Or is it – Lost in the Nexus

My iPhone has been limping along for the past 4 months. I’ve had the annoying “volume switch sticks in the Lower Volume position” bug, and since the phone is long out of warranty, Apple expected me to buy a new phone to fix the problem. Me, I wasn’t so much excited by that idea.
(Bad quality pic below – my hands are too cold to mess with the Pentax settings right now.)

Tantalized by the steady stream of news about the worst-kept-secret-in 4th quarter geek tech, I waited. And waited. And a little before 2 pm on January 5th, the Google Phone went on sale.

At 2:01 I placed my order, deciding not to go for the engraved backplate (may add 72 hours to order processing? no thanks!) and started checking my email inbox for a shipping confirmation.

And checking, and checking, and checking. 24 hours later, when I expected to have my phone, I still hadn’t gotten my shipping confirmation.

I fired off an email to the Google Phone Webstore, asking when I could expect to get a shipping confirmation. Oh and hey Google, did you know I still haven’t been charged for the phone?

10 minutes later (I kid you not) Fed Ex was at my door with a box. Puzzled, I signed for it. And sure enough, my long anticipated Google Phone was inside.

With much excitement I opened the box, carefully cutting open the various plastic protective bags around the accessories, until I reached the battery. And the card that warned me to fully charge the battery before I turn the phone on. Aww, curses. OK. Charge I will. While it charges, I chat with my brother, getting the inside scoop on what I needed to do to port my AT&T number over to my new T-Mobile phone, how I could get my contacts from the AT&T SIM to the T-Mobile SIM, what order to call who in, etc.

After 90 minutes of charge time, the green-light-means-go charge light came on. Yay! I’m ready to go. Let’s call AT&T and get this baby working.

AT&T was incredibly helpful. Once I told the customer service representative that I already had a new phone in my hand she realized that she wouldn’t be able to talk me into staying with them, and she cheerfully walked me through what we needed to do. Within 10 minutes I was done with AT&T and ready to call T-Mobile. Eagerly I dialed their number.

15 hours, multiple customer care representatives, and several call backs later, my cell phone service is still coming through AT&T.

As best as anyone can figure out, Google still doesn’t know they’ve shipped me my phone. They haven’t even charged me for it yet (!) and my order still shows as unshipped.

Google phone also does not have a phone number you can call to let them know when there’s a problem. They’ve got Email Support instead. So far I’ve gotten an auto-response from them, and nothing else.

So what do I think of my new Nexus One? Well, it sure is a sparkly little thing. The wifi works just fine, so I’ve downloaded half a dozen apps to try out. It syncs beautifully with Google, and I like the way all my much-appreciated Google apps work on the mobile device.

There’s lots of neat toys and gadgets, and it’s all just a bit cooler than they were on the iPhone. The Live Wallpaper is a big hit with the princess; she loves that the water “shimmers” when she touches it, and the leaves float across the surface. The device is amazing.

For now I’ve caved in and put my AT&T SIM card in my T-Mobile phone, so I can go out in the world and have a phone that works. I’ve got everything but the 3G network – all the neat Android / Nexus One stuff on my wifi, and AT&T wireless service at Edge speeds. Since I had the original iPhone which only had Edge anyway, so far I’m not missing anything.

It’s going to be interesting when the next billing cycle hits though. Which is in 2 days.

Come on Google. I ordered the phone intending to pay for it. I WANT to pay for it, and have you acknowledge you shipped it – it’s the only way T-Mobile can add me to their system. I feel just a little dirty, knowing I’m using my phone and evidently haven’t paid for it yet.