So im in the market for a new phone, and the nexus 4 is about half the price of a similar spec phone from anyone else. Is it going to fall to pieces? Are google making a loss on the phone and hoping to make up for it with all the apps I buy and google searches? I find it hard not to apply the old rule of if its too good to be true, then it probably is.
It is not cheap, just the profit is cut down in case of Google Play. LG itself will unfortunately sell it on markets without Google Play hardware store for the price above 500 euros, which will make it in my opinion impossible to sell.
Possibly because it's not 4g, possibly because of the fragile glass backing that will break if you drop it. Makes it easier to buy a new one then.
Because you can't buy it! Google's stock levels are woeful (it has been sold out on their site practically ever since launch in November). You can buy it from the networks (O2 in particular, but now on 3 but you'll have to pay a lot more - £399 rather than £279). There are a number of reasons why its cheap: - Google subsidy on Play store - No removable battery or micro SD card - No 4G Considering you can get a Samsung Galaxy S3 for £380, which is a better phone (better camera, removable battery, SD card etc) then the Nexus 4 is fairly redundant unless Google can improve stock levels.
None in stock anywhere make the product Irelivent. If google could even meet some of the demand it may push prices on the leading phone manufactures, as it is 02 and company are charging £100+ on the retail price as they know its sold out elsewhere.
Yes I knew about that. However, what is the point when it isn't a frequency that most of the world uses for LTE? It certainly isn't an LTE frequency in the UK and very likely won't be in the future.
But you'd need a 4G plan from EE, which is very expensive in this country! 4G really isn't ready for the UK yet IMO
Google are subsidizing the phone. I bought it on tuesday. 4-5 weeks delivery time but it turned up on thursday. Just waiting on my micro-sim from giffgaff.
It's 4G on the right networks, particularly those that support LTE AWS [Canada]. Being sold by Google directly you both bypass the middle-man carrier who needs to make a profit, in addition the phone itself is subsidized by Google.
Thanks for all the replies, very useful. If anyone is interested the 8gb version is currently sold out but if you click the 16gb icon below then you can order the 16gb version, delivery 6-7 weeks though. I hope santa gets to skip the queue!
Would just like to add that the glass on both the front and back of the N4 is gorilla glass.. so it shouldn't shatter.. ever.
6-7 weeks wait is a huge length of time. As for why its selling so cheap, google are selling it at cost or below cost once R&D and marketing is added in, in the hope that people buy stuff from its play store. The fact that not even apple makes money on content makes me worry about googles ideas. Wether its 4g in Canada or not is kinda Irelivent its one of the smallest smartphone markets. It's not supported in USA or eu market place the 2 biggest.
Google like Apple make money of what you buy through their stores and of course there are also the adverts Google deliver on the free apps, I think they will manage just fine. 4G is not that relevant yet in the UK particulalry when you can take advantage of DC-HSDPA and not pay over the odds for it, i mean blimey my handset is just the basic HSPA and gets me ~6Mb whiich is faster than some peoples home adsl, DC-HSDPA should be a tidy bump and plenty for a handset. Personally I'd rather pay a bit more and get a phone with more storage but its a good value handset.
Like others have said, I believe they are selling it at cost just to get android out on the market into peoples hands. They'll make their money from tracking data if they decide to sell it, the marketplace, and advertising in games and such. Apparently it has LTE built in, just not turned on by default, and the worst thing about the phone besides the glass on the back is no expandable memory. My friend just ordered one so I think I'll pick up his rooted galaxy nexus off him for dirt cheap. As for battery issues, rooting solves all, if not most problems, my friend's galaxy nexus can last up to 3 days even after being overclocked, meanwhile my stock nexus S has trouble lasting an entire day under heavier use.
Its has the LTE chip because the full fat version of the phone the LG Optimus G has LTE and you can't just pull it off the platform but the Nexus4 doesn't have all the supporting hardware for full specification LTE.
