14 ms·

Google's Nexus 4 smartphone sells out in the US in 50 minutes

• jbail 14y ago
  It sold out way quicker than that. I tried to purchase it right away, had a phone in my cart, then when I went to checkout, it was gone and said Coming Soon. This was within the first 10 minutes of the phone going on sale. UPDATE: The store is back up. 16gb appear to be sold out, but I just successfully purchased an 8gb model. ANOTHER UPDATE: I just bought the 16gb model successfully as well. Both orders show as pending in my Google Wallet account.
  • robmclarty 14y ago
    I had a similar experience. I was refreshing the page at 8:30-8:40 and when it finally gave me "add to cart" I spent about 10-15 minutes trying to get through until finally got sent back to "coming soon". It was very fast. I understand possibly wanting marketing hype from selling out quickly, but the cryptic error messages and lack of performance on the server (from arguably the biggest internet company in the world) was disappointing.
    • jbail 14y ago
      The Google Play store is completely down now.
  • pkulak 14y ago
    I've got a script checking the site, and it's been back to "Add to Cart" a couple times since it was initially down, though I've never been able to buy it. I have a suspicion that Google hasn't sold out, but the site is just melting, so they are only allowing purchases periodically.
    • mvc 14y ago
      "I've got a script checking the site...but the site is just melting", apparently without a trace of irony
    • drdoooom 14y ago
      Same here- I used the Page Monitor chrome add on, worked really well, ended up picking up a 8GB while the site was being hammered yesterday.
  • hnalien 14y ago
    Update at 10:30 AM PST - 16gb model said 'In Stock', I added to cart and the message says 'There was a problem with your order' with a big blue button saying 'GO SHOPPING!' I would expect better E-Commerce management from Google, who claims to have the brightest people working for it.
    • hnalien 14y ago
      Update at 11:30 PST - Bought the 16GB successsfully. Took 2 mins. I believe the 'Sold Out' news in the morning drove more customers curiously to the Google Play website, thus letting them buy it today even if they wanted to wait. No one wants a supply issue like the iPhone 5. As I thought, Google is way smarter than Apple to be prepared for high volume sales on it's platform. Well played, Google.
      • datasage 14y ago
        I suspected it has more to do with duplicate orders getting canceled. I was able to snag one as well about 30 minutes ago.
        • Lewisham 14y ago
          Oh some sort of rate limiting on Wallet being enacted at the Play end. If you stop people putting the thing in the cart, they can't get to Wallet and have it choke and die, as it did this morning.
      • jbail 14y ago
        I don't think this was well played by Google or intentional at all. The Google Play website is still down. Tarnishing your brand in front of current and potential customers just to try out a guerrilla marketing tactic is just plain stupid. A much better tactic would be to have a site that's up, responsive and presents a simple, joyful order process. That would win evangelists. People could point to the Nexus 4 launch and say, "Look everybody! When Google launches a phone, they do it right. It was a painless, awesome experience." That is the complete opposite of the Nexus 4 launch we experienced today. Google bungled it big time (and I say that both as a consumer as well as an owner of Google stock).
• vondur 14y ago
  It would be nice if Google would release some sales numbers on this. I'd imagine it would sell well in Europe where the lack of LTE is not an issue. I don't see it selling that well in the US, most people here get new phones every two years when their contracts are up at subsidized pricing.
  • alanctgardner2 14y ago
    In Canada contracts are still typically three years. I've been salivating over this for months.
    • sareon 14y ago
      I am almost done my three year contract with Bell. I don't mind them so I don't mind staying with them. I want the N4 and I talked to retentions about what I could get post-plan if I brought in my own phone. They seemed quite confused and couldn't give me any better deals than a new customer. If I had gotten one of their subsidized phoned on a new 3-year deal they would have been able to give me a better deal. I would even be willing to go on a 1-2 year deal with an N4 but alas they seem like they don't know how to deal with this situation. I could just go with the Samsung Galaxy SIII which wouldn't be a bad phone but it wouldn't be carrying the vanilla Android but rather Bell's variant (which I am not sure how bad it is). I've looked at other carriers, Koodo, Fido, Wind and Moblicity. Either their deals aren't any better than I have now or they have little coverage. Wind is much better than Moblicity in coverage so I am not sure how much roaming with them would cost me on average a month. So I am not sure which way I should go with my new phone.
