Sprint may have received quite a bit of criticism for offering the Nexus 5 for $100 more than Google’s Play Store pricing, and now they’re working to redress some of those complaints, by adding unlimited talk and text, along with 1 GB of data, all free for 12 months, if you buy the Nexus 5 for $450. If you want to keep using voice, text and data after that year has passed, you’ll have to pay the regular price. You can also upgrade to unlimited data at any time, for an additional $10 per month.
To get this deal, though, you have to prove you’re an “active student enrolled in a U.S.-based elementary, middle school, high school, college, university of accredited institute.”
The Nexus 5 is one of the best phones you can buy this time of the year, for the price, and with the recent upgrade to the camera, it should finally take decent pictures for a device at this level, too. That was the biggest criticism for Nexus 5, and what I think held a lot of people back from buying it. Historically, Google hasn’t cared much about the camera performance of Android, and it’s been obvious with Nexus devices, and by extension with any Android device that used Google’s software stack, which meant that whatever flaws were in the stock Android, got adopted by other devices, too.
With the Android 4.4.1 update, and with the recent news of Google wanting to give OEM’s and app developers access to better camera API’s, I think we’re starting to see Google’s focus on wanting to improve the camera software in Android, to ensure that Android devices can compete with the best of the best cameraphones out there, including future Nexus devices.
If a Nexus 5 is still not for you, however, Sprint is offering the same deal for the following devices, too: Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4, LG G2, HTC One, Moto X and Kyocera Kona. The “catch” is that they all have to be bought at their unlocked price, and most of those are actually much more expensive, with the Kyocera Kona being the cheapest at only $250.