Acting on its promise to keep the Nexus One for developers, Google today brought back the option of buying its self-designed Android phone. The handset is available at the same unlocked $530 as before for anyone registered as an Android developer. It ships with Android 2.1 out of the box but will update to 2.2 almost immediately.
The company had originally sold the Nexus One to the broader public and let them have their choice of frequency support depending on their network. A lack of advertising and the inability to try the smartphone in a store led to slow sales and let roughly equivalent phones such as the Droid Incredible or Evo 4G take precedence. Google has almost always had developer phones, but it wasn't until this year that the company promoted them more heavily.