values technical prowess over simplicity and ease of use—or you're on TMobile's network and must simply deal with your iPhone envy once and for all—you're probably going to want to wait a bit before giving the Nexus One a serious look. This is a phone targeted at a younger audience not afraid of the pain of being tech early-adopters.
The Nexus One is Google's attempt to break phones free of the exclusivity contracts that most smart phone manufacturers lock themselves into. And as Google's announcement showed, one of the reasons that smart phone makers cut those agreements is to lower the cost of purchasing their wares.
Google is now offering the Nexus One "unlocked"—you can buy it and take it to any wireless provider. Theoretically, you could buy one off Google's site right now and, once you got your hands on it, slip the SIM card from your existing cell phone into it and be off and running. The price for that freedom: $529. However, if you buy the phone with a TMobile plan, the smart phone is only $179. Verizon will get the Nexus sometime this spring.
There's also one little catch if you're contractually obliged until the next ice age to AT&T like I am—the guts of the Nexus don't let it use AT&T's 3G network right now. So no matter how fancy the phone is, and how much it inspires techno-lust, it would be like driving a Lamborghini around a speed-bump filled parking lot all day. You'd look cool, but would be immensely frustrated.
Ironically, the Nexus One is probably bigger competition for Motorola's Droid — another phone based the Android phone software that Nexus One is built on. Gizmodo called Nexus One a "Droid killer".
