Much more like it
Back at the start of the year Google had the bright idea of cutting all potential Android handset makers and retailers out of the loop by launching its own phone (albeit manufactured by HTC) and offering it direct to end users.
But before long, with Google spending nothing on marketing the product, it became clear that the Nexus One was not going to be an iPhone killer. By May Google had concluded that, having done nothing to promote its direct-to-consumer web store, it had somehow failed to capture the public imagination, and Google stopped selling the Nexus One direct.
The website that had been inhabited by Google's e-tail experiment - google.com/phone - has now been given a new purpose: to promote the broader Android handset ecosystem, in our opinion what Google should have been doing from the start.
It's calling the sort-of-new site the Google Phone Gallery and calls it "a showcase of Android-powered devices that deliver the best Google experience today." This seems carefully nuanced, to allow Google to not feature Android devices that fail to live up to its ideal, but that's Google's prerogative.
The site allows you to view phones available in 16 individual countries, including the UK, and provides hyperlinks to the relevant page of all five UK operators, if they're selling the product in question. It doesn't publish prices or tariffs, but it does have the facility to compare the specs and features of up to three phones.
For some reason Sony Ericsson isn't offered up for any country and Motorola doesn't come up for the UK, with only HTC and Samsung getting a mention. The Google blog post said more phones and countries will be added over time, but maybe the fact that SE and Moto have been slow to update their phones to Froyo is a reason behind their initial exclusion.
And yes, the Nexus One is on the list.