      • goatforce5 14y ago
        The Canadian carriers don't seem very interested in doing favorable deals for bring-your-own-phone customers. Either it's still too small a segment or (perhaps more likely) they've figured out they can lock people in to more 3 year contracts if there's no difference in the month-to-month prices. I've seen Bell occasionally do promos where you can take $5/$10 off any plan if you have your own phone, but not much besides that. I'd be very happy to be told I was wrong and there was a way to get better pricing, BTW. :)
• Roritharr 14y ago
  Just like in every other country that has launched it... It would make it so much less painful if they atleast give me the option to pre-order the next batch so i don't have to recheck all my info-sources all the time...
  • jwong42 14y ago
    Yea, I agree. I was planning get one but didn't get a chance. Even if we can't pre-order, it would be great if they release some info about when the next batch will be available.
• peeters 14y ago
  The Google store was extremely slow during this period. I tried to initiate a purchase around 5 minutes after they became available, but 95% of my clicks resulted in errors, and when it finally went through, the Wallet info collector hung for another 5 minutes. When that finally went through, my cart had had the phone removed from it, and they were once again out of stock. So the 50 minutes is probably somewhat inflated. Had the store kept pace it probably would've been more like 10 minutes.
  • akshaym 14y ago
    This is surprising. Not that it sold out after 10 minutes, but that Google didn't handle the load well. I wonder why - surely they expected this (if nothing else, given the performance of the phone in other markets).
    • jc4p 14y ago
      This happens every time google sells something directly, just like Google I/O tickets for the last few years.
  • watmough 14y ago
    I had the same experience. The 16 GB went first, then the 8GB about 20 - 30 minutes afterwards. I expect LG will be able to make more, but this is a standout phone. In my case, my Nexus 7 basically opened the horizon up for me, as far as moving from my iPhone 4S. The fact that T-Mobile hasn't yet marshalled many towers to support 3G on the iPhone 4/4S makes the switch to a pentaband phone a real plus as far as utility is concerned. Edge works, just, but really sucks every day.
  • tjbiddle 14y ago
    Same thing happened to me, except when Wallet hung it apparently processed my order. I'm glad I checked twice since I had two orders (Nexus 10, not Nexus 4 - Had no chance of getting that guy).
    • lost_name 14y ago
• hfs 14y ago
  I fought with 10 minutes of errors before getting to the checkout screen, and upon hitting submit, got another error. Cart was empty and it was back to "notify me." Got an email an hour later saying my order went through. Stressful.
• nullvoyd 14y ago
  Luckily, I got my order through albeit with a good share of issues. -> Google Wallet pane opening empty -> Google Wallet pane opening with an error message -> Google Wallet pane not opening and me receiving a top of the window notification saying they are working hard on resolving the issue -> Google wallet opening, with info. I then clicked purchase and it wouldnt go through. After multiple times trying it, losing my cart a few times, I got a N4 8GB order through. Should ship in two days.
  • laggyluke 14y ago
    I wasn't that lucky. But I've grabbed some screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/SikfG http://imgur.com/a/SikfG I especially like the "Expected 3 components in jwt:" one :)
  • DannyBee 14y ago
    So they successfully replicated the online apple store rush experience then?
• diminish 14y ago
  would this be an indicator for any future trends in contract subsidized phones vs others?
  • watmough 14y ago
    It may be an indicator that the iPhone lifetime is now exceeding 2 years, and rather than being desperate to get the next Apple iDevice, people are instead casting around for cheaper cell-plans and thinking about moving to Android.
    • ajasmin 14y ago
      This just happen to be how the latest Android toy is sold. And probably has little to do with the cost of data plan or subsidy in general.
