A day in the life of a Google Wallet user (photos)
How far can you go just using Google Wallet? CNET finds out.
Roger Cheng
Roger Cheng (he/him/his) was the executive editor in charge of CNET News, managing everything from daily breaking news to in-depth investigative packages. Prior to this, he was on the telecommunications beat and wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade and got his start writing and laying out pages at a local paper in Southern California. He's a devoted Trojan alum and thinks sleep is the perfect -- if unattainable -- hobby for a parent.
We set out to learn just how well Google Wallet, Google's mobile-payment service, would serve the editors here at CNET's New York office. It's been a year since Google's ambitious project was announced, so how much has changed? Read on to see our results.
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Morning commute a no go
We encountered problems almost immediately. While select subway stations are outfitted with near-field communication (NFC) terminals that enable the tap-and-pay feature required for Google Wallet to work, the six-train subway stop near the office isn't one of them.
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Back to our MTA cards
Without any Google Wallet access, we were stuck cracking open our actual wallets and pulling out our MTA cards.
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The hunt for morning coffee
Who doesn't like coffee in the morning? Unfortunately, the Starbucks near our office doesn't accept Google Wallet (it has its own smartphone app), so we trekked a bit further away to a 7-Eleven that took Google Wallet.
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Google Wallet's first glitch
The experience at 7-Eleven wasn't exactly smooth. The Sprint Nextel Evo 4G LTE by HTC initially didn't register at the payment terminal, despite the MasterCard PayPass and NFC logos. It required a reboot of the phone for Google Wallet to finally work.
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Lunchtime fail
Time for lunch, and what better place than the neighborhood McDonald's. Despite taking NFC payments, our local chain's terminals would not work with the phone. We tried three times and got the same error message warning us that the tap may not have been successful, and to ask the cashier to confirm.
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Google Wallet and Big Mac combo
Apparently, Google Wallet and the Big Mac do not make for a happy meal. But we were hungry and ended up paying in cash.
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Smoothly running errands
Senior editor Brian Bennett needed some toiletries for an upcoming business trip, so we dropped by the Duane Reade drug store after lunch. Duane Reade was among the early partners for Google Wallet, and we were able to use the phone to pay with little problem. It's telling that the woman working the register was as surprised and impressed by the capability as she was -- there probably aren't too many Google Wallet users walking into the store.
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New York cabs take Google Wallet
We caught a cab to an after-work dessert spot. Fortunately, every cab in New York is supposed to be outfitted with a credit-card reader, with nearly all accepting NFC payments.
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An awkward moment
We experienced perhaps the longest reboot of our lives as we restarted the Evo 4G LTE again to reactivate the glitch-plagued Google Wallet capability. For the second time that day, the payment capability wouldn't register until we restarted the phone, an act that had our cab driver stewing in angry silence.
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End-of-day treat
Since few restaurants take Google Wallet, we opted to end the day on a sweet note at a Pinkberry fro-yo place. Unfortunately, we experienced the same error as we did at McDonald's, where all of the infrastructure was in place, but the cash register refused to accept the payment. Pinkberry is among the chains that are supposed to accept Google Wallet, so we diligently found another one where the transaction went through smoothly.
