Nexus One

Subsidized from T-Mo, it's a pretty damn awesome deal. In fact, it's by far the best deal on the market. But, given Engadget's review, I am MORE than happy with my Droid for the moment, especially considering that Android 2.1 should be coming for it in the very near future.

I've read commentary that suggests that Google can update the Droid at will without Verizon's input, but I am highly skeptical of that. So long as Verizon can't throttle updates completely like some providers seem to have done, I'll be happy.

It's a sexy design, but I still use the physical keyboard on the Droid here and there (YES I KNOW), and like the slim profile of it whereas the Nexus One looks slightly chunkier. Also, LD, sorry for not getting back to you on FB but I completely forgot about the message and got dragged into other stuff over the weekend. SOMEDAY!

I'm on T-Mobile and will probably pick up this phone whenever I can upgrade and have it subsidized. Unfortunately I bought a new phone in Fall 2008 and they won't let me upgrade without paying the full price.

I am planning on moving in the next month or so though so I should actually probably make sure T-Mobile gets decent reception in wherever my new place is before I lock in for even longer.

I do wonder if I bought the phone outright how well it'd work with my cheap $6 a month T-Zones unlimited mobile internet plan. If I get decent speed for $20 less than the normal unlimited plan and $5 more from no unlimited text messages it might not be a bad deal to just buy it straight up. By the time I'd be able to upgrade to it, I'd have saved the same amount in data.

You son of a bitch, Jake. It's all good, it was a really hectic trip, anyways. Turns out that there's a lot to do in LA! Who knew?

The physical keyboard on the droid is something of a godsend, really. If the Android Keyboard was anywhere near as good as the iPhone's, I'd be ok going with screen only, but it's simply not. I suppose I could install Better Keyboard, but I'm hesitant to mess with such integral elements of the phone's functions.

If I could somehow transfer my current cell number to Google Voice I would probably be really interested in getting the Nexus One. I love my iPhone to death, but dropping the $120 a month on the phone kills me, when half of that is a voice plan I barely use and Google Voice would more than compensate for.

Better Keyboard's slightly better than the Android keyboard, but that's like saying that getting my fingers smashed with a tack hammer feels better than smashing them with a claw hammer.

Force yourself to use the android touch keyboard for 2-3 days. I did and now my thumbs (huge though they may be) have gotten the knack of the touch android keyboard.

Yeah, I don't even use the physical keyboard anymore. It becomes second nature the more you use the touch pad. It helps that the DROID gives you a decent selection of words to choose from while you're typing. Saves a lot of time. I'm officially a texting maniac now.

*looks at Jake and LD* Told you so.

man, fuck you guys. I'm switching to Windows Mobile.

I don't doubt that I could get acclimated, but I am the rare guy who likes the keyboard, particularly because it gives me full use of the screen while I type. Though, from all accounts, the stock board could stand to improve to catch up with the iPhone and the HTC Sense board.

I've gotten to the point with my iPod touch where I don't hardly type anything on it anyway ... maybe a word or two or signing in to something. Most of the time though it's just clicking on bookmarks or opening apps.

As for email, I always get annoyed when people respond with their phones and it mangles the nicely formatted HTML email into ugly plain-text.

The Nexus one is 119 x 59.8 x 11.5 mm.
The Droid is 116 x 60 x 14 mm

Pretty close to the same size except the Nexus is slightly thinner. Probably because of not having a physical keyboard.

I wonder how much the 1Ghz Snapdragon stuff hurts the battery life.

My G1 needs to be recharged daily with heavy use. The Nexus1's battery life is slightly better than that.

So, a few months ago I was set on a Storm 2. Then I read the Droid thread and I was definitely planning on getting a Droid next month when I'm eligible for an upgrade. Now... hmmm. I'll have to wait and see what the street date for Verizon is on this bad boy. All I know for sure is that I've seen my future and it is Android.

Verizon users are going to be fortunate that google will presumably have the 3G reception on this thing figured out by then.

