A Week with the Google Nexus One
Posted by Ian | Filed under reviews
First is was going to write a review of the Nexus One but then I decided to give some insight into what it was like to spend a week with it. So here it is…
Ok so to start out with it is a great phone. Its what the G1 should have been. I had a G1 and it was bearable. I’ve had an iPhone 3GS but nothing but bad experiences with AT&T and ditched the service. However I was a big fan. Now my fiance is a big fan.
The Nexus One rivals the iPhone and it does a lot of things really well but its not an “iPhone killer”, its well over a year too late to be that. Along with the Droid its really just a great alternative. If you use use iTunes then get an iPhone, if you don’t (and don’t want a keyboard) then get the Nexus One.
So I admit I got caught up in the hype, I had been using my G1 for about 6 months with Cyanogens latest mod installed but the phone was just too sluggish. I ordered my Nexus One the day it became available. It shipped FedEx and arrive the next morning. I opened it and and quite frankly was impressed by the speed. Its fast and whips along like the iPhone.
The draft N wireless was a plus, I’m not sure how many phones have this but I’ve never owned one that does. I’m not really sure how much difference that makes on my home network but the web seemed very fast. Approaching desktop speed for me at least. I get really fast internet in West Hollywood too.
So I played around with the animated backgrounds, ooohed and aaahed and then realized it drained the battery faster and switched right back to the static desktop. One thing that certainly seemed to be far, far better than the G1 and perhaps slightly better than the 3GS was the battery life. I got through the first day no problem not needing to charge at all and I was using the phone heavily. That was never the case with the G1 or the 3GS. I had the large capacity battery for the G1 which made it 30% or so larger as well to combat the short battery time. With the G1 I always felt like I needed to manage the power but with the Nexus One I have just been leaving everything on all the time, which I like. I think that in standby the phone shuts off wifi and other things as the standby time is really what seems to be so much better.
I configured my mail and social network apps. Now when I look at a contact the phone has combined all the contact info it has for the person from different paces and even shows the status update from facebook. The voice recognition is not bad, it worked well for my fiance but for me having a British accent seemed to gum up the works a bit.
To my fiance’s dismay I printed to her POGO via bluetooth. “I cant do that” she said. “I know” I said.
I took some pictures and shared them with facebook. That was pretty seamless and the camera is OK but not going to be replacing our digital camera which means we are still toting two phones and a camera between us.
Video up to YouTube worked OK but over a certain length it refuses to upload through 3G and waits for a wifi connection.
I also immediately ordered a Skinomi skin and applied it when it arrived. Its not perfect but it does the job of protecting the investment for the time being. It was tough to apply though.
Still no bluetooth voice dialing. Eh?
After a few days its clear, as with most phones of this nature, the screen is the big battery hog and although the screen is beautiful and the touch screen is excellent there are a couple of points to mention. At different levels of brightness the color temperature of the screen seems to shift slightly. I don’t think many people would care about this and some may not notice, but it does not seem right to me. Backlit screens rarely perform under direct sunlight and the N1 is no exception. Its not as bad as I’ve heard but OLED is no great performer here.
I have the following installed at this point:
- Amazon
- Androzip
- AnyPost
- Barcode Scanner
- ES File Explorer
- Evernote
- Goggles
- Listen
- Locale
- My Maps Editor by Google
- Places Directory
- RingMode Timer
- SimpleTimer
- Swift Tweets
- Thinking Space
- WaveSecure Beta
- wpToGo
- Yelp
There is 139MB of space left on the internal memory. As you can see I’m not into games on my phone so I will probably never have to manage that space if it gets full. Actually I don’t like paying for apps at all. The android market seems to me to be far more of a community that the apple market. There almost always is a free or add supported version of any app and although there are only a fifth of the apps compared to apple the free apps are typically more readily available with Android. This just happened with ping.fm yesterday. My fiance could not find an app to post to ping.fm and I installed AnyPost which was free and worked fine. The Adroid app store seems like a lot more fun because of this, its a community and not just a market with thousands of companies coming up with new ways to take your money.
I consider myself an average user although maybe a bit more technical and I will probably at some point install a custom ROM on the phone, either just to try it, or to enable multi-touch, wireless tethering or something else. This is another reason I like that Android community and Google so much is that when somebody develops a custom ROM Google doesn’t bring the smack down like Apple does. I feel there is little support from Apple in the modding community . I did jailbreak my 3GS but it was a lot of hassle keeping up with changes and since I had no interest using it on any other network without 3G, it was not worth it for me.
No multi-touch out of the box for Google apps is a bit of a let down but Apple would target Google with the lawyers as it has with Palm so that’s not really a surprise. It does monkey with being able to type fast on the on screen keyboard though, one letter at a time which is a definite drawback, especially since I had multi-touch enabled on my G1.
I also have an 16GB card left over from my G1 that I switched right into my N1. Which is much more like a desktop computer when you think about it.
Its also worth mentioning that I have a Google voice number and route all my calls through it. I’m sad to say that although this is a fantastic app there are still a couple of problems with it, especially when text messaging, where I still get double messages if someone texts my actual cell phone number instead of my Google Voice number. However that’s a small gripe. This application is incredible and should not be overlooked by anyone who has an android enabled (and i think palm pre) phone, it just totally changes the way you manage your calls and messages. Absolutely brilliant!
Couple of things:
1. Why not make it work with 3G on ATT? Perhaps this was for cost saving or there is another more complex reason. Not sure but it really only runs T-Mobile out of the box.
2. Why did Google not offer to subsidize the phone in some way, perhaps to Gmail users or Google Voice users. This has the potential to put the device in a lot of peoples hands and really monkey with the status quo. I guess just the sheer cost of it.
So I am pretty much done with the first week. It is a great phone and the first time I have felt that I don’t need to have my net book with me. I certainly could not write this article on it but I’m not a writer so email, web, entertainment and connection to the social networks out there is really great for me. Switching between the apps and having lots of open programs does not slow the device at all, it would crawl with the G1 and with the prospect of flash coming soon and a new ROM that will allow multi touch and ad blocking being developed by the community, this will be a stunning phone and at least for me, pip the lead from Apple until they release something later in the year. The augmented reality stuff is coming along nicely and there are some fun apps out there too.
Look I obviously really love this phone as I took the time to write this article and I don’t think Google is the devil. I use there free apps and services everyday and they have never asked me personally for a dime. With the integration in the cloud and really for the first time being able to manage everything from my phone that I need, it just cant be beat.
I guess I am now officially a Google brand evangelist…
There are some great first thoughts by someone else here http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-nexus-one-vs-iphone.html
Ran around as a kid with a video camera shooting home television shows and interviewing friends. So obviously I went to business school. Then after a few years of that I realized I it was not going to cut it for me. So I shipped off to Florida for a vacation and happened across a film school. This was a life changing event for me. I had finally found something that gave me the drive and creative direction I wanted. Eventually everyone who wants to make movies ends up in LA at some point I think.
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