    • shinratdr 14y ago
      You're extrapolating all that from a phone that is manufactured in small quantities and subsidized to the point that it's basically an off-contract phone for an on-contract price selling out? I don't want or need the thing and I'm thinking about buying it. It undercuts every high end off contract Android phone on the market by about $100-200 while also boasting a much better design and spec sheet. This is basically a fire-sale at launch. It sold out because it's decent and market-disruptingly (some would argue dangerously) cheap.
• blinkingled 14y ago
  Google - I am sure you lost some sales by releasing the 4.2 update for Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 on the same day as Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 were released! Not that I am complaining - this same day update is fast even for Google :)
  • ConstantineXVI 14y ago
    They'd lose even more sales by holding the update back for any significant amount of time. ~Day-0 updates are effectively part of the Nexus brand.
    • blinkingled 14y ago
      >Day-0 updates are effectively part of the Nexus brand For current Nexus devices may be - but for older gen Nexus devices I am not sure I have ever seen a same day update.
      • Zikes 14y ago
        I've got a Nexus S 4G, I'm lucky if I see an update within months of release.
        • lallysingh 14y ago
          You can always download android and build/flash it yourself. The Nexus S 4g has downloads for binary drivers through Android 4.1.2, the rest is the regular source download.
          • Zikes 14y ago
            I'm fairly well-versed regarding ROMs, and actually ran CM and MIUI on it for quite a while with decent results, but that's not really the point. Nexus is supposed to mean "first in line for OTA updates", not "wait for us to put it on AOSP and then build and flash it yourself, or wait for a modder to make a decent ROM". That is absolutely not the brand I thought I was buying. Edit: Sorry, that was a ruder tone than I intended. I've got a bit of a love/hate relationship with my Nexus S due to the OTA frustrations, but I do love that Android has the option for taking matters into my own hands.
• dmm 14y ago
  This means that the price of the Nexus 4 isn't $299. It's actually about $490, the current buy-it-now price on ebay.
  • coolnow 14y ago
    That's the price the eBay sharks are selling at. It's not the official price.
    • paulgb 14y ago
      If people are willing to pay that, it's the market price.
      • MMXII 14y ago
        No, this is price discrimination. There are _some_ people willing to pay more to have it. It doesn't represent that the aggregate demand is at this price.
        • ISL 14y ago
          It may not be the optimal point on the supply-demand curve, but if supply is limited, then the price is whatever people are willing to pay.
      • stickfigure 14y ago
        Do we have any evidence that people are actually paying that price?
    • stonemetal 14y ago
      As always the price of a thing is what the market is willing to bear, not the sticker on the box.
  • ars 14y ago
    You can't use the Buy-it-now price, since that's the I-wish price. Check auction prices.
• benihana 14y ago
  I'd love to see numbers to compare this to the sale of previous iPhones. My gut instinct says this is a supply-side issue more than a popularity issue. Could google be keeping supply low to keep demand up? Or was this such a popular product (people reporting that this bringing the google store to its knees) that it sold out within minutes and google was just ill prepared for the popularity?
  • jxi 14y ago
    My gut feel is the opposite. This is a ridiculous phone, for a ridiculous price. I personally wanted it and couldn't get it Today yet, and I know of at least 5 other people (outside the US) who've been pinging me to see if it's going to be available anytime soon. Pretty sure it's a demand-issue this time.
    • kemiller 14y ago
      If the numbers are good, they'll brag about them. If they don't, it's a pretty good sign that it's supply.
      • billnguyen 14y ago
        If this is Apple that'd be true, but since when has Google really bragged about any sales numbers?
      • KirinDave 14y ago
        Given it's 50 minutes, the numbers don't have to be incredibl good to make a really impressive-sounding rate. Let's say they had a quarter million units for sale for their first run (given their Nex7 sales, totally reasonable). That means they're selling ~80 phones a second. Now did Apple sell more? Sure. Does that mean these numbers are bad, even in a relative sense given the obscurity of the Nexus brand, the troubles during launch and the location of sale? No. Supply or Demand, this is good for Nexus.
