Earlier this year, Google launched their US-centric phone picker featuring phones available at US retailers and carriers, but that’s no use to us here in Australia. Google Australia has launched their own device picker tool with a focus on phones and devices available on our shores from Australian based carriers and retailers, the options are limited, but it’s fun to play with.
The Phone Picker has a fair number of choices starting with which carrier or retailer you want to choose from. Google Australia has included Telstra, Vodafone and Optus as well as Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and JB Hifi in their supplier category so if a phone you’re thinking of isn’t available from them you won’t see it – though you can opt to leave the supplier blank and move on to other options. Other options you can select on the phone picker include the Battery Size, Screen Size and Camera Quality.
The list of phones include handsets from Huawei (P8 and Nexus 6P), LG (Nexus 5X and G4), HTC (One M9), Samsung (Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5) and Sony (Xperia Z5 Compact, Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Premium).
Once you’ve selected your handset you can then click on the picture of the phone and you’ll get a fairly comprehensive spec listing as well as a link to the store or carrier site to continue on and complete your phone purchase. There’s also a link to the manufacturers website as well to check out the handset in more detail.
Once you’ve picked your phones, it looks like Google is starting on Android Wear and other Android devices as well – scroll to the bottom, past the information about Android and all the services Google can provide and you can get the same treatment for Android Wear devices and what appears to be a tablet section, though that isn’t fleshed out yet.
Though not fleshed out for tablets, the Android Wear side works just fine, with links to where to buy the various Android Wear devices on show. There is a decent, though not exactly current selection of models, including the Asus ZenWatch (but not the recently released ZenWatch 2), LG Watch Urbane, Motorola Moto 360 V2 (No, it’s not available yet), Huawei Watch and Sony SmartWatch 3.
There appears to be a lot of room for expansion on the site, with Google listing other suppliers with no current models included in the page like ZTE
There’s a limited amount of devices listed here, but it’s still an interesting look at. Check out the Device selector and see what you think.
