So are all phone prices gonna tumble now?

McPhee · 30 Oct 2012 at 17:34

Glaucus said:
But Microsoft have confirmed they will be making more devices. My bet is on the next being a phone.

Based on the Surface, I think Microsoft are hedging their bets. They like the status quo - they make a lot of money from OEM licensing. However, they don't want to be caught out should the OEM market break down, so they're working to improve their services offering and have started doing their own hardware. Surface is a back-up plan - they can match Google and Amazon penny for penny if they need to. Likewise, stuff like Bing, Xbox, Xbox Music, Office 365 are all there to guarantee future revenue should the OEM market collapse - they'll be falling back on Services and Office licensing to fund aggressive pricing on Surface devices.

Apple are in a similar selection to Microsoft, except further along. If they needed to, they could already flog hardware at cost and fall back on iTunes. Problem is, they have no incentive to do so as their products sell well and they make a lot of money off hardware sales. They'll join the price war if they have no choice.

wellibob · 30 Oct 2012 at 17:45

Decent phone at a proper price. The rest are ripping us off. Well done Google

Macky · 30 Oct 2012 at 17:56

wellibob said:
Decent phone at a proper price. The rest are ripping us off. Well done Google

Not strictly true. Google are just encouraging you to use the cloud as this will be where they can make large profits. As said by others, I'd be surprised if Google made much profit on the actual hardware of this phone as the specs are top notch.

Other manufacturers IE Samsung make their profits on their hardware as that's what they do best. Google's pricing is just very clever marketing if you ask me. No I'm not complaining though! Google has always been about the software.

Tudders · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:00

If it turns out as good as the specs would have you believe then bye bye S3, i'll miss the extra storage but i can work around that.

MikeHunt79 · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:08

wellibob said:
Decent phone at a proper price. The rest are ripping us off. Well done Google

It does seem like a good phone for the money, I guess Google must still sell these at a profit, but most likely a smaller profit per handset.

I've been keeping an eye out for a 2nd hand iP4, but the fact I can get a new phone with warranty for the same price as a 2nd hand phone is pretty tempting.

MarcLister · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:09

So for the cost of a Nexus 4 16GB (£279) and a new iPod Classic 160GB (£200) you could buy the HTC One X + sim free! :eek:

Hmm I have a decision to make here. The Nexus 4 offers a 1280x768 resolution whilst the One X + 1280x720. But the Nexus 4 won't come with HTC's Sense!

Guess I'll just wait for reviews of the One X + and the Nexus 4 and hope the HTC device utterly blows the Nexus 4 out of the water. If it doesn't, then just for the sheer low cost, I'll get a Nexus 4.

Would be nice if Mr Google gave us a 32GB, or even 64GB, option (

) but I can either get myself an OTG cable and a USB pen drive (or two!) or just get a new iPod.

Oh and is it me or does the Google Play page for the Nexus 4 not mention that the phone comes with a charging mat? It seems to be that the charging mat is extra. When I clicked on the "Learn more" link all I got was "http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/4/index.html" loading up. I wonder how much that will cost.

Sarngate · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:19

_Jimlad_ said:
paid that off ages ago.

im on a 12month sim only

vodafone
600mins
1.5 gig data
unlimited

£10.80 per month

How did you manage to get such a cheap deal ?? :eek:

Sarngate · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:20

MarcLister said:
So for the cost of a Nexus 4 16GB (£279) and a new iPod Classic 160GB (£200) you could buy the HTC One X + sim free!

Hmm I have a decision to make here. The Nexus 4 offers a 1280x768 resolution whilst the One X + 1280x720. But the Nexus 4 won't come with HTC's Sense!

Guess I'll just wait for reviews of the One X + and the Nexus 4 and hope the HTC device utterly blows the Nexus 4 out of the water. If it doesn't, then just for the sheer low cost, I'll get a Nexus 4.

Would be nice if Mr Google gave us a 32GB, or even 64GB, option () but I can either get myself an OTG cable and a USB pen drive (or two!) or just get a new iPod.

Oh and is it me or does the Google Play page for the Nexus 4 not mention that the phone comes with a charging mat? It seems to be that the charging mat is extra. When I clicked on the "Learn more" link all I got was "http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/4/index.html" loading up. I wonder how much that will cost.

HTC's multitasking system with Sense is terrible compared to the default Android multitasking.

Nexus18 · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:23

MarcLister said:
Guess I'll just wait for reviews of the One X + and the Nexus 4 and hope the HTC device utterly blows the Nexus 4 out of the water. If it doesn't, then just for the sheer low cost, I'll get a Nexus 4.

The X+ is pretty much the same as the X except storage and battery thus the only areas where the X+ will be better is:

storage
screen quality in terms of colours and perhaps view ability in sunshine (need to see more reviews first though)
design/looks (subjective)
sense (subjective)

Pretty much everything else will be better on the N4.