  • stonemetal 14y ago
    The Nexus phones typically haven't been all that popular, so it wouldn't surprise me if supply was low. That would have been more because of expected low demand than marketing. Perhaps they were aiming to sell out on low demand, and got more than they bargained for.
• kux 14y ago
  I just got a 16GB model after hitting refresh on and off for the past hour
  • dowskitest 14y ago
    Thanks for the tip - this worked for me as well, although I felt kind of dirty doing it (the poor servers!).
  • mikeevans 14y ago
    Same here. Requires lots of patience.
• callahad 14y ago
  Just sold out in Canada as well. Bummer.
  • bvi 14y ago
    That's odd. I wasn't notified by email when it apparently became available. Were people just refreshing Google Play nonstop until they saw an option to buy it?
    • jondcampbell 14y ago
      Yes. yes we were.
      • eventualEntropy 14y ago
        Anybody have any more luck in canada?
• andys627 14y ago
  Anyone have any guess when it will be available again, based on past "day 1 sellouts" like this?
• gergles 14y ago
  The fact that it is 2012 and stores still refuse to just let you give them money and then have them ship you a product is ridiculous. I don't want to sit here and wait for a store to open or for things to come 'back in stock' to buy a phone. That's why we invented computers, to automate boring tasks. I give you money, you put my name on a list, as phones come in, you ship them in the order of the names on the list. Problem solved. Of course, that won't happen any time soon, because being sold out inexplicably generates buzz like the present article.
  • paulgb 14y ago
    This is nice in theory. I think this doesn't happen because when you take people's money they're suddenly your "customers" and think they're entitled to a phone ASAP and if there are any unexpected delays you have upset the hoard. As soon as you take someone's money, they're a customer support liability.
    • etaty 14y ago
      Some business charge customers only when the product is shipped.
      • martin_bech 14y ago
        In Denmark thats the law. Its illegal to charge the customer, if you haven't shipped the product.
    • bduerst 14y ago
      Pretty much. If you're running a brick and mortar store, you want to serve the customers who are there now. That means not cannibalizing your inventory by mailing to someone who ordered last week. You also want people to come back to your store. It is irrational for the store to mail you one when it comes in stock, though they should have a web-based corporate distributor that they can direct you to.
    • thechut 14y ago
      This! Google just recently saw this happen with the Nexus 7 this summer. People were charged when they preordered and then the lack of a hard ship date caused Google to have to spend countless hours in customer support. Once somebody has paid you, the can of worms is open. They could also want to control the amount of unearned revenue on their books.
• watmough 14y ago
  Ok, as of 12:09pm CST, I was able to add a 16GB N4 to my cart and check-out. So either they found another pallette of the things somewhere, or people are getting cold feet and canceling their orders. Hitting F5 on the product page seems to find a phone about once every twenty times, and on about the 1/5th try to add to cart, it succeeded.
  • nvarsj 14y ago
    A lot of people ended up with duplicate orders from the madness this morning, and I expect they're cancelling. My co-worker ended up with 3 N4's despite only seeing one confirmation.
    • watmough 14y ago
      It's been a while since I've been so stoked about a piece of tech! I returned my Galaxy Nexus, mainly for the poor camera, and for the fact that not one week after getting it, it was discontinued and replaced with this much nicer phone.
• OpusCroakus 14y ago
  I just placed an order for the 16GB model. I don't believe it's sold out.
  • OpusCroakus 14y ago
    http://i.imgur.com/otNAV.jpg http://i.imgur.com/otNAV.jpg
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• dangerboysteve 14y ago
  If they don't make any mention of inventory on hand for the launch then what is the point? Who cares how fast something sells out if it's not put into context.
  • alexmat 14y ago
    I care, as someone who wanted to buy one.
• forax 14y ago
  Just one data point but I had zero problems. Refreshed the page and saw "add to cart." Went to checkout, entered my info, and clicked purchase. Guess I just got lucky.
