You can have iPhone 4S, I'll take Galaxy Nexus
During the last six months, I've had the privilege to use three exceptional smartphones: iPhone 4S and two Galaxy Nexus variants -- one LTE and the other HSPA+. You can't go wrong buying either Android or iOS handset, although Galaxy Nexus supports more carrier networks here in the United States. Differences that matter are more than hardware (such as size, appearance or battery life) or software (apps and operating systems). Taking Galaxy Nexus or iPhone 4S is much more. Either is a digital lifestyle choice that many buyers won't grok before paying their hard-earned cash.
I can't emphasize this aspect strongly enough. In the days before Android and iPhone, early smartphone buyers also made digital lifestyle choices, such as BlackBerry users and persistent email or Windows Mobile buyers wanting mobile Office. But today, with differentiated, connected cloud services, digital lifestyle matters more than ever, and both handsets offer similar yet drastically different experiences. You're not just buying a phone but a way of life.
Google Galaxy Nexus first-impressions review
Two days ago, May 4, I received the Samsung Galaxy Nexus -- the 16GB HSPA+ model Google started selling direct last week. I'm not alone. Many of you ordered this phone, too. This first-impressions post extends my December review of the 32GB Verizon LTE model.
I will say straight up that out-of-box experience on AT&T is nowhere as good as Verizon. Network is huge factor. Audio quality is crisp and clear on Verizon compared to occasional hissy-fits on AT&T. Data speed isn't comparable, so far -- that's round and about San Diego and communities East and South, La Mesa and Lemon Grove, respectively. I expected at least 10Mbps HSPA+ data speed, based on my wife's Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (before AT&T turned on LTE service here). I've yet to top 3.5Mbps on AT&T HSPA+ compared to an average 20Mbps over Verizon LTE. If data throughput is a priority, Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ -- over AT&T anyway -- is not for you. However, if you want a GSM network phone that is unlocked and contract-free and offers the best of Android, Google Galaxy Nexus is an exceptionally good choice. But expect to make a few compromises.
Who will buy Galaxy Nexus from Google?
While we wait for Samsung to unveil its new smartphone in a few hours, for your waiting pleasure I've got answers to the question posed last week: "Would you pay Google $399 for unlocked, HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus?" The search and information giant ended April with a May flower: Direct sales of its flagship, Android 4.0 smartphone, presumably because AT&T and T-Mobile aren't doing so.
Google's got a good thing going here for Android enthusiasts, but I've got a problem with the direct sales thing. What Apple offers that its rival can't: Service. People buying iPhone can get defective replacement at local Apple stores. They also can purchase, granted for an extra 99 bucks, AppleCare+, which extends the basic warranty and provides discounted replacements. If you drop and break iPhone 4S, Apple will replace it for $49, up to two times. What's Google going to do for you, if Galaxy Nexus goes bust or you bust it up?
Google has lost control of Android
There was great news on the Android front this week. Samsung reported blow-out earnings, with smartphones -- the majority running Android -- accounting for nearly three-quarters of profits. Meanwhile comScore data spotlights the growing US Android tablet market. Additionally, Google started selling Galaxy Nexus direct, with no carrier contract, for $399. But all three share something in common -- what they foreshadow. Google has lost control of Android, and must swiftly act to regain it.
Forrester Research predicts that proprietary Android will surpass the Google Android ecosystem by 2015. Stated differently, Google's open-source mobile platform risks fracturing into multiple fatally fragmented Android ecosystems. Not one but many. There is little time for Google to demonstrate decisive leadership that can keep the ecosystem largely intact.
Would you pay Google $399 for unlocked, HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus?
Google has surreptitiously answered whether AT&T or T-Mobile would carry Galaxy Nexus, which is available from Sprint and Verizon here in the United States: No. Otherwise, why would Google sell the smartphone direct, which it started doing yesterday. It's a helluva price, too -- $399, unlocked, with no contractual commitment.
This is the HSPA+ model released internationally in November 2011. That means no LTE and only 16GB storage, rather than 32GB -- and it's not expandable. The phone sold for $729 or more from Amazon and handset resellers just a few months ago. Amazon lists the 16GB model for $438 today. But, hey, $399 is better. But is it low enough for you? You can get 64GB iPhone 4S from AT&T for same price -- granted locked, with 2-year contractual commitment. Both handsets are HSPA+, though, and AppleCare+, which offers cheap replacement for broken phones, is an extra $99. So I ask: Would you -- or will you -- buy Galaxy Nexus direct from Google?
Stop comparing unlike objects. RIGHT. NOW.
Discussion Point. Joe Wilcox asked me to write an article comparing the Nokia Lumia 900 to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I refused. Here is why. Read Joe's response.
Anyone who knows about marketing should readily understand market segmentation: it is a way of isolating customers/users/consumers by type. It could be geographically, it could be demographically, it could be psychographically, or it could be through some other defining characteristic.
iPhone 4S sure is a slowpoke
The question I have: Why doesn't it matter?
Over the weekend, iPhone 4S and I spent some quality time together. My interest: How does the user experience compare to Galaxy Nexus? There certainly are differences, but the most startling, at least in San Diego, Calif., is data speed. Verizon's LTE network kicks ass, while AT&T's HSPA+ -- on iPhone 4S -- does not. Hey, why walk 30 miles to work when you can drive there?
