With the launch of the overhyped Nexus One , Google have entered the hotly contested mobile phone domain , but is it worth it to buy a Nexus one phone ? Also is it worth it to buy it in the US and import it into India ? The Nexus One has been dubbed as a superphone in many circles but does that justify its price ?
Currently Amazon.com lists the Nexus one phones starting at 680 USD or 31000 Indian Rupees. Add around 3-4 thousand to that and you get the Indian Grey market price of around 35000 rupees for an Unlocked Google Nexus One phone.
Before going into the viability of getting a Google Nexus One imported into India or for that matter asking a relative to bring it, we look at some of its features.
The Google Nexus One runs on the Android operating system, not a lot of Indian smartphones run on Android, heck not a lot of any kind of smart phones run on the Google Android operating system and the Nexus One Google hopes will change all that.
One of the USPs of the Nexus One is said to be its voice command feature for searches and normal phone operation etc. Ok, lets reverse a little, my Nokia Symbian phone does that too and I loaded the Google Symbian app on it a few days ago and it also has voice recognition.
The Google Nexus One boasts of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 Ghz processor, now thats a lot of computing power for a phone. The touchscreen is 480 by 800 pixel and has a diagonal width of 3.7-inches. The phone has a AMOLED display which people are claiming is out of this world.
The phone has a 5 MegaPixel camera and has a LED flash. The phone features no hardware keyboard like the Iphone which its supposed to kill. The no hardware thing is a turnoff for me. I love the QWERTY on my Nokia E-series phone.
Overall, the Nexus One is one mean performance machine with good parts and excellent performance, but the price is a little out of reach for most people. I would much rather buy a laptop than this, but to each his own, Indian fanboys of the Google Nexus One will surely order one for them. Teardown by Isuppli pegged the cost to manufacture a Google Nexus One at 175 USD.
Its strange how company after company keeps ignoring India as a launch market for smartphones. First it was Apple with its delayed Iphone launches in India and now its Google. Even HTC waits a lot before bringing its obsolete world models into India it seems.