Did you know Google is directly selling phone and tablets exclusively from their webstore. They do not want people to have to buy long term agreements just to get their phone, so they keep it away from the cell companies.
I'll warn you, I'm drinking the Google Kool Aid. I'm blown away at what google does for me for no money. It's almost scary now that I think about it. Music, photos, tv, friends, news, data storage, spreadsheets, calendar internet (broadband now offered in some areas of the US), cars (now licensed to test self driving cars in California), phones, computers (I saw my first Cromebook commercial last week), wallet (forget paypal and credit cards), video calling, voice calling (what happens when everyone has Google voice on their phones and data gets cheap enough? why have a cellular plan?), tablets, google TV box, nexus 4 phone, android operating system, oh and the search engine that produces over 90% of their revenue.
Their phones have more features, and greater performance than the iphone. The google nexus 4 16gb costs $360 compared to $700 for an iphone5 or Samsungs new Galaxy S4. Almost 1/2 the price for a better phone!
They also have nexus 7 tablet that's incredibly powerful for $210. The mini ipad is $360 and not as powerful.
The new nexus 4 phone may hurt Samsung too. The nexus 4 will always have Google's newest operating system, whereas Samsung updates will always be months behind the google phone. Most Samsung (and other android phones, like HTC) eventually stop getting updates. This is very significant.
Dec, 2012