First, Verizon changed their mind about the Google Phone after releasing the similar HTC Incredible. Now Sprint, weeks before the release of the Evo 4G, has done the same. And with that, the CDMA Nexus One is all but dead.
When Sprint's Michelle Leff Mermelstein told us that the company wouldn't be selling the Nexus One because of the "upcoming availability of the award-winning Evo 4G," it didn't change much for your average user. The Evo, like the Incredible, looks at least as enticing as the Nexus One, and even shares a lot of the same hardware. Where it diverges, Sprint says it's a "more robust, full-featured device," which, well, it is.
But what about the Google Phone? It wasn't just a handset, it was an idea. It was Google.com/phone. It was a brand, sort of. We were told to wait for other carriers to jump on board, and that's what a lot of us did. And now it seems that the Google Phone, only sold on contract with one major carrier, its launch partner T-Mobile, has suffered the same fate as so many of its fellow handsets: It has become just another Android phone.