Google slashes the price of the unlocked Nexus 4, starts at $199

Announced on the official Google Play Google+ page today, Google has significantly cut the price of Nexus 4 smartphone by $100 on both the 8GB and 16GB models. Previously priced at $299 and $349 respectively for the two models, the new starting price of the current generation Nexus 4 is $199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the 16GB.

While Google hasn’t announced any new models in the Nexus smartphone lineup, it’s highly likely that Google is clearing out existing inventory to make way for new models with LTE connectivity. If that’s the case, the new generation of Nexus models will likely adopt the previous pricing model and could offer larger storage options as well as increased performance. 

Over the last ten months, the Nexus 4 has been a popular choice among consumers that wanted an inexpensive, unlocked smartphone that wasn’t tied into an expensive two-year contract with companies like Verizon and AT&T.

While users can certainly access those mainstream networks using the Nexus 4, many users opt for less expensive alternatives like Straight Talk or T-Mobile’s prepaid plans. Most of these prepaid options offer unlimited plans around $50 per month, but will throttle data usage each month after passing a specific data threshold. 

In addition to the price drop in the United States, Google has also slashed the price in Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Korea and the UK. The current generation of the Google Nexus 4 sports a 4.7-inch Corning Gorilla Glass 2 display at 1280 x 768 resolution as well as 2GB of RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, a rear 8-megapixel camera, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean for the operating system.

As mentioned previously, there’s no LTE connectivity in the phone, only HSPA+. The Nexus 4 also lacks a microSD slot to expand the device’s memory beyond 8GB or 16GB depending on the model. You can read Digital Trends full review of the Google Nexus 4 here.