Vodafone to sell Nexus One in Australia

Vodafone has confirmed that it has plans to release Nexus One in 2010 in Australia as their agreement with Google covers all geographies that Vodafone operates in.  Vodafone is likely quite exciting about the prospect of being one of the initial carriers to provide device as they have seen the benefits that brought Optus with the iPhone.

Vodafone has been announced as the first operator to be announced as bringing the new Google phone offer to the European market. They will offer the Google Nexus One under the following deal:

A subsidized Nexus One phone and a contract

Vodafone officially announced that they will be introduced soon in the UK, followed by other key markets in 2010 such as Australia. Other methods for Australian's to get their hands on the Nexus One phone involve eBay, purchasing from eBay USA US$1000 or from eBay.com.au AUD$1149.

There is obvious demand for the Nexus One from the Australian market, but carriers such as Vodafone will miss out on the revenue until Google finishes the roll-out process.

Google failing to support Nexus One

Google appears to have a growing public relations nightmare on its hands with poor after sales service, response times for support and even their application developers feel left out in the cold. The Google forums are filling up with common questions that would be answered by any traditional phone retailer and early indications show that the direct model is not always best. Maybe the Google Nexus One has actually failed customer service already?

HTC doesn't have the resources and does not appear to be prepared to service the volume of consumer questions focused around the OS and network features nor should it be required to do all Google's support work. T-Mobile one of the early partners to the process also does not appear to have trained its support staff in the slight technical differences between Android 2.0 and Android 2.1 which is running on the Nexus One.

Google may have to rethink its traditionally thin technical support channels if they are serious about expanding the Nexus One and make it a true competitor to the Apple iPhone.

Google Nexus blocks Australian purchases

With the roll out of the new Google Nexus android mobile phone, it is likely to shift how consumers interact with Google services such as Google Maps, Google Voice and Gmail.  The question is how is going changing its approach to forcing geospecific rules to restrict consumers in particular countries from accessing its services.  The Official Google Blog has a post on how they are trying to have a new approach to buying a mobile phone but Google falls flat.

Cnet points out that Australia has been left of the list of APAC countries who will be able to purchase the Nexus One device even as Google talks about how their new approach will benefit users everywhere... expect countries such as Australia. It is strange that with the importance that Google has on growing its Asia-Pacific audience that it would leave out countries such as Australia & New Zealand.

The current batch of countries that can order the Google Nexus One device are:

• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• Britain
• United States

Engadget provided one of the earliest and most detailed review of the new Nexus One as part of CES 2010, and the initial reviews seem to indicate that the current Android OS on the Nexus One could have had more updates.  To read more about the Nexus One Review done by Engadget.