Hasta La Gadget!

Google stopped selling its Nexus One phone through its online store last month but the device is not dead yet.

Google is now offering the Nexus One as an unlocked phone to developers for $530 so they can use it on any wireless carrier. To order the phone, users need to have an Android developer account, in which case they can just click on the “Development Phones” link from the account, says a blog post on the Android developer’s blog.

The Nexus One will replace the T-Mobile HTC G1 as the official developer phone for Android. The Nexus One is certainly more expensive than the unlocked G1, which was priced at $400. But the Nexus One is also a device that despite its short life as a consumer product, still has among the best hardware in smartphones today.

Google launched the HTC-designed Nexus One in January on the T-Mobile network. But the phone was sold only online and not through T-Mobile retail locations.

Less than six months later, Google gave up on selling the device to consumers citing the poor response to the web store. Instead, it promised to bring the Nexus One into retail stores nationwide. So far, Google has yet to deliver on that.  Google put the devices into retail stores of I wireless, a T-mobile affiliate, with about 250 stores mostly in the Midwest, but it hasn’t announced any retail partnerships beyond that.

For now, the Nexus One remains alive and continues to trickle out of the Googleplex. The device for developers will ship with Android 2.1 and upgrade to Android 2.2 Froyo on boot up.

See Also:

• Google Nexus One Leaves Customers Sour
• Nexus One Reaches Its End in Google Store
• 5 Lessons for Google From Nexus One’s Sluggish Start
• How Google Could Have Changed the World With Nexus One

Photo: (Juliette Culver/Flickr)

Well, it looks like the now slightly dated Google Ion finally has an official successor — Google has just announced that the Nexus One is its new developer phone. It apparently remains unchanged from the recently-axed consumer model, however, and Google notes that it will ship with Android 2.1 but receive Android 2.2 shortly after you turn it on. Got your developer credentials handy? Then you can log in and get your order in right now for $529.

Update: We just got a look at the specs on Google’s developer site and it looks like the Nexus One on offer is unfortunately T-Mobile only. Check out the tell-tale bands for yourself after the break.

Update 2: The specs mention that the device has “no root access” and that the bootloader is locked, but we’re taking this to mean it’s no different from any other Nexus One you’d buy. More ominously, though, it says that fastboot isn’t enabled, which leads us to wonder whether this is going to cause problems with bootloader unlocks in the field. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Thanks, Carson!

Continue reading Nexus One lives on as Google’s official developer phone

Nexus One lives on as Google’s official developer phone originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt is quite the quotable man — we hear he’s pretty chatty at coffee shops, too — and at the Techonomy conference, he hasn’t failed to disappoint. First, some cold hard data: according to Schmidt, about 200,000 new Android devices are being sold each day, which he claims is up from 100,000 daily sales about two months ago (and up from the 60,000 daily activations from April). That number is just one drip from a stream of good news for the platform this week, including 866 percent year-over-year growth and the top spot in NPD’s sales rankings. We’re fairly confident there’s a team of top mathematicians, statisticians, and engineers in Mountain View right now tasked with finding new and innovative ways to boast about Android’s success.

Speaking of Techonomy, Schmidt used some of his on-stage time to discuss the new concerns technology has engendered. “The technology of course is neutral but society is not fundamentally ready,” he said, claiming AI today could very likely use location-based services and predict where a person was going next, among other nightmares for privacy advocates. Schmidt opines that it’s up to the society on how the collected information is regulated while computers do what they do best — gather and recall information. We like think adorable kitten pictures falls nicely into that latter category, and that’s all we care about anyway.

Google’s Schmidt boasts 200K Android devices sold daily, waxes intellectual on society and technology originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not often that we know this freaking much about a major smartphone prior to its announcement — not to say that we’re complaining. Latest in the never-ending string of Droid 2 leaks is this handy little flyer, seemingly part of internal training for sales reps, pimping a variety of features like Android 2.2 out-of-the-box (something the original Droid is just now getting), the 8GB of on-board storage with another 8GB on an included microSD card, the Droid X-like UI skin, Swype, and — this is interesting — a claimed 40 percent gain in website loading time over its predecessor thanks to the 1GHz core. Of course, Froyo’s quite a bit faster than Eclair, so if they’re benchmarking a Froyo Droid 2 against an Eclair Droid, that could account for part of the performance improvement, too — not to say that we’re complaining. Hit the gallery below for a larger version of the page.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Droid 2 flyer confirms Froyo (again), promises 40 percent boost in website load times originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When you keynote one of the biggest consumer electronics trade shows of the year, it’s usually a Big Deal — and you’re also plainly aware that when you step up on that stage, your audience (read: us) is fully expecting you to unveil something new and awesome. On that note, we’re intrigued to hear that Verizon Communications’ Ivan Seidenberg has been selected to do the honors for the opening address at CES 2011 next January. The press release — which you can find after the break — says that Seidenberg will “highlight [the] company’s vision for its LTE 4G wireless technology,” so we’d expect those LTE handsets expected early next year to factor prominently into the equation; of course, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a tablet or two, either. In the wake of Ballmer’s milquetoast showing at the 2010 show, the pressure’s definitely on to deliver a rousing address. Oh, and Ivan? If Ralph de la Vega says “break a leg,” he might mean it quite literally, so watch your step.

Continue reading Verizon chief tapped for CES 2011 keynote

Verizon chief tapped for CES 2011 keynote originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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