25 resolutions Google should make for 2012 [Galaxy Nexus contest winner]
Finally, after a two-day delay, we have a winner for a shiny, new Galaxy Nexus smartphone. We asked you to offer 2012 New Year's resolutions for Google -- and you did, and some too late to qualify (you missed the deadline, sorry). Among the many on-time submissions, we chose 25 resolutions that Google should consider for the year ahead.
The resolutions aren't as broad as we expected and perhaps the prize is reason. More of you offered suggestions about Android than anything else. In the list below, some submitters appear more than one time, but they were only considered once in the prize drawing. We randomly chose from among all submitters meeting the deadline. In the interest of time -- and preparation for next week's Consumer Electronics Show -- we didn't check to see if all submitters met the other qualifications. We qualified the winner only and would have drawn another name had he failed to meet them (The two absolutely required with the resolution submission: Tweet the post and follow BetaNews on Twitter).
Whoa, Galaxy Nexus is coming to Sprint
That's the gist of an advertisement running at CNET right now. It's the "first 4G LTE phone from Sprint", according to the banner advert, on the carrier's, ah, coming-sometime-really-soon LTE network. I dunno if the ad spills a pending CES 2012 announcement or what. But leaks don't get much funnier than this.
On the other hand, Sprint held a little event late this afternoon announcing big, splashy LTE network deployment. I suppose the carrier could offer Galaxy Nexus with LTE capability ahead of the bigger pipes. But the handsome smartphone may look a little old in the tooth when quad-core beauties start selling around the time Sprint offers LTE.
AT&T lights up 4G LTE service in 11 more cities and mine is one of them
AT&T LTE is now available in San Diego, which means I'll soon conduct speed test comparisons around the city against Verizon's 4G network. It will be the Wilcox household network speed test face-off, the wife's Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket against my Galaxy Nexus.
San Diego joins 10 other cities, which LTE service AT&T announced today. They are: Austin, Texas; Chapel Hill, N.C.; New York City metro area; Los Angeles; Oakland; Orlando, Phoenix; Raleigh, N.C.; San Diego; San Francisco; and San Jose. They join 15 others: Athens, Ga.; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, DC. AT&T claims its LTE network reaches 74 million people; Verizon, 200 million.
Make a New Year's resolution, win Galaxy Nexus
BetaNews reader-appreciation week continues with a third contest. We'd like to give one lucky reader the Google-branded, Samsung-manufactured Galaxy Nexus. But you'll have to work for it, by, first, offering New Year's resolutions that Google should make in 2012. We're giving away a Google phone after all.
Earlier today, Colleague Ed Oslwald offered resolutions for Apple, and I'm working on my annual list for Microsoft. Google will come from you, and we ask that you make serious resolutions -- things that could improve the core business, Google products and services and relationship to customers, among others. This is your chance to tell Google execs what you want from the company this year and possibly win Galaxy Nexus in the process.
Galaxy Nexus shames iPhone 4S Siri
So much for Apple's voice command/response technology Siri.
Among this year's holiday presents, our family received a gift card for Italian eatery Buca di Beppo, which my daughter gladly used to go out to dinner with a friend. So last night, they're ready to drive but no one knows to where. She pulls out her iPhone 4S and speaks "directions to Buca di Beppo", which Siri can't understand and repeatedly gives meaningless results when she tries again.
The best two tech ads this holiday are from Apple and Google
Unsurprisingly, they promote smartphones -- iPhone 4S and Google Nexus.
Yeah, I know, this is a bit fluffy stuff, but I'm flu-stricken today and barely able to sit up to type. Besides, these are both really great ads that stand out for creativity and how well they demonstrate product benefits. Good marketing is often about great storytelling and, with smartphones like these, communicating a single benefit watchers will remember. You'll remember both these commercials, surely.
Verizon Galaxy Nexus first impressions review
This is the droid you've been looking for.
There's saying "three times is a charm" and proven axiom about one of Google's biggest rivals: Microsoft gets products right the third time. Galaxy Nexus, running Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich), is the third Google phone, following the Nexus One (January 2010) and Nexus S (December 2010). If you're an Android user looking for something much better or iOS user/wannabe disappointed there is no iPhone 5 LTE, Galaxy Nexus is for you. Verizon released the long-anticipated US 4G LTE model on December 15. Galaxy Nexus is fast, furious and fun. If not for the 5-megapixel camera, which delivers better photos than I expected, the Android smartphone would be perfect, and it's certainly leaps and bounds above every other handset currently available in the United States.
Google Galaxy Nexus is finally here, will you buy?
It's the question I'm asking myself, so I pose it you. After countless launch day rumors, Verizon Wireless is finally offering the Google-branded Galaxy Nexus, the first Ice Cream Sandwich Android, to us poor dodos here in the United States. Seemingly everybody else in the world got it first, like Samsung Galaxy S II before it.
Related is another question: Will you pay more now or pay less and wait? Verizon has Galaxy Nexus available right now for $299.99 -- a penny more than the comparable iPhone 4S, which is HSPA and not 4G LTE; you can walk into a store and get Galaxy Nexus into your greedy grubby hands right away. Fry's Electonics will sell you the smartphone for $219.99 online, with a 2-to-3 day wait, which just might make Christmas; I assume it's in stores today, for West Coasters seeking immediate gratification. AmazonWireless has the best price I've seen so far, $199 -- and that's with no tax. I went through the ordering process, but didn't buy, and got December 29 delivery date -- that's no Christmas for you, bud. Better pricing means waiting longer, and Verizon made you wait so long already.