[tabbyjabby]

Just a note about your 'lack of LTE as a feature' argument: I think you would be hard pressed to find many objective observers that would agree with that opinion. I have an iPhone 5, and the network speed difference is extremely noticeable as compared to 3G speeds. To top it off, the battery life is roughly equivalent to my iPhone 4's. I certainly do not feel like a compromise has been made between the networking capabilities of the chipset and the battery life. I think you will find that most professional reviewers who have written about the iPhone 5 will agree on this point.

This sort of spin is inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst. It subtly reminds me of the hackneyed "it's not a bug, it's a feature" spin. Attempting to transform what is almost universally considered a positive into a negative is not what is going to lead to Google selling many of these units; it's the very competitive price point. It seems like an extremely solid device, and I think that Google consciously made the trade off between price and networking capabilities. I doubt they would have been able to sell these handsets at such a low price if they had LTE capabilities.

It also explains why the Nexus 4 come only in 8 gb and 16 gb capacities. Google has decided that pushing the price is down their primary objective. It's a very smart strategy. I'm sure Apple is very afraid. Their business is built on making high margins on hardware. I wouldn't like being an Android handset maker right now though either. It seems like Google is on a mission to make low margins and low prices the norm for tablets and handsets. One only needs to ask Dell or HP how that sort of market turns out for the hardware manufacturers. Google has nothing to lose, because their ultimate goal is marketshare. They aren't worried about slim hardware profits, because that's not where their core business is.