Google Nexus 4 Sells Out In Less Than An Hour (in Australia)

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/11/google-nexus-4-sells-out-in-less-than-an-hour/

by tdfx • 14 years ago

111 83 14 years ago

gizmodo.com.au

sonier• 14 years ago

Waiting patiently for the Nexus 10 to be available here. Anyone else looking at getting one of these?

I want it for the screen. I really want a keyboard dock with it (like the Asus Transformer) and am going to look into designing one or having one designed and having it printed at something like shapeways if they don't bring one to retail.

The thought of putting Ubuntu on that, with that screen, is much too much to pass up.

habosa• 14 years ago

I agree. If I could get a keyboard dock for the Nexus 10 I'd buy it in an instant. Ever since I got my transformer I have decided the KB dock is a prereq for my buying a tablet.

tapsboy• 14 years ago

I am.. Hopefully, get the 32GB, if I can purchase it during the window. I wish, however, if they offered an unlocked 3G model too(I can live without LTE). I will have to use freedompop for now.

pja• 14 years ago

Nexus 10 appears to be available in the UK, but the page for the 3G version just gets you a "We're sorry, there was an error. Please try again later."

Not very impressive!

tluyben22• 14 years ago

I am for the screen as well. But like others; I really need a keyboard dock. Why don't all big tablet makers learn from the Transformer? Or is it only geeks who like that thing? But for the resolution the Nexus 10 is too good to not buy.

bryanlarsen• 14 years ago

Given the number of pogo pins, they must be for both power & USB, so a keyboard dock is quite possible. (If it is just power, the dock could use bluetooth.

If the Nexus 10 is successful, somebody will make a keyboard dock for it. I'm almost confident enough of that to buy a Nexus 10 today and use my bluetooth keyboard for the time being.

While I'm confident somebody will make a keyboard dock, I'm not as confident that it will be a GOOD dock. So I'm going to wait for a bit.

someperson• 14 years ago

What matters in this case is the number of units that were available (now sold) - it's likely a small amount on purpose, since selling out fast is great for publicity.

Though unlike Nexus 7, the Nexus 4 pricing is competitive to the US price - the AUD is worth more than the USD and the Australian price is only $50 more (most of which is accounted by the 10% GST tax.)

Australia still has to pay a little more than the US than justified by tax differences, but it's better than the huge price differences it normally has.

bmelton• 14 years ago

Not sure what the tax difference would take the amount up to, but it was probably priced to just be "near" a round number (with the obligatory 99 suffix).

Also, unless you're planning to peg the price to currency fluctuations, may as well round up to cover that.

scragg• 14 years ago

Well if they sold out, wouldn't the units available and sold be the same? Unless they are selling units that don't exist yet. Apple does this too, they say "We sold out in x hours" and neglect to say how many units they sold. That info does come out later after the headline wears off.

megablast• 14 years ago

You are missing the point. If they sold out of 10 units, that is not impressive. If they sold out of 10,000 units, that is pretty amazing for Australia.

arrrg• 14 years ago

Apple usually doesn't say they are sold out, you can just infer it from the availibility dates on the website (e.g. if the store says shipping in three to four weeks). If a product is successful (and all their big products everyone cares about have been, so they have always been reporting numbers on iPhones and iPads) they will usually report a nice round number after the opening weekend (like "We sold three million in three days!").

They will say when they are supply constrained, but that's during their quarterly calls when being supply constrained is properly interpreted as a more negative than positive thing.

ryanhuff6• 14 years ago

When (what time) does it go for sale in the US?

tdfx4• 14 years ago

Seems like no one is sure, but there's a lot of people on twitter (#nexus4) who are planning to wait until 3am EST (12am PST)

timdorr• 14 years ago

I think you mean 3am.

ditoa3• 14 years ago

6am in the UK and still nothing in the UK Play Store :(

desigooner• 14 years ago

Latest from Google: 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST (my buddy just got off the phone with them)

keltex• 14 years ago

Android Police say 9am PST:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/11/13/psa-us-customers-you...

error54• 14 years ago

I've said it once and I'll stay it again: this phone is a steal. It has comparable specs to phones that cost twice as much so it's not really a surprise that it's selling so well but like someperson said, there's no telling how many units were actually sold. I have a feeling that the entire Nexus line will do quite well this year.

