The Nexus one was launched amongst all the attention and hype by HTC collaboration vis-a-vis the Droid (Motorola) with the onset of 2010.  Both sport Google’s OS to begin with. So whats the hype about? This article makes a comparison between the key offerings of these top 2 phones.

  • The  processor speed: The Nexus One has a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The Motorola Droid, for comparison, has a 550-MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor; the iPhone 3GS (another hyped top phone from Apple) has a 600-MHz chip.
  • Random Access Memory: The Nexus One also has twice the RAM of the Droid or the iPhone, with 512 MB on-board.
  • Display: The Nexus One sports a 3.7-inch OLED 480-by-800 display. The Droid’s display has slight better resolution, at 3.7-inch and 480-by-854 pixels, but it uses TFT-LCD technology rather than OLED. The i-Phone in comparison has only a 3.5-inch, 480-by-320 TFT-LCD screen. OLED is the talk of the day, and Nexus-One scores again.
  • Camera: Both have 5MP cameras. While Nexus one has a resolution of 2560 х 1920 pixels, Droid sports a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels.
  • Talk time: The Nexus One supports 10 hours of talk time vis-a-vis 6 Hours 30 mins from Droid.
  • Connectivity: Edge and GPRS of Droid scores slightly over Nexus One with an offer of Class 12 vis-a-vis Class 10 although the data exchange speed does not vary too much.
  • Size: Nexus One comes at 119 x 59.8 x 11.5 mm while Droid comes at 115.8 x 60 x 13.7 mm.
  • Cost of manufacturing: The components used to build the Nexus One by HTC costs about $174 while the Droid by Motorola costs about $185, according to iSuppli estimates.
  • Price on market: Google sells the Nexus One without a wireless service contract for $529, while the Droid is available contract-free from Best Buy for $599. Google is planning to drop the price of Nexus one by $100 when it enters the European market in Mid-January, 2010.

So HTC’s offer beats Motorola on all aspects when it comes to the G-Phone from a personal perspective based on feature. With so many plus for HTC’s phone in terms of features and still it beats Motorola on Cost and Price, what should Motorola’s positioning strategy be in this scenario?

Can something like reverse positioning be tried out here? What about differential branding?

But WHATEVER HAPPENS, GOOGLE IS THE CLEAR WINNER.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

By Kar

Dr. Kar works in the interface of digital transformation and data science. Professionally a professor in one of the top B-Schools of Asia and an alumni of XLRI, he has extensive experience in teaching, training, consultancy and research in reputed institutes. He is a regular contributor of Business Fundas and a frequent author in research platforms. He is widely cited as a researcher. Note: The articles authored in this blog are his personal views and does not reflect that of his affiliations.