3 ms·

The price makes me a bit sad tbh One of the best things about the Nexus range was they offered the Google vision of android at a reasonable price. The Nexus 4,

The price makes me a bit sad tbh One of the best things about the Nexus range was they offered the Google vision of android at a reasonable price. The Nexus 4, 5 and 6 were affordable. I purchased my Nexus 5 for a shade below £300 when it came out, which I thought was excellent value for money in comparison to how much I had paid for a Samsung previously. This Pixel line seems to have abandoned that ideal to compete directly with the iPhone. Personally I'd feel very uncomfortable walking around with a £600+ phone.

mattbessey 10y ago
To be fair, a good portion of that (£100?) is likely to be from the £ losing value against the $
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  It's $649 (£509) for the base model in the US, so if you exclude VAT it's actually cheaper in the UK.
geodel 10y ago
I think at this point one should give up any hope on 2 things in Google Hardware program: First, hardware so great that it remain excellent for more 2 years of usage for most use cases and/or price remain attractive so one does not mind upgrading after 2 years.
drewrv 10y ago
Absolutely agree. I know there are other cheap android phones but Nexus was always a good bang for your buck. This is like Toyota discontinuing the corolla to compete with Maserati.
- lintiness 10y ago
  the phones were great because they were universally unlocked (rare). the camera on my nexus 5 is trash, however.
  - lagadu 10y ago
    Just order your favourite phone from outside the US. We have all of them unlocked for sale at any major retailer across the pond.
Theodores 10y ago
I don't think that the aim is to compete with the iphone directly. I am already a Pixel owner - the laptop variant - and I see 'Pixel DNA' in this phone product. The Google Pixel laptop was there to further Google's own thing, not compete with the MacBook. The laptop has better hardware than the Apple or PC offerings - a 3:2 touchscreen in super-hi-res, amazing speakers under the keyboard, the nicest feeling keyboard ever, the finest of trackpads and a gorgeous aluminium case that just feels nice to touch. For what it does - surf the internet - nothing connects to wifi so easily and scrolling big pages is a very speedy thing. Yet you cannot run Word or Photoshop so it is generally reviewed as a crazy, expensive machine. So I see some of this design philosophy in this phone. The AMOLED screen and the exceptional camera are features I would expect from a Pixel gadget, not a Nexus gadget. Is the Pixel phone really just an over-priced Nexus phone? Not at all, it is about raising the bar as to what is possible. The VR hardware needs this phone. Despite today's hype this will not sell in iPhone quantities, even with Verizon as a carrier. It is too expensive for that. When you look at how much you do get for GBP 300 from Motorola and whomever else I would say that the Nexus idea has worked, there are plenty of phones out there that are excellent value for money even if not with all the latest flagship features.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  No offence intended but I think "better" is subjective. I find the keyboard and trackpad on my MacBook Pro absolutely perfect, and the aluminium case could be argued to be "gorgeous" too. I do not need a touchscreen on a laptop if I have the finest of trackpads. I would argue that with 32GB SSD storage and only the ability to browse webpages that the Pixel laptop is basically useless as a "normal" use machine (ie for people that like to create stuff locally on a microcomputer without being tethered to a mainframe, or devs, eg compile C++ on it, or store any normal amount of data on it) so does come across as an extremely overpriced terminal. But as for this phone - I am not sure who the target market is myself. I know I am not their market, that's for sure!
Grazester 10y ago
The Nexus 6 was $649, the same price as the Pixel

mattbessey 10y ago

To be fair, a good portion of that (£100?) is likely to be from the £ losing value against the $

lucaspiller 10y ago
It's $649 (£509) for the base model in the US, so if you exclude VAT it's actually cheaper in the UK.

geodel 10y ago

I think at this point one should give up any hope on 2 things in Google Hardware program: First, hardware so great that it remain excellent for more 2 years of usage for most use cases and/or price remain attractive so one does not mind upgrading after 2 years.

drewrv 10y ago

Absolutely agree. I know there are other cheap android phones but Nexus was always a good bang for your buck. This is like Toyota discontinuing the corolla to compete with Maserati.

lintiness 10y ago
the phones were great because they were universally unlocked (rare). the camera on my nexus 5 is trash, however.
- lagadu 10y ago
  Just order your favourite phone from outside the US. We have all of them unlocked for sale at any major retailer across the pond.

Theodores 10y ago

I don't think that the aim is to compete with the iphone directly. I am already a Pixel owner - the laptop variant - and I see 'Pixel DNA' in this phone product. The Google Pixel laptop was there to further Google's own thing, not compete with the MacBook. The laptop has better hardware than the Apple or PC offerings - a 3:2 touchscreen in super-hi-res, amazing speakers under the keyboard, the nicest feeling keyboard ever, the finest of trackpads and a gorgeous aluminium case that just feels nice to touch. For what it does - surf the internet - nothing connects to wifi so easily and scrolling big pages is a very speedy thing. Yet you cannot run Word or Photoshop so it is generally reviewed as a crazy, expensive machine. So I see some of this design philosophy in this phone. The AMOLED screen and the exceptional camera are features I would expect from a Pixel gadget, not a Nexus gadget. Is the Pixel phone really just an over-priced Nexus phone? Not at all, it is about raising the bar as to what is possible. The VR hardware needs this phone. Despite today's hype this will not sell in iPhone quantities, even with Verizon as a carrier. It is too expensive for that. When you look at how much you do get for GBP 300 from Motorola and whomever else I would say that the Nexus idea has worked, there are plenty of phones out there that are excellent value for money even if not with all the latest flagship features.

72deluxe 10y ago
No offence intended but I think "better" is subjective. I find the keyboard and trackpad on my MacBook Pro absolutely perfect, and the aluminium case could be argued to be "gorgeous" too. I do not need a touchscreen on a laptop if I have the finest of trackpads. I would argue that with 32GB SSD storage and only the ability to browse webpages that the Pixel laptop is basically useless as a "normal" use machine (ie for people that like to create stuff locally on a microcomputer without being tethered to a mainframe, or devs, eg compile C++ on it, or store any normal amount of data on it) so does come across as an extremely overpriced terminal. But as for this phone - I am not sure who the target market is myself. I know I am not their market, that's for sure!

Grazester 10y ago

The Nexus 6 was $649, the same price as the Pixel