David Pogue reviews Google’s Nexus One phone and doesn’t find it as groundbreaking as we are led to believe, especially regarding the new Google phone store.
I mean, it’s a great idea and all. It’s just that, well, apart from the iPhone, who really cares which carrier has a certain phone? In the list of complaints about American cellphone carriers sent to me by readers, that one is waaaaaay down the list.
Besides, the Google phone store doesn’t really do much to solve the problem. In this country, there are two competing network formats. There’s C.D.M.A. (used by Verizon and Sprint) and there’s G.S.M. (favored by AT&T and T-Mobile and most other countries).
The current Nexus One is a G.S.M. phone. So when you buy it online, you get the following vast menu of carriers: T-Mobile. (Or you can use AT&T, but you have to supply your own subscriber card, and you won’t get 3G Internet speed.)
Wow, that changes everything, doesn’t it?
Still, you have to agree that it’s in everyone’s best interests for the Google phone store to succeed. Here’s hoping it gets better.