Google Offering Nexus 5X for $200 with New Project Fi Activation

Google is temporarily offering a great deal on its superior Nexus 5X smart phone and Project Fi wireless service, offering hundreds of dollars in savings when you buy both.

Google made the announcement almost in passing as part of a Project Fi update post on The Official Android Blog:

To help make saying “Hi” to Project Fi a little easier, we’ll be offering the Nexus 5X starting at $199 for the next month when you buy and activate through Project Fi.

Normally, the base price of a Nexus 5X is $349 and up (with that base price being the 16 GB version; the 32 GB version is $399).

Project Fi, of course, is Google’s experimental cellular service. I’ve been using it with a Nexus 6P—essentially the bigger, phablet-class cousin on the 5X—since late December. And while I had hoped to provide a full review of each by now—I did provide one quick interim update—a planned trip to Paris fell through in January: I had really wanted to test Fi’s international usage before committing to an opinion.

But all that said, I can at least tell you this: The Nexus 5X is a fantastic and unlocked phone, and much better made than the somewhat similar Lumia 950. It has a great camera, a superior fingerprint reader (both identical to what ships on the 6P), and of course runs the latest Android version. (Mary Jo is currently testing Android with my 5X, but I continue to use the 6P regularly.)

As for Project Fi, I’m impressed. The service is inexpensive and hugely transparent, and you get a refund each month for the data you don’t use. My own bill is just $30 a month for 1 GB of data, and unlimited calls and texts, and if I go over 1 GB, I get more data in 1 GB chunks at a cost of $10. You can cancel or change your plan at any time: It’s month to month. Super reasonable.

(You also need a Gmail.com email address and not a custom domain, even if it’s on Google Apps.)

Indeed, my only beef with Project Fi is that it’s limited to Google’s own phones: You can only use it with the Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, and the older Nexus 6. (Though I believe Google also offers data-only Fi SIMs for other devices too.) If Google supported just the latest iPhones too, I’d switch immediately from AT&T.

Anyway, head on over to Project Fi and check out the deal. It’s a good one.