A Google blunder knocked £175 off the price of a Nexus 6

A technical blunder at Google meant late-night shoppers could have picked up a 32GB Nexus 6 for as little as £304 ($474). Normally, those phones sell for £479 ($746).
The Independent spotted the £175 ($273) discount late on Thursday night. The reason for the drop remained unclear.

However, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider it was due to a technical error made while setting up a more modest and temporary Nexus 6 sale.

The intended – and more modest – price cut (of £80) has now gone live and means Google’s phones line up like this in the Google Play store:

32GB Nexus 6 is now on sale for £399 ($622); it was previously £479 ($746).
64GB version is now on sale for £479 ($746); it was previously £549 ($855).
Google has not said when the “limited time” promotion will end.

The Nexus 6 was released in 2014 and is the flagship smartphone for Google’s Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system.

The handset was the first Nexus-branded handset in the “phablet” plus-sized category of smartphones and carried an unusually high price tag compared to past Google-phones. Prior to the Nexus 6, most Nexus phones targeted the mid-price bracket and retailed between £300 ($467) to £400 ($623).

The price drop comes just after Google unveiled the developer preview version of its next Android version, Android M.

Android M was unveiled at Google’s I/O developer conference in May. The OS is an early test version of the full Android update Google will roll out to the general public later this year.

It is designed to give developers and companies time to prepare their products and help Google find performance bugs in the new version ahead of its full release.

Key new features in Android M include Android Pay, Google Photos, enhanced privacy controls and in-built support for fingerprint scanners, similar to the TouchID sensor seen on Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Android Pay is a similar service to Apple Pay that will let users may contactless payments using Android M handsets at supported stores. Google Photos is a free unlimited cloud storage service.

For an in depth look at the Google Nexus 6 check out Business Insider’s full review.