SAN FRANCISCO: The latest Google smartphone sold out in the some countries within an hour of its release on Tuesday.

Nexus 4 handsets made by South Korea's LG Electronics were available at Google's online Play shop, where stock was quickly depleted and notices posted asking shoppers to leave email addresses to be alerted when more are available.

“There's been so much interest for the Nexus lineup that we've sold out of some of our initial stock in a few countries,” the Nexus team said in a post at Google+ social network.

“We are working hard to add more Nexus devices to Google Play in the coming weeks to keep up with the high demand.”

At a starting price of $299 for smartphones not bound to particular carriers, and therefore unsubsidized by telecom companies, Nexus 4 models were deemed a bargain at half the price of similarly “unlocked” iPhones from Apple.

“Nexus 4 is the new smartphone from Google,” the Play store page said.

“With cutting edge hardware, the latest version of Android, and the best Google apps - Nexus 4 puts the world's information at your fingertips.”

Reports early Tuesday indicated that Play sold out of Nexus 4 smartphones in the US, Britain, Germany and elsewhere, with people complaining of frustrating experiences at the inundated online shop.

Google on Tuesday also began selling new seven-inch and 10-inch Nexus tablet computers as well as rolling out the latest version of Android mobile operating system as an over-the-air update to Nexus devices.