Google’s plans to take on the iPhone are running into problems in Europe as several mobile phone companies plan to sell a cheaper version within weeks of the Internet giant’s Nexus One device going on sale.
Even Vodafone, which Google has signed up to provide network access for the Nexus One, is expected to sell the cheaper device online and through its own stores.
The rival device, codenamed the Bravo, is made by Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC (宏達電), which also makes the Nexus One.
PHOTO: AFP
SIMILARITIES
Both mobile phones have the latest version of Google’s Android mobile phone software installed. Both have large color touchscreens, 5-megapixel cameras and include a microprocessor that is faster than the one found in the iPhone.
However, the Bravo costs, mobile industry sources said, about US$100 less than the Nexus One. The mobile phone companies will also have more control over how their customers buy the Bravo than the Nexus One.
The Nexus has also run into problems in the US, where Google has been criticized for poor after-sale services.
Because the search company has no customer service infrastructure, people with problems with their phone have had to rely on e-mailing Google and have often had to wait days for a reply.
ONLINE SALES
Another difficulty has been Google’s insistence that the Nexus can only be sold online, which has led to sluggish sales of an estimated 80,000 in the US since it launched a month ago.
That compares with the 600,000 iPhones that were shipped in its first month and more than half a million Motorola Droid devices.
The Bravo will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona next week.
The networks will be able to sell the Bravo through their own stores and online, instead of being hamstrung by Google’s ambitions to become a sort of one-stop mobile phone shop.
O2 and Vodafone are very interested in the Bravo, with T-Mobile and Orange also understood to be looking at it. It could arrive in the UK within weeks of the Nexus One going on sale.
CONTRACTS
The Nexus One went on sale in the US last month and will arrive in the UK next month. While it can be bought without a mobile contract, UK customers will also have the option of signing up to a long-term contract with Vodafone, which will enable them to get the device for free.
The contracts are expected to cost about the same as Vodafone charges for the iPhone, which it started selling last month.
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