• binarycrusader 14y ago
  Annoyed that they never sent out the email notifying that it went on sale despite having signed up for that. The cynical side of me thinks that they're out of stock, it shows that they didn't believe their own statements about how great the product is and so didn't secure adequate supply. It makes me question just how much they believed in the product. I suppose it's possible that the current order limits are based on how many orders they're able to handle versus physical supply, but I remain skeptical.
• edw519 14y ago
  1922: heroin 1932: alchohol 1942: nicotine 1952: amphetamines 1962: marijuana 1972: acid 1982: crack cocaine 1992: crystal meth 2002: X 2012: smartphones
  • nsns 14y ago
    So now capitalism itself is the opium of the people?
    • nickik 14y ago
      Why are smartphones capitalism and not drugs. If anything drugs prove the workings of makets better then smartphones. The drugs market shows that markets work even in a state of anarchy.
    • dredmorbius 14y ago
      Given my fascination with things dopamineagenic and their interplay in modern consumer commerce, that is a very insightful observation. Note that Marx's version is usually given as "the opiate of the masses", but still.
      • nsns 14y ago
        Not really that insightful... [0] [0]http://www.wbenjamin.org/passageways.html http://www.wbenjamin.org/passageways.html
  • mcantelon 14y ago
    You should throw HN somewhere on there as well. ;)
  • kmfrk 14y ago
    2002: Internet? :)
    • jff 14y ago
      I think he was referring to MDMA when he said "X"
• thebranman 14y ago
  Its /kind of/ sold out - if you refresh enough it will allow you to add it to your cart. I took me about 30 minutes of refreshing, and about 15 failed attempts to add it to my cart, but I finally was able to check out successfully with a 16GB Nexus 4. Order date: Nov 13, 2012 1:36:11 PM EST
• truebecomefalse 14y ago
  Got a 16GB at 1:10pm CST by refreshing the page every 2 seconds and stopping when "Notify" was replaced with "Add to Cart". Sorry Google.
• mcantelon 14y ago
  Pretty happy with the prospect of unlocked phones becoming a market norm. I've been very happy with my Nexuses in the past: super convenient to be able to just throw in a new SIM when I'm travelling.
• Greynum 14y ago
  There are 8600 likes on google+ for the Nexus 4. If you are very generous you could say that would translate to 860,000 purchases. No decent smartphone manufacture plans for sales of less than 1 million units of its flagship product. The fact that the nexus 4 sold out in every country it was sold within one hour would only demonstrate complete operational incompetence on every level to be that far off the mark. It's a stunt and I don't like it when companies treat people like retards. This is all a setup and im pissed because I wanted one. Now I have to wait and play the stupid F5 game.
  • ryanhuff 14y ago
    It does feel that Google celebrates what I feel is actually incompetence.
    • mrinterweb 14y ago
      We don't know how many units were shipped. We don't know if Google is celebrating this or if they knew this would happen. It is possible that LG has supply chain issues and they can not crank out phones to meet demand.
      • Greynum 14y ago
        Predicting market demand is Google's entire business model.
  • mrinterweb 14y ago
    You don't know that it was a stunt. It is possible they sold many phones. I really doubt that 8600 likes translates to sales numbers. There is no way of knowing if Google sold 500 or 2 million phones before it ran out of stock. It is also possible that LG does not have the production capacity meet demand. It would be a marketing stunt if Google is intentionally creating a supply shortage, but I doubt that is Google game. Then again, we won't know until Google releases a statement about how Nexus 4s have been sold.
  • fragsworth 14y ago
• Greynum 14y ago
  This joker is selling his nexus 4 for £1200 ($1900) in the UK http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lg-GOOGLE-NEXUS-4-8GB-UNLOCKED-BRAND-NEW-GOOGLE-HAVE-SOLD-OUT-/221153176250?pt=UK_Mobile_Phones&hash=item337dc1aaba http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lg-GOOGLE-NEXUS-4-8GB-UNLOCKED-BRA...
  • uzusan 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure selling something you don't actually have isn't allowed on ebay (he's selling a phone he hasn't received, and in all likelyhood wont receive as google could quite easily cancel the other 2 orders as they seem to be a mistake).
