Google‘s latest “Pure Android” smartphone, the LG-made Nexus 4, has reportedly been sold out, minutes after its much-anticipated UK release. The Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet were both due to be available today on the Google Play Store today, alongside the refreshed Nexus 7 tablet. Both versions of Nexus 4 are now listed as ‘coming soon’ on the Play Store and the 32GB version of the Nexus 10 tablet is also apparently no longer in stock.
The Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 also went on sale in Australia earlier today — and have both now sold out.
At £239 ($299), the Nexus 4 is the cheapest Nexus to ever be introduced to the family. Aggressive pricing seems to be the order of the day, much in line with the way Google priced the Nexus 7 tablet. Making its hardware high affordable is one sure-fire way to grow the Android platform. How its other hardware partners react to the strong pricing, remains to be seen.
From a branding standpoint, the Nexus brand enjoys almost a cult-like status, and a favourite amongst the tech-heads by virtue of being sold unlocked, in plain vanilla Android and easily rooted. Pricing a top-of-the-line phone like the Nexus 4 at a mid-range price point may effectively dilute the brand.
The Nexus 4 is made by LG Electronics, and is pretty much based on LG’s very own Optimus G smartphone. It runs the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, packs a brilliant 4.7-inch IPS LCD display (318ppi) and a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 quad-core chip. It comes loaded with 2GB RAM and 2,100mAh battery. Other goodies include NFC and Qi inductive charging (yes, same as the Nokia Lumia 920).
The Nexus 10 on the other hand, is made by Samsung, powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 5250, 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor. Also running the latest iteration of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the tablet houses a brilliant 10″ HD display with a Retina Display-besting 300ppi (2,560 x 1,600 pixels). The Nexus 10 tablet also offers NFC built-in. Pricing starts at £320 for the 16GB version.
Will the cheap-as-hell Nexus 4 sell out globally? We’ll see.
Source: Techcrunch
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