Published in Mobiles

Google Play Edition line-up whittled down to three

by on09 July 2014



HTC One M8, Galaxy S4 or Moto G

Google has decided to refresh its Google Play Edition (GPE) offer or in this case to trim the line-up down from five to three phones. The other phones listed on Google Play were either out of stock or obsolete, or both.

Google won't be selling any more HTC One M7 and Sony Xperia Z Ultra devices, as both are last year's models. Google continues to sell the recently introduced HTC One M8 model instead of the One M7 and we believe that this is the right decision. 

The Sony Z Ultra is about seven months old, but Google has decided to let this product fade away. Despite its Snapdragon 800 SoC and regular Google Play Edition Android updates, the phone didn’t sell as well as Google wanted, therefore it was forced into early retirement.

We are surprised that there is no GPE version of the new Galaxy S5 phone to replace Galaxy S4 that is still selling. Maybe this is in the works, but until it actually happens the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition is the only Samsung phone in Google’s store.

Motorola did quite well with its inexpensive Moto G phone and this one is still selling. It will probably continue to sell for a while, as it offers exceptional value for money and it is Motorola’s best selling smartphone of all time.

It turns out that the LG G Pad 8.3 tablet is gone as well. Google lists it as no longer available for sales. This affects mostly US readers as most of these devices were only available to US and not even to Canadian consumers, let alone Europeans or the rest of the world. 

The decision to phase out the LG G Pad 8.3 might mean that there is a new Nexus tablet on the way, but for the ones willing there is still a 2013 Nexus 7 available in most of countries and it is down to €179 in Germany.

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