4T5 · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:23

I'm still running my old Desire so this looks very tempting to me. :cool:

Nexus18 · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:26

Sarngate said:
HTC's multitasking system with Sense is terrible compared to the default Android multitasking.

It isn't bad once you disable apps, which aren't needed. I have no problems with MT on my S apart from when I switch from a game to the browser and the tabs will reload.

Zefan · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:33

What a breath of fresh air this is.

KIA · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:46

Sarngate said:
How did you manage to get such a cheap deal ??

I'm wondering the same.

sarge78 · 30 Oct 2012 at 18:52

simulatorman said:
He's looked into the crystal ball again.

No crystal ball required this time.

Adreno 320 is benching more than twice as fast (don't forget openGL ES 3 support and that new binning/direct render mode when Qualcomm update the drivers) and you get four Krait v2 cores.
OK, single threaded performance is still king but theoretically your doubling compute power

Ps,
I'm more than happy with the standard dual core S4, great performance and power consumption. I'm just glad Google are using a modern chip :cool:

MarcLister · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:22

Sarngate said:
HTC's multitasking system with Sense is terrible compared to the default Android multitasking.

Ah, right.

Nexus18 said:
The X+ is pretty much the same as the X except storage and battery thus the only areas where the X+ will be better is:

storage
screen quality in terms of colours and perhaps view ability in sunshine (need to see more reviews first though)
design/looks (subjective)
sense (subjective)

Pretty much everything else will be better on the N4.

Yeah. It was the doubling of the onboard storage that drew me to the One X+ and not the One X. But as you say, where the X+ is better isn't really winning many points for the X+. I quite like the look of the Nexus 4. The only reason I want lots of storage on my phone is to see if I can get rid of my iPod and use my phone as my music player but I can either use an OTG cable and some USB pendrives to carry my music round or, as I said before, get a Nexus 4 AND a 160GB iPod Classic for the price of a sim free X+.

How important is the 2GB of RAM on the Nexus 4 going to be over other current Android phones having 'just' 1GB? Is the only benefit going to be that the Nexus 4 could run more apps concurrently without slowdown as apps get loaded in and out of RAM?

Oh and do you have anything to declare bias wise with the Nexus gadgets? You know, considering your username!

Snax · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:23

Glaucus said:
Funny?
What saying that it is a better phone for a very good price, but not unexpected. How is that funny?

If you read what I said, it isn't much higher speced for same cost. It's one revision up on each component basically. It's outstanding value, but I disagree with OP that it will drive down top end phone prices. I also said they've done this, as this is really the first time ever they've had competion at that price point. I also said its good for everyone as it should increase cheap phone specs. But then I think some off you just read what you want, rather than what I've written.

And taht I can't see top end prices tumbling as there are so many new features to add, even though basic phone specs have pretty much hit a wall.

And if you look at his list I said pretty much everything on that list and include a other things as well.

I think the bit that is being overlooked is that Google (a hugely popular and fashionable company) are saying "here is our top of the range phone, our best efforts. It is awesome and only £240".

Even if you accept that you get great performance and value from the mid range phones, they are sold as compromises. Google selling their top range phone at a budget price whoops all others because though their competing phones may be close, they are all sold as compromises. Buyers will be attracted to top of the range over mid tier.

Zefan · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:25

Gotta say looking at how much S3s are selling for this is mighty tempting to swap.

kona786 · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:10

Nexus18 said:
It isn't bad once you disable apps, which aren't needed. I have no problems with MT on my S apart from when I switch from a game to the browser and the tabs will reload.

I think he meant HTC's task switcher - IMO it sucks compared to the stock Android method.

SKILL · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:17

I'm wondering if this will push more manufacturers into releasing stock android, essentially you could break down the cost of a new phone into:
Hardware
Manufacturing
Linux/Android Porting (SoC cost/bsp will cover most of this, depends on the rest of the hardware selection)
Software Extras (e.g. Touchwiz, Sense, etc)

As mentioned generally speaking when you buy an SoC you'd pick one that has an Android port available for it, albeit for an EVM, and then assuming the hardware is similar enough the effort of porting that over to the custom board is relatively small. But the cost of adding all the fluff that nobody really likes anyway is quite a large cost.

So to even come close to matching the price of the Nexus 4 (and I believe Google will be making a profit on this btw) one big cost they could cut is adding the overlays and fluff on top...

McPhee · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:24

Snax said:
I think the bit that is being overlooked is that Google (a hugely popular and fashionable company) are saying "here is our top of the range phone, our best efforts. It is awesome and only £240".

Even if you accept that you get great performance and value from the mid range phones, they are sold as compromises. Google selling their top range phone at a budget price whoops all others because though their competing phones may be close, they are all sold as compromises. Buyers will be attracted to top of the range over mid tier.

Google are hugely popular and fashionable? I'm not sure their brand value is as good as you're making out, certainly with the general public. The Nexus 7 is doing okay, but not THAT great. No Nexus device has, on contract or SIM free. This one will probably do better, but I bet Samsung sell many times more S3s in the next three months...