San Francisco: Contrary to speculation leading up to the Google I/O conference, Google didn't unveil the next generation of a mini-tablet called the Nexus 7 or the rumoured Motorola X Phone. Instead, the company announced that it will be selling a version of Samsung's new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, which runs a pure version of Android, the version that Google makes and distributes, not the one modified by Samsung to include a host of features that have been dismissed as confusing gimmicks in reviews.
The new phone will be unlocked, meaning it will work with any carrier, including those in other countries. But it also means the price won't be subsidized by the carrier.
Google will sell a Galaxy S4 with 16 gigabytes of internal memory for $649 in the US, beginning June 26. That's $20 more than T-Mobile US charges for the stock phone. Google's version will work on the T-Mobile and AT&T networks, with support for the latest and fastest LTE data network technology.
Google says that the new phone will be able to get Android updates as they come. Carriers sometimes block those updates from getting to locked phones.
In his talk, Googe CEO Larry Page hinted that Google prefers taking big risks rather than releasing incremental upgrades. "We should be building great things that don't exist," he said.
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