    • Greynum 14y ago
      The bid is now at £2050 ($3280), mind you they are all from accounts with 0 history. Only one bidder has a history and its at 40.
• kcbanner 14y ago
  They just came back in stock, I managed to snag one quickly.
• fatjokes 14y ago
  Did it! After refreshing repeatedly, I finally got through and made a purchase for the 8GB at around noon PST.
• bobf 14y ago
  I downloaded the Auto Refresh Plus Chrome plugin, set it to auto-refresh the 16GB page (https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16gb https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16g...) every 1s and set the "Popup notification once FIND the target" option using the word "STOCK". I went through 3-4 false starts of trying to add it to cart and having it fail, but it eventually succeeded and I was able to add to cart and complete the purchase at 3:04pm EST.
  • rekat 14y ago
    That worked for me too :). Thanks for the tip.
  • brianmwang 14y ago
    This tip also worked for me. Snagged a 16GB long after I thought hope was lost. Thanks for sharing :)
  • chilgart 14y ago
    Thanks for the comment. I managed to snag a 16GB at 6:08 EST and I'm crossing my fingers that the order doesn't get lost.
• YZF 14y ago
  I stayed up till after midnight and then got up again at 9pm to try and place an order. I guess I wasn't persistent enough at the face of errors - no phone. Google should do much better at communicating the situation. When will the phone be available for ordering, how many units are in stock, etc. How about providing some information about when the next batch is coming? The way they've handled this is a disgrace. If there was any comparable product in a comparable price I would not be buying Google. EDIT: Are all those people saying that if you keep refreshing you'll get to buy it just part of a DDoS attack on the store? I hope the phone works better than the store. :-(
• farinasa 14y ago
  You know, had they implemented a pre-order option, they may have been able to better gauge demand. Instead, they decided to piss off their customers.
• dag11 14y ago
  It's not strictly sold out. At 3:03 PM EST, I managed to purchase a 16GB Nexus 4 after refreshing every second for ten minutes.
• syassami 14y ago
  This is almost like the touchpad fiasco all over again
• overshard 14y ago
  Just a heads up, it's not sold out, I got mine just now which is 3 hours after people are saying it's sold out. The sales keep going up and down I'm not sure if it's due to server issues or they are adding more stock here and there as they get them but you can still get one if you try.
• Ives 14y ago
  What's incredible is that the Nexus 4 is so successful that LG won't make it available in Belgium or the Netherlands[1]. So they clearly think they can sell all of their stock for the foreseeable future in just a few countries. [1] http://tweakers.net/nieuws/85507/lg-brengt-nexus-4-niet-uit-in-nederland-en-belgie.html http://tweakers.net/nieuws/85507/lg-brengt-nexus-4-niet-uit-... (in dutch)
• tvon 14y ago
  How many were sold? I can't (easily) find numbers on what the available stock was.
• kleiba 14y ago
  Some readers, like Henk van Ess are reporting that they’re still able to snag them. He used Chrome to make his purchase as other browsers wouldn’t allow him to complete the transaction. This is sad.
• rufugee 14y ago
  So if I'm on Verizon and I buy this, what speeds should I expect? I'd be ok with HSPA+ speeds (I find Verizon LTE to be extremely underwhelming), but as I understand it, Verizon doesn't do HSPA+. What will the Nexus 4 fall back to?
  • hayksaakian 14y ago
    I'm sticking to galaxy nexus until this persons question is answered.
  • sandipc 14y ago
    >So if I'm on Verizon and I buy this, what speeds should I expect? It won't operate on Verizon's network. GSM only.
  • TrisMcC 14y ago
    This phone will not work on Verizon or Sprint.
    • rufugee 14y ago
      Wow...so to insure working across all carriers, they cut out two very large carriers? This doesn't make sense to me.
      • jxi 14y ago
        Uh.. they didn't 'cut out' anything. If anything, it's the carriers that are stupid for not adopting the same standard of using sim cards (Verizon and Sprint don't use sim cards..). I think they wanted to lock people in to their service.
