Second dumping in as many months for the Nexus One shouldn’t be seen as a bad sign for Google’s phones.
If you are like me, you are drooling over the specs on the Sprint EVO 4G Android phone. It either meets or exceeds every spec of Google’s Nexus One and yet was scheduled to be sold at around the same price at about the same time on the same network, Sprint (S). The two phones are both made by HTC.
Well, Sprint just killed its Nexus One. The move isn’t unprecedented nor unexpected however. In fact, it makes perfect sense. From Gizmodo:
When Sprint’s Michelle Leff Mermelstein told us that the company wouldn’t be selling the Nexus One because of the “upcoming availability of the award-winning Evo 4G,” it didn’t change much for your average user. The Evo, like the Incredible, looks at least as enticing as the Nexus One, and even shares a lot of the same hardware. Where it diverges, Sprint says it’s a “more robust, full-featured device,” which, well, it is.
Verizon (VZ) killed their version of the Nexus One because it wouldn’t have much of a chance vs. the slightly better-specced and heavily marketed Incredible. Same story, the Nexus One had no chance.
Sprint has also been marketing the EVO heavily, as it should. It will be the face of Sprint for the coming months. Not only is it the first 4G WiMAX phone, it also functions as a WiMAX personal hotspot.
For a lot of people, the large screen, high speed Internet and personal hotspot functionality (as well as HDMI out) will make it the holy grail of smartphones.
Sure, some users don’t like the Sense UI that comes with HTC phones outside of the Nexus One. Those people now don’t have a CDMA option. Google still sells the Nexus One for Tmobile, AT&T and Vodafone in the UK.
In fact, those users could use their Nexus One as one of the eight devices that connect to the Internet through the EVO’s 4G.