inflatablenerd• 14 years ago

It's probably worth mentioning that in Australia, off contract phone are far more popular than they are in the US. We have many competitive pre-paid options, so buying a phone outright often is cheaper, or better value than going on a plan. The Nexus 4 may have found the perfect market for skipping carriers.

zmmmmm• 14 years ago

Plus with LTE having very low presence / uptake (and tiny coverage area) the no-LTE disadvantage is meaningless.

mcbridematt• 14 years ago

I would disagree. LTE is rolling out pretty rapidly, and there are quite a few places where 3G is useless, even on Telstra. Melbourne CBD has been a long running issue, so has parts of Perth and Sydney, apparently.

DC-HSDPA is great but the lack of uplink speed upgrade to go with it seems to be an issue, IMO. I've seen a few situations where I can pull a few megabits/s on 3G but now the uplink is seriously congested, so interactive applications become very poor.

hkmurakami• 14 years ago

Ugh, I need to have the company's purchasing department buy a Nexus 4 for our dev team, but if it's going to sell out so quickly, I'm virtually guaranteed to be out of luck :(.

kumarm• 14 years ago

Not to sound cocky but No developer with self respect should be working for a company that wouldn't let developers buy THE DEVELOPMENT phone if developers are working on smartphones.

StavrosK• 14 years ago

His company is letting him buy it. The phone's just sold out, so he can't.

Hendrixer• 14 years ago

I'm such a nexus nerd, but my International Galaxy S III is just killing first and asking names later. I might geat the international Note II

joonix• 14 years ago

On my new Note 2 now. Haven't been able to put it down since I got it two days ago. Amazing device. Android has blown me away. Im an iOS convert.

mtgx• 14 years ago

Why does it matter how well the GS3 sells? Just get the device you like most. I'm not buying anything but Nexus from now on, and I don't care how flashy they make the new phones. The Nexus experience and the 2 years upgrades, plus the very low price make it worth a lot more to me.

fourmii• 14 years ago

The Nexus is super attractive, except for the glaring lack of LTE. I'm currently on a SIII rooted with AOKP Jelly Bean ROM and I'm loving it. I can't believe how fast it is, not to mentioned the high level of customization available. The Samsung ROM was just too bloated and felt sluggish. Jelly Bean has definitely won me over!

tdfx4• 14 years ago

Just curious, but which applications' experiences do you find to be improved enough by LTE to offset the hit to the battery life?

greenmountin2• 14 years ago

It's weird how with all the adulation over the GSIII, no one dings the screen. The quality hit is pretty noticeable in an AT&T store. I wandered back and forth from iPhone, Lumia, etc, and had also checked out the RAZR HD earlier that day -- which has the same subpar sparkle-grains display.

This is one of the cynical things that makes me wonder if sites ever actually have time to review new devices. Their "one job" should be to see through the marketing-speak ("Super AMOLED", "IPS", "retina display") and tell us what A) looks better, and B) uses less power at a given nits.

I've had an iPhone 4 for 2 years now, and can't really stomach going to one of those poorer screens. The Optimus G is beautiful, and that's why I'm going to snag a Nexus.

noamsml• 14 years ago

I have a buddy who has an international Galaxy Note II, and for what it's worth, I think the screen looks magnificent compared to the screen of the Nexus 7, which isn't half bad (my phone is a Nexus S 4G, so the comparison is moot).

fcatalan• 14 years ago

It's selling in Spain right now, but can't get it because the Play Store has melted.

edit: It's gone now, so that was about 15 minutes. I got mine, yay! It's funny how even Google can't properly plan for huge traffic spikes.

conradfr2• 14 years ago

French play store is selling it but it's buggy.

Fun to see that even Google can't sometimes handle load.

tehayj3• 14 years ago

The 16gb N 4 version sold out in Germany after 10 minutes... and the 8gb is sold out now after 15 minutes.

conradfr2• 14 years ago

Here it kept swithing between "in stock" and "later", and if you add it on your basket you can't order it and the basket is flushed.

