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Life's tough out there on the bleeding edge, as owners of Google's (News - Alert) Nexus One phone have had it up to here with lousy phone and customer service.

The BBC is finding that 'confusion over who should answer customer queries has led many to file complaints on support forums,' and that 'many people are unhappy with Google only responding to questions by e-mail and are calling for it to set up phone-based support.

Of course for many the reason for plunking down up to $529 for the phone isn't that it executes flawlessly, it's that nobody else in the bar after work has one.

There is an upside to the product: An analysis by industry observer JR Raphael finds that, when it comes to overall cost of ownership, 'the Nexus One beats out both the iPhone (News - Alert) and the Droid -- at least, looking at the current T-Mobile-centric incarnation of the device. The difference there is largely due to T-Mobile's cheaper plans compared to Verizon and AT&T (News - Alert).'

But nobody with any sense, of course, expects cutting-edge technology to work as well as the industry standard. That's the tradeoff you hardy tech pioneers make -- you're the first on the block with the new stuff, but you miss the news about the block party being cancelled because your phone wasn't working. The rest of us thank you.

'Almost 500 people have logged problems with the Nexus One's support for 3G wireless networks. Others reported bugs when synchronizing contacts or getting the handset to work with existing Google accounts,' the Beeb reports.

Industry analyst Susan Choney finds that Google's insistence on handling all sales online is a problem, too: 'Customers who want to use the Nexus One with T-Mobile's service can buy the phone for $179 with a two-year service contract. But Google is the seller, unlike previous Google-related phones that have been sold through wireless carriers.'

Avi Greengart, Current Analysis' (News - Alert) research director for mobile devices, tells Choney that 'Google is trying an entirely new distribution model: the operating system vendor as the retailer, and an online-only retailer at that.' Perhaps needlessly, he adds 'there were bound to be support questions.'

Yes, there were. Such as dpaulson326's, posted on the Google mobile forum: 'Upgraded from a BlackBerry Pearl to the Nexus One. I cannot get any 3G service as of yet. Don't know what the problem is. T-Mobile and HTC (News - Alert) support weren't able to help.'

And mbaird's: 'I called T-mobile to make sure that I didn't need to activate the phone or something to get 3G service. They said my account looked fine and that they couldn't give me any more support since I had a Nexus One, that I had to call HTC. So I called HTC and they said that your 3G service is a T-mobile issue and they couldn't help me. The fact that my G1 (a T-Mobile phone that uses the same Android operating system as the Nexus One) works perfectly sitting right next to the Nexus though makes me think it really is a problem with the phone. I'm at the point where I'm about to send this thing back. It ruins the whole experience if I can't ever stay on 3G for more than a few seconds.'

And KseniaCoffman speaks for many others on the forum with 'Right now it's a big mess.'

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