India will soon get its hand on the Nexus One but interestingly enough, it won’t be the same Nexus One shipped to US customers but rather a stripped down version of the original device.
This news was tweeted out by Ankit, a CNBC TV18 Reporter who had a meeting with Google India head Shailesh Rao.
“Nexus One will not come to India in its US avatar, the India specific Google Phone may be a stripped down version and priced lower!”
Being an editorial meeting, there is no other news regarding its release date or price. The omitted features compared to the actual Nexus One will decide its fate in India.
Surely, Google won’t make the same mistake Apple made by introducing the worldwide version of the device which was both expensive and reliant on 3G, despite the low 3G penetration in India. Instead, its pretty clear that Google will concentrate more on competing with the present smart phone market dominated by Nokia and Blackberry.
The slow pace of the sales of Android phones in India might not be great news to Google, but a phone minus some features and a lower price might just do the trick.With the 3G spectrum auction expected to start by April 2010, Google might just be onto a winner by introducing its Google maps navigation system just in time for the announcement. India might finally have a GPS device that actually works.
What about the iPhone you ask? Despite the long wait, there is still no news from Apple as to when it might launch the 3GS in India. And with 3G’s still being sold at the same steep price tag, India clearly doesn’t appear to be Apple’s kind of market.
via Labnol.org
Still waiting for the german version to come :( god damn tax laws…
This is all marketing strategy and filled with profit incentive. Are they going to produce some in India. If they are, they are just looking for cheaper labor that is it.
That's a bad idea.On that case change the name to something else.
I have been using the Nexus and the HTC Tattoo to compare the performance.From the user perspective I don't see any advantages on the Nexus.I have more battery on the Tattoo and can operate the device with one hand.
Google is just doing this because they don't understand the mobile phone market….They should release they're phones on the most tech savvy markets like the Sweden, France, Japan, UK and Portugal….where they have state of the art networks…releasing a phone like this in India, means they are just looking from a sales perspective….and that is going to be a fiasco…like Apple they are getting too greedy….it's bad because I like them..
excuse me, but ur comment that india will finally get a GPS device that actually works is way off the mark!!! im using a HTC tytn 2 with inbuilt GPS and SATNAV software thats really about 70% accurate even in non-metros..infact i rate googlemaps really bad as a navigation software…just teling someone where their own location is, is no big deal…the idea is to get someone from point A to B..and SATNAV really great as a 3rd parrty AFFORDABLE software + hardware solution…a google nexus is not gonna add anything to the GPS market here…
Apple sent the “worldwide version” to India???? It doesn't rely on 3G – EDGE is fine for most applications.
I had to buy a 3Gs from Hong Kong because Apple believe in dumping their old technology in India – a place with a LOT of rich people (a lot of people overall sends the rich numbers through the roof) who'd buy the old version at a similar price because they can. Incidentally, I paid the equivalent of 33K for the 16GB 3Gs while the 8GB 3G sells here for 30K.
If Google starts doing this I'm going to be well beyond disappointed… an “alternate” (N1s?) version could be done which is scaled down, but at least give people the choice!
India needs to implement their (apparently existent) anti dumping laws.
I've never had a problem with Google Maps (even on our good old EDGE network which in the wilderness, sometimes drops down to just GPRS). I had it installed on my TYTN II (WinMo) and my Dev1 (Android) and it worked just fine. Routing works well on my Dev1 (I lost the TYTN II, so haven't seen the latest and greatest they have to offer) and of course, it's free :).
What Google Maps doesn't have is traffic and street view info for India – and I'd cut them some slack on that one.
Antonio, from the sales perspective, I think releasing BOTH versions here (in India) would be the smart thing to do… from the tech perspective, we don't have 3G yet, but there are probably lots more people at the same level of “tech savvy” in India than there are people in the countries you've named :-)
Its true, we have many GPS devices in our Indian market right now. But as far as my experience they aren't that accurate everywhere. Amazing you got them that accurate. Traffic updates and many features are still missing.
Smartphones are emerging to become 'the-only-one-device-for-all'. In that context a smartphone including a good GPS App would be perfect addition.
I am vouching for HTC Desire to lead the market actually. It would be much better and affordable.
I am not sure how many people would want to buy a stripped down version. For me it has to have Wi-Fi and 3G is nice to have (considering the 3G connectivity is still in pipeline – 1 year maybe)
Yup always a wise decision to get the latest device rather than opting for a older version of the same device.
The EDGE is not at all fine, really. It drops down to GPRS any moment and GPRS for many Apps sucks. Anyways, we getting good 3G offers lately and 3G being promoted quite good in India slowly. Lets hope a few more months and we get what we want :)
I hope the most important features are not blacked out. We need Wi-Fi and 3G for sure.
Maybe both versions be released.
Shouldn't the same models be available everywhere? Why they won't just make a Nexus One Basic, Nexus One Premium and Nexus One Ultimate, that would be available in every country, and every citizen would get whatever they can afford and need. I don't think that Google is the one to decide what features will end up in someone's pocket, based on the country.