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

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

#201

Post by mh- »

Greynum wrote: post #88

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…

>There are 8600 likes on google+ .. translate to 860,000 purchases.

If this wasn't HN I'd just post "LOL."

But, seriously? There might be just a little bias between heavy users of Google+ and people who would "like" the Nexus 4.

I'd say it's more likely that would translate to <8600 purchases, than 860k.

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

#202

Post by duaneb »

dangrossman wrote: post #193
yen223 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about the fact that they only have up to 16GB storage, for an Android phone that doesn't support removable storage. I mean, even the iPhone 4 has 32GB!

What do you use all that space for on a phone? My Android phone (HTC Evo 4G) has 512MB internal storage and the Android version it runs doesn't support moving most apps and their data to an SD card. I still have all the apps I want. I still listen to my entire multi-gigabyte music collection... by streaming it through Amazon MP3 for free. Everything's streaming or in the cloud these days. You don't need to carry dupl…

I am somewhat obsessed with music, and these days, 16 gigabytes isn't really that much. Yes, you can stream it with spotify and google play, but that always fails when you least want it to. I wouldn't buy a phone these days with less than 64 gigabytes.

I realize I'm also somewhat unusual in this respect.

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

#203

Post by shiftpgdn »

dangrossman wrote: post #154
mgkimsal wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"many (most?) banks won't tell you that the money wasn't charged yet" WTF? I can log in to any bank and it'll tell me within a few moments of when a charge was made.

> I can log in to any bank and it'll tell me within a few moments of when a charge was made. No you can't; that's exactly the issue. Most people don't know the difference between an authorization and a charge. What you see on online banking as "pending charges" or "holds" are authorizations. No money has moved hands -- your bank balance has not gone down, the merchant's bank balance has not gone up, there's not even…

My bank, ING Direct, lists authorizations and charges in completely separate areas when you login. Authorizations first, then charges.

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

#204

Post by yardie »

untog wrote: post #196
yen223 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about the fact that they only have up to 16GB storage, for an Android phone that doesn't support removable storage. I mean, even the iPhone 4 has 32GB!

An iPhone has 32GB. But I strongly suspect that the 16GB option is more popular.

The 16GB is the cheapest option for a very fashionable phone. So no doubt it's popular. My wife has the 16 and I have the 32, figuring we'd never max out the memory in either case. Boy, were we wrong. She can't update more than a few apps at a time. I'm down to the last few GBs and even after purging videos and photos. Music isn't even a problem because we have iTunes Match so it purges things regularly.

The size of the retina apps is just insane. I compiled my first app (a small music app) around the time the 3GS came out and it was only 1MB. Now, even a simple game clocks in at 30MB.

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

#205

Post by drdoooom »

pkulak wrote: post #48
jbail wrote: post #2

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 pend…

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.

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.

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

actf wrote: post #172

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 c…

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by dangrossman »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #203
dangrossman wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can log in to any bank and it'll tell me within a few moments of when a charge was made. No you can't; that's exactly the issue. Most people don't know the difference between an authorization and a charge. What you see on online banking as "pending charges" or "holds" are authorizations. No money has moved hands -- your bank balance has not gone down, the merchant's bank balance has not gone up, there's not even…

My bank, ING Direct, lists authorizations and charges in completely separate areas when you login. Authorizations first, then charges.

Our banks all work the same. The settled transactions list you're talking about does not update "within a few moments" as the comment I was replying to said, if a charge was even made.

The fastest your bank could possibly show a charge I make to it right now is tomorrow. Most will take longer than that. If it's near a weekend, it could take 3 or more calendar days. The authorization can show up immediately, the charge cannot.

Authorizations happen in real-time over the card networks. Settlements, where the charges get recorded and the funds actually move, happen in daily batches (or even less often).

In the meantime, customers assume they have paid for something, because they see it in the pending charges or holds list, whether funds were captured or not. Again, refer to previous comments on why that makes authorizing cards for the full amount of preorders problematic.

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

#209

Post by shinratdr »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #55
sareon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

If you live in a covered area Mobilicity is awesome. I'm in Ottawa, and it's going to be $25 a month for text/talk/data (what Telus currently charges me $60 for). Even if you consider the amount of subsidy they provide, the price differential is so wide. They also recently added free roaming minutes every month (50 minutes), for when I visit my family.

I can't speak to Ottawa but in Toronto Mobilicity coverage in the areas they claim are covered is pretty awful.

Rogers charges you through the nose but I get LTE coverage almost everywhere and 3G coverage everywhere, while my Mobility friends have no data connection to speak of when in most buildings.

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

#210

Post by shinratdr »

watmough wrote: post #25
diminish wrote: post #14

would this be an indicator for any future trends in contract subsidized phones vs others?

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.

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.

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