[houseabsolute]

It would be nice if you spent some time explaining why you believe selling at $199 would be "smart". Google already gives too many things away for free. Selling a phone that might be able to compete with the iPhone at $199 almost certainly means selling at a loss. To what end? I can't imagine that search queries can make up for the remaining $100 or $200 that it costs to manufacture the phone. Unless you believe "decimating Nokia" is an end itself, I'm curious why you think it would be a smart move.

[pmcginn]

The $199 was never the attraction for me, and seemed unlikely. $300? Ehh... Maybe. I always figured it'd land in the $500 range, and this isn't too far off.

The real carrot for me was the idea of a prepaid $29/mo data only plan, which I actually thought was believable. T-Mobile already offers pretty much the exact same plan ($1/day) for prepaid Sidekick users (voice is 0.15/min.) I barely use voice (~100 minutes/mo), and if I could drop my unlimited text/internet/450 voice plan for something that was only $29, I could definitely learn to live with the quirks of VOIP on a mobile handset and the loss of MMS.

Honestly, even if you threw me in a contract to get the phone at $199, as long as data was that cheap I'd gladly sign up for two years the same minute I was sending Verizon their $350 good-bye letter.

I don't use my phone as a phone and am sick of having to pay so much for minutes I just don't use. The cost of my voice plan before data and text is around $40/mo, which works out to me paying .40/minute for what I use. Even if I used real voice instead of Google Voice I'd be saving money.

[wmf]

T-Mobile will give you a cheap plan for the Sidekick because it's not powerful enough to use much bandwidth. A Nexus One is likely to use a lot more.

[zenlinux]

Google has a lot more at stake than just profits from this particular phone. They are interested in establishing the Android platform as a major player on smart phone devices, and are coming into the game with a pretty weak position given Apple's current dominance. To be able to make headway into the market they need every advantage they can get, and neutralizing Nokia's N900 offering would help prevent another player from complicating the market for them.

Not to mention at that price they'd be dealing Apple a major blow. I figure they have the cash, why not use it for something like this. I admit this is all idle speculation on my part, and that Google may or may not have a lot at stake in the success of Andriod.