Vodafone has finally announced a UK release date for the Nexus One phone, but it's the contract costs that carry an interesting sub-plot.
Vodafone will be offering the Nexus One in stores, which means it will be in direct competition with the HTC Desire, which is a very similar phone with a few design tweaks and an improved overlay. (Compare the various Vodafone HTC Desire deals).
But the HTC Desire is the cheaper device: £30 per month will give you 600 mins on a 24 month contract with a free phone, where you have to add £5 per month for the same deal with the Nexus One.
With the Nexus One you get a noise cancelling microphone, as well as connectors at the bottom to allow you to pop the phone in things like car GPS docks.
Data - we need more data
Vodafone has also improved the data allowance for the Nexus One - with the HTC Desire you only get 500MB of data per month, but with Google's phone there's 1GB mobile data on offer, plus another 1GB through Wi-Fi hotspots around the country.
Over the course of the 24 month contract this means users will be paying £120 more for the Nexus One compared to the Desire, and in our tests we found HTC's own phone to be a superior model.
But of course, you can decide for yourself: do you want more data, a trackball and noise cancellation, or a cool Sense UI overlay and £120 in your pocket?
