I still can’t get the LG Nexus 4, and I’m tired of playing this game with Google
As anyone keeping an eye on technology news today will know, the LG Nexus 4 went back up for sale today at noon PST, after selling out almost immediately the first time around. When the device first went on sale a couple weeks ago, the launch was plagued with problems such as odd errors and empty carts when users were trying to buy the smartphone. I had hoped that Google would iron out these issues before relaunching the device today, but based on my experience, it hasn’t.
I do have to admit that I was using a mobile device to make the purchase, but the reason for that is that I simply couldn’t access a real computer when 3:00 p.m. rolled around. And in any case, I don’t think that it is either Verizon’s 4G or Chrome for Android that failed me. At about 2:59 p.m. EST, I had the Google Play Nexus 4 page pulled up, and was signed into my Gmail and Google Wallet accounts, ready to go. As soon as 3:00 p.m. hit (12:00 EST), I refreshed the page, and with some small amount of hope added the 16GB Nexus 4 to my cart. Then, I got the error that you see in the image above. I went back to try the 8GB Nexus 4, which resulted in the same error. Then, my cart emptied itself when I hit the proceed button once again, and both versions of the device showed up as sold out when I went to add them to my cart again.
At that point, it was about 3:03 p.m., and ironically enough, my Nexus Notify email came in just as I found out that the Nexus 4 was out of stock once again. I then gave up on the purchase for about an hour, until I was at home and could use a real computer. At first, the Nexus 4 still showed as sold out, but at about 4:30 p.m. Google posted a new notice on the Nexus 4 page which says this: “Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience.” Both models now show as in stock, but the same error message as before pops up when I try to proceed with checkout.
While I do understand that demand must be pretty high, I have a hard time believing that Google, who processes who knows how many searches a second, cannot handle it. Now, even though I would really like to buy a Nexus 4, I’m just really annoyed that I’ve wasted my time and still can’t get one. What I don’t understand is why Google can’t at least let me complete my transaction as a preorder, and simply ship the phone out to users in the same sequence that the orders were received. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to keep worrying about when the Play Store will finally work and/or the Nexus 4 will go back in stock, and just know that I would get one, eventually.
