T-Mobile and 3 in talks to carry Nexus One in the UK

If you’re eyeing up Google’s Nexus One but don’t want to spend up to £450 on an unlocked one (see our guide for details on that) it looks like you’ll soon have quite a bit of choice when it comes to cheaper, network subsidised handsets in the UK.

Paid Content UK has done some digging and discovered that both 3 and T-Mobile are in talks to offer the handset to UK customers via Google’s online phone store.

The UK is a particularly mobile-savvy country and it is often the launch market of choice for manufacturers’ new handsets. So, there’s little surprise that Google’s in-demand handset will be offered by three of the five major UK networks. Vodafone, meanwhile, is already promoting its forthcoming Nexus One support via an FAQ on their site.

So, how about the rest of Europe? At present Google will only ship to addresses in the USA, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. While the company promises to add more countries in future there is no word on when this might be. We’ve already heard of people ordering the phone via friends in the UK, a good way of sidestepping Google’s shipping restrictions.

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However, there may be problems with doing this. One The Next Web reader told us that he tried ordering a Nexus One from the Netherlands (presumably shipped via a UK address). However, he ran into problems. “They cancelled the order and asked me to upload personal documents and CC statements. It will now take about 4 business days to get them verified.”

So, it looks like Google may be checking IP numbers of people ordering Nexus One phones to ensure that they’re in an officially supported country.

Europe as a continent is a highly developed mobile market and Google will know this. It can’t be long before Nexus One is opened up to more markets but it will be a frustrating wait.