        • rufugee 14y ago
          I don't disagree...I've found the lack of GSM support on Verizon frustrating over the years. Unfortunately, Verizon effectively kills the competition for us in terms of coverage and price at a corporate level.
• sgtnotorious 14y ago
  Like some people have mentioned, I don't think that the N4 is actually sold out. I think they're just making small batches available slowly as to not instantiate a big performance issue on their servers. Keep refreshing the page every so often and click 'Add to Cart' once you see that button. F5'ing the page and then clicking that small gap in between the 'Email' box and the 'Notify Me' button after each time you press F5 will increase the likelihood of pre-empting someone else's click (since the Add to Cart button will be located there).
• OldSchool 14y ago
  Nexus 4 looks like a great phone - very comparable to the Galaxy S III. Since the fair price of a new or virtually new S3 on eBay is about $450, the Nexus 4 at $299 new is a steal if you don't need a microSD slot.
• mkoryak 14y ago
  is that 360 degree camera feature software or hardware or both?
  • skeletonjelly 14y ago
    Software which requires hardware to support Android 4.2
• datalus 14y ago
  Just ordered a N4 16 GB, it seems they're still letting some stock out today for the US. 4:34 pm CDT.
• donniezazen 14y ago
  It felt more like 15 minutes.
• actf 14y ago
  Has anyone else noticed that when you repeatedly click between the two different models in the play store, the seems to change randomly from "Coming Soon" to "Out of Stock"? As much as I want to like Android, this is the type of experience that just makes me want to head straight back to Apple. If Google can't even get their their flagship product's launch day store working properly, do I really want to trust their customer service if I break my phone, or their ability to manage an entire mobile ecosystem? After owning early Android devices and being incredibly disappointed at the experience (crashes, incompatibilities, lack of software, poor battery life, lack of promised updates) I swore off getting another Android device for a long time. In the meantime I've owned apple products, and always been extremely happy with the overall experience. With the Nexus 4 announcement, I've decided to give Android another shot. As I said earlier I really want to like Android, but it's stuff like this that makes me have second thoughts, and reconsider just getting an iphone 5. In my opinion this is a huge failure on Google's part.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
• fatbat 14y ago
  The whole launch seems very poorly thought out. Or am I missing the genius of it? * no official launch time. * no early email notifications went out. * no sense of stock availability. * high phone limit (5) per user. * constant site errors. * constant checkout errors. * HSPA+ feature typo.
• roger_padactor 14y ago
  What grinds my gears is that I had it in the cart and processing 4 times and still didn't get it. I find out 2 hours later people were still currently buying it even after it kept showing me the "notify me" button. Oh well I guess I'll wait even longer.
• donniezazen 14y ago
  I just managed to get a Nexus 4. Just refresh the page and you might be the lucky one.
  • greenmountin 14y ago
    out of curiosity (not obsessed), does the losing page say "Sold Out" in red letters like mine does?
    • dangrossman 14y ago
      I think you're out of luck now. It was saying "Coming Soon" until under an hour ago, and that's when people were still picking them up here and there by refreshing all day, myself included. Since it just recently changed to "Sold Out", it's probably actually sold out now.
      • donniezazen 14y ago
        The Google Play Store page kept switching between "Sold Out" and "Coming Soon." I didn't try it obsessively but i tried it once in a while throughout the day. And it worked.
• jamaicahest 14y ago
  I seem to be saying this a lot lately: How is this HN related?
• COMTRON 14y ago
  WHY NO PREORDER BUT YES BACKORDER? GOOGLE NOT UNDERSTAND SIMPLE THING. TAKE MONEY, MAKE NEXUS WITH MY MONEY. NOW THEY DO THE SAME THING WHAT THEY SHOULD DO BEFORE. GOOGLE LIKE STUPID. OR MAYBE GOOGLE VERY SMART AND ACT LIKE MANY PEOPLE WANT NEXUS.
• COMTRON 14y ago
  THERE NO UNBOXING VIDEO ON YOUTUBE. I WONDER GOOGLE REALLY SHIP NEXUS TO ANYBODY.