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
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