Nexus One hitting France at €450 contract-free?
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 5th 2010 9:53AM
posted January 5th 2010 9:53AM
Maybe you, like us, are a little disappointed at how the Nexus One fared in our review. It may not be the ground-breaker we'd all hoped for, but it's still a mighty important handset, and while we're expecting to know the full details for its American release later today it seems someone may have tipped their hat on European availability details a little early. According to Le Point, the phone will be available in France and elsewhere in Europe within the next "several weeks," with prices at €450 for a contract-free device. However, if you don't mind signing two years of your wireless independence away to Vodafone that price is said to drop to €200. Again, we're still waiting to learn about pricing here in the States, but we'd expect a similar ratio here.
[Thanks, Lopez]
2 year contract and they still want €200! Fuck that
@Cheese It With 2 years Sim Only you certainly save over 250 bucks I recon.... So I concur!
@Cheese It
BTW This is close to the $530 + $156 with an EUR/USD at about 1,50 (which we all know, the longer you wait will only increase...)
http://www.androidcentral.com/outside-us-nexus-one-really-gonna-cost-you
@Cheese It
agreed. i paid £0 for my magic on voda on a 12 month contract with 6 months half price!
they're crazy if they think people are going to pay that much...
@Cheese It
But the price of the phone on contract varies according to which plan you have, doesn't it? (It might be that it's 200€ on the cheapest monthly plan, but it could be much less if you have a 50€ a month plan...)
At least I hope it stays that way in Europe and they don't start forcing those stupid "smartphone plans" which seem to be the norm in the US.
@Endadget
O2 already do smartphone plans for the iPhone and Palm Pre
@Cheese It Selling it in France w/o Arabic support? That's not going to fly well, no matter what's the price....
Just wondering..
We know its not multi touch, but does it have a capacitive screen?
eg; Its got the hardware.. just not the software?
@geekthree I really hate how engadget is spreading how its not multi touch. Just because none of the stock apps have multitouch doesnt mean you have to hack you phone to enable it. There are plenty of apps in the market that have multi touch, but what good are they on a phone with supposedly no multi touch?
@geekthree
Yes, it's a capacitive screen, and yes, it's just the software, I assume the hardware supports it. (Same counts for the Droid, just look at the Milestone)
@geekthree
yes, it does multi-touch, meaning games will have it. and the comment (in da review) abt games being lame is just non-sense.
@varish But will it have multitouch, like the Milestone, for the stock apps in outside the US? (I think I read that the Droid / Milestone does...)
@chrisrooke yup milestone has, although for the droid it turns out that the multitouch feature came out late. Now as for the nexus phone, review says it doesn't have a multi-touch. Your best bet? It will have in the future (an android phone with a capability like that could be rooted to have that multitouch feat.) As for the price, hmm - if you'll convert 450 euros, it just about the same with 530 USD unlocked proposed price in US. Although, you got to admit the flow of Nexus onto non-usa countries is quite fast - remember it took almost 6 weeks before droid milestone reaches UK.
Hopefully N1 phone will be soon available to Asia too (it'll be a dream come true for asians to have a real highend android smartphone there)
Nexus One reactions to ordering and pricing: http://bit.ly/nexus-one-price-too-much-or-not-details
@geekthree Yeah, it's capacitive. Same scenario as the Droid is preventing it from having multitouch implemented, I think.
btw, you can tell it's capacitive by the way that the screen _responds_ to input. Unlike resistive which must be hit with a mallet to register.
@mychemicalgadget
You're bad at math.
450 Euros, at the current 1.44 exchange rate, is $648 American dollars.
So what does this mean for a US Release?
@Steven probably $450 contract free
i like cheese
@audi2009 Cheese is a kind of meat
A tasty yellow beef
I milk it from my teat
But I try to be discreet
Ooh cheese, ooh cheese
@dzeRnumbrd HAHA, Get ready for some Tommy magic! Here comes the wisdom!
It's just a damn phone.
I don't know, I felt like the review was a bit unprofessional. anyways, what time is the press event? (GMT)
@varish
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=1241
@varish I believe it's in about 2 hours 15 mins time. 10am PST. (or "way-past-my-bed-time" China Time)
@MXY23 thanks :)
That's a joke right? Android is not selling at all in France allready and they will kill this device with a price over estimated... That's not a way to launch a self announced 'iPhone-killer'.
@Tchiort
Where have you seen any non-fanboy call it an iPhone killer??
@iDavey
where have you seen that I was speaking about this device's fanboys? Face the truce, every device which is highly expected is referenced as an "iPhone-killer", and that's normal.
@Tchiort Damn Google should just has talked to you..
