Nexus One – The Blade Runner of iPhones

In my opinion, Blade Runner is one of the best movies ever created. For those who are from another planet and have never seen this epic, check out the description here on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner.

For those of us who have watched it (I have only seen it about 50 times), we know that the Blade Runner’s job is to destroy replicants whose model number start with Nexus. It may be a stretch but is Google’s new Nexus One phone setting out to destroy its competitors in the mobile world?

Everyone has been waiting for the iPhone killer since it came out a few years ago. Until now, Google’s strategy has been to offer its Android operating system to all hardware manufacturers in hopes that someone would develop the killer device (Droid anyone?). Ironically, this is similar to Microsoft’s strategy with Windows and PC hardware vendors.  One of the key factors that makes the iPhone a success is that Apple is almost complete control over the entire platform – both hardware and software – and it looks like Google has now upped the ante and will throw it’s own hat into the ring to be the iPhone killer. By controlling more of the device, Google will have better control over the entire user experience and (hopefully) compete with the iPhone.

So what does all of this mean to you and I – the average tech crazy consumer? First, all of this competition is great for us as choice and features will go up while prices will continue to go down. Second, carriers such as AT&T had better get their act together as the amount of mobile data flooding their networks is going to continue to skyrocket. Last, we all better start budgeting a few hundred dollars a year to keep upgrading to the latest and greatest devices. If you’ve got $530 burning a hole in your pocket, go grab an unlocked Nexus One right now – http://www.google.com/phone – for that price, it better come with a miniature origami crane.