Remember when Apple slashed the price of the first-gen iPhone by $200? That led to a lot of whining by early adopters, who for some reason felt suddenly stupid spending a premium to be the first owners of the “exclusive” phone. And Apple caved in, giving the early adopters $100 credit for the Apple store.

Looks like the same thing happened with the T-Mobile G1, at least for one writer online. Originally offered for $180, Wal-Mart came along and spoiled the fun by offering it for $30 less. That prompted “Andrew R Hickey” to blast Wal-Mart for offering something cheaper, trying to disguise his disgust by raising—quite honestly—stupid arguments over Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart and the price drop coming a week after the G1’s initial release.

As commentor bug661 so aptly wrote: “‘It’s Wal-Mart’? How is that a reasoned line of argument? A store can sell whatever they want. Don’t whine.” Check out the whole brouhaha here.

(image from wired blog)

The Motley Fool has a good point: unless the upcoming G1 Phone is a complete and utter failure, Google wins whether or not its entry into telecom hardware market does well. The money quote:

Google wins when more people use the Web. If the Android platform kills the iPhone, that’s great. Google wins. If Apple ends up killing the Android, it’ll have to be with better software that takes full advantage of connectivity everywhere. Again, Google wins. The only way to lose is to release a total dud, so failure this month is not an option.

In any case, a 1.5 million pre-sale figure is pretty impressive. It’s proof that Google’s concept for mobility is interesting enough for lots of people to shell out money—despite the lack of any significant experience with the phone. Unfortunately, it’s still ugly!