I'm only familiar with Android prices in Scandinavia and €450 is a pretty normal price for an unlocked phone, I assume it's the same case in France. But just because they choose to sell it unlocked, it doesn't mean we won't see Nexus on a contract.
And just because it's not the *iPhone* they don't have to kill it.
Competition is good..
@Tchiort
Yet I'm still asking. Where has it been said that it is?
It seems YOU just want it to be one, and it's not.
I'm pretty sure mostly everyone has said there's not such thing as an iPhone killer...except for the next iPhone.
You don't have to kill anything to be successful.
Not to mention...they don't have a one trick pony. They can have many ways to seemingly "kill" something or someone.
This is just one of them. For the GSM folks who want Droid power but with a little beauty and subtlety...
@Tchiort android is not selling in France because we don't have many android devices... yet
@Tchiort
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=ufY&q=nexus+one+iphone+killer&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g1
There's a couple hundred thousand results for 'nexus one iphone killer'.
You're on the internet while you're posting that comment, is it really that difficult to do a quick Google search yourself before you beat someone up for making a claim that thousands of people have already made?
Try doing some research before you let stupidity pour from your brain.
@kitsune
seriously, I tried to reply 3 times, it didn't go trough.
Guys did you read what I said? I don't think so. I never said that android sucked or that the device sucky. I think that the career's with contract price for that device is not appropriate: even the iPhone 3gs 16go is currently at 99e. I like android a lot and that device too.
The android lack of emthousiasme in France has nothing to do with the small number of android device, we have a lot of them. It is linked to the careers' lack of promotion, especially SFR with the magic, and the fact that people buy wath's "tendance".
To finish, I didn't say that this device had to be an "iPhone-killer" I said that it was often cnsidered like that and that the iPhone is a repere, that's why. I don't care if it is a better device or not, that the way medias act that's all.
"Again, we're still waiting to learn about pricing here in the States, but we'd expect a similar ratio here."
450:200 is not the same as 530:180. For what its worth, at the current exchange rate, the France deal comes out as $649 or $288.
@billrusso Presumably this is a similar situation to the one we have in the UK. The price there will be quoted including sales tax, the US one won't include it.
@Karnak Things are always more expensive converting from pounds or euros back to dollars. Its not so much the absolute cost that is interesting, but the relative cost between unlocked and contract. In the US the ratio is just under 3:1. These France numbers are 2.25. With the SIM-only plans in the UK (I've got mine with 3), I'd certainly be more interested in a lower gap between subsidized and unlocked.
@billrusso 450 € = 376 € + VAT = $543
All American blog foget that prices in Europe have VAT added
@billrusso Fair point about the difference. The contract price is an interesting one to ponder.
The only thing we were disappointed with was the quality of Josh's review, not the outcome of the review.
@dzeRnumbrd
True, true... He was like taking down the phone even before it was released...
I don't quite understand why everyone is disappointed when a new phone isn't earth shattering. IMHO, there has never been a truly ground breaking phone, other than perhaps the very first Motorola DynaTAC.
If you look at the evolution of the Treo line, Blackberry line, and even the iPhone line, it's a series of small improvements. This is generally how engineering works.
Sure, once in a while we get something quite revolutionary, but when you dig below the surface, you soon discover that it was simply the combination of existing technologies that were brought together and packaged for mass consumption, e.g. the original Macintosh (GUI, mouse).
@Spiny Norman
+100
you mean "vive la revolution"
200$ after 2year contract... bullshit.. here (the Netherlands) you pay for an hd2 (520 euro's) or n900 (540 euros) contract free. 1 year contract + data contract (35 euro's a monts, limitless i.net) 110 euros HD2 or 140 euro's Nokia n900, on a 2 year plan they're both free (simlock free)
Source www.gsmweb.nl (these are normal prices in the Netherlands)
So this phone will be free with a one year contract or less than 100 euro's.
Anyone have a suggestion on whether to get a Droid or wait for a CDMA version of this or something similar?
HTC HD2
@Esat Dedezade
+1
Just to add some actually useful information to this discussion, after having used the HTC HD 2 for 2 weeks and looking at the Nexus video I can honestly say that I prefer the HTC sense and win mo experience over what I've seen of the nexus. The HTC Sense just blows the android homescreen out of the water, coupled with the huge screen and near infinite customization of Win Mo I'd say hold out for a HD 2 if you're torn between the two. Just for the record, this is my first experience with Windows Mobile ever, and I own an ipod touch so I have a pretty good idea regarding the iphone user experience.
Note however that there are also some problems with the HD2 in terms of SMSs not sending which is the main one (and a terrible one consdiering the calibre and expense of the phone). Hopefully HTC will sort this out before it comes to the states.
Motorola F3 rules.
Will a Live - Stream of this event exist ?