Oh well, time to go to work :)

ryanhuff6• 14 years ago

Google has regularly demonstrated an inability to handle large volumes of buyers. The Google IO ticket sales have been a joke the last two years.

enneff• 14 years ago

Huh? I/O sold out in half an hour. They seemed to handle it pretty efficiently.

alvarosm2• 14 years ago

The problem is google wallet/checkout, it's a joke. Worst payment processor ever.

buro9• 14 years ago

I assume it's sold out in the UK.

For a brief period of time the 16gb model showed as being available, but a very buggy shopping cart meant that it was nigh on impossible to actually checkout.

Now it's showing as "coming soon" again.

Edit: And now I've just received the email saying that it's available... oh no it's not.

digitalclubb• 14 years ago

This was so frustrating, to add the item to your cart, to then be thrown constant errors and being unable to proceed.

Of all the people, you would have expected Google to be able to handle the traffic.

ryanhuff6• 14 years ago

You would think so, but this isn't new for Google.

petepete• 14 years ago

This was indeed frustrating; in my attempt to buy a Nexus 10 this morning I inadvertently bought two - I definitely only saw one purchase confirmation screen, though. I'd have expected better from Google.

ditoa3• 14 years ago

Same for me. SO annoyed right now.

kiallmacinnes3• 14 years ago

I managed to get an order in - seems it sold out in UK in about 3 minutes!

kiallmacinnes3• 14 years ago

    Purchased from:
    Google Commerce Ltd
    Gordon House, Barrow Street
    Dublin 4
    +353 (1) 436 1001

Why exactly did I have to order through the UK again? Grr Google!

(Thats an Irish address, but it's not on sale in Ireland)

archivator• 14 years ago

I need to investigate the Wallet API (and whether the Play Store is using it) but I'm pretty sure it was the Google Wallet checkout popup that actually kicked the bucket. The Play Store site was really snappy, actually.

The order that visibly went through was redirected to the full Wallet site. I say "visibly" cause apparently one of the popup ones went through as well. Oh, well, I'm sure one of my friends would appreciate it.

josteink• 14 years ago

Like everyone else in this thread, I agree what's interesting is not that it's sold out, but how many were actually sold.

Sadly nobody seems to have those numbers available.

maayank• 14 years ago

What is the status in the U.S.?

tdfx4• 14 years ago

I got an order in for a 16GB Nexus 4 after about 5-10 minutes of shopping cart and payment errors on the Play Store. My order's timestamp is 11:50am. Looks like it's all sold out in the US... before the stated 12pm PST release time. I think Google pissed a lot of people off today.

thedangler• 14 years ago

How about Canada? I was supposed to get an email today but never did. Anyone else from Canada get one?

kamjam3• 14 years ago

In the same boat as you... waiting (im)patiently but no email yet!

robmclarty2• 14 years ago

Same here. Guess we wait until 9 PT? I've got my credit card# copied into memory, ready to paste ;)

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

Wouldnt it be faster to use it to create a google wallet account then just pay in one click? Whatever gets you an edge over the competition :-)

kamjam3• 14 years ago

Well I waited and didn't even see the screen flicker to available! Apparently it was released 20 minutes early and sold out within 10 minutes in Canada... although I was constantly checking. Looks like I'll be waiting for the next batch!

Any one else manage to bag one?

jpdus• 14 years ago

Got the mail that the Nexus 4 is available at 9:39am, by then it was already sold out for 20mins (Germany)... a bit unlucky, today being the only day this week where i had an unskippable meeting at 9.

This launch was a big fail and especially if the shortage was planned, this will backfire at Google. You cant announce a big product launch (at a bargaining price) and then just have a few thousand units available (it cant be more, i was quite succesful in the Touchpad fire sales last year which lasted longer). Additionally the 9am launch (on a working day) wasnt even announced beforehand and google should have known (at least from E-Mail notification subscriptions) that demand outstrips supply by far.

Anyway, hope they can handle my scraping traffic now, waiting for new ones ;).

Danieru• 14 years ago

Sold out in Canada. Turns out it went on sale ~20 minutes ahead of time. Guess I'll be waiting a few more weeks to replace my N900.

wwweston• 14 years ago

Can anybody recommend another Android device that's competitive in terms of quality? I've been holding off buying in hopes of geting the Nexus 4, but the prospect of holding off again and perhaps having the same experience as today isn't very appealing.

Google Nexus 4 Sells Out In Less Than An Hour (in Australia)

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