I'd assume the only reason you'd get crappy 3G reception is that T-Mobile has crappy 3G coverage. My current phone is 3G capable and I rarely ever see the 3G icon come on. Of course, T-Mobile doesn't even actually have coverage where I live now so I'm always roaming. Oh, Einstein PCS why won't you sell to T-Mobile.

You'd assume incorrectly! http://gizmodo.com/5443123/does-the-...ve-3g-problems

Interesting.

So... I went ahead and purchased this device.

Generally I'm liking it so far. I've never owned a smartphone before, so I can't really compare it to any other smartphones; I've gotten by just fine with a "feature phone" until now.

The UI is really nice looking and everything moves / loads very quickly. The Facebook application is a nice perk, and you can sync your contacts with your Facebook friends list. The integration with Google services like GMail, Contacts Voice and Maps (among other things) is really slick. Lots of useful apps for free or purchase (not as many as the iPhone I'm sure, but I've found an app for just about anything I could think of so far). The 5-megapixel camera works well, and the compass / GPS navigation seem pretty accurate. Voice recognition is integrated into every search / text field, and it works about 90% of the time, as long as you enunciate your words.

A few downsides:

• No multi-touch - this would be really nice for internet browsing, picture viewing, and Google Maps. The device is capable of multi-touch, but I hear Google is holding off on enabling it due to patent claims by Apple.
  
• Yahoo mail isn't perfectly compatible - there is a work around, but it's a pain to set up, and you can't use it over WiFi. You can always access this in the internet browser if needed.
  
  [02-Feb-2010 edit: This is actually working as intended; it turns out that you need to pay Yahoo $20 a month to get smartphone-enabled push e-mail]
  
  
• The music player doesn't work very well - and so far I can't get it to recognize playlists when synced with Windows Media Player. I hear there are workaround for this as well, but it's a pain right now.
  
• There isn't currently a video marketplace or even a video player that I've found. I know the device is capable, but it's certainly not on the front end yet. Streaming video works pretty well. I read that within a few months they will release an update to allow all Adobe Flash plugins to work for internet browsing.

Almost every problem I can think of with this device is on the software side of things, and I suspect these will improve with firmware updates and new applications down the road.

Until that happens, I don't think this device can claim to be an iPhone killer - it definitely has the potential, once they've ironed out some of the things I've mentioned. It's already got the "open development platform" thing going for it, and I can see that propelling Android past the iPhone eventually, if Google plays their cards right.

Just got this, yes it feels so fly. Seems smooth, fast, syncing up all my contact info was painless and awesome.

But the REAL question is where the hell can I get Missile Command? I have a trackball, and Gigahertz, where are the missiles?

Not necessarily.

*EDIT*

From Engadget's Review

Why is it there then?

One example would be that the trackball allows extremely accurate selections to be made in dense web pages without having to zoom all the way in. Engadgets reviews are now junk. Especially if Josh "it's not an iPhone" Topolsky is doing the review.

Spring 2010 has officially become way too fucking vague.

I don't need this phone but I want it. Now.

I've had this since the release date because I felt like buying a new gadget and my old phone was kinda crummy.

The interface is nice, although the live wallpapers suck up a lot of battery so I turned them off right away. The way the homescreens are arranged are intuitive and makes certain things easy, like checking the weather, and managing the phone's major functions (wifi, bluetooth, GPS, screen dimming and syncing can be controlled with a single button press). Setting it up to sync with Facebook / Gmail is easy, and the notification system is useful. Call quality isn't too bad, the standard ringer sounds are nice, and the vibrate mode can be felt even when the phone's inside the soft material cover that it comes with.

For a while the browser system was pretty bad, as there was no multitouch and I was using a third party one (Dolphin). It was annoying because whenever I would open a new page, it would always open in Dolphin even if I was using the native browser. The multitouch patch has fixed that and the Google browser works pretty well now. Though I'm still holding out for Opera Mobile and it's flash support.

Porting numbers was a pain in the ass, partly because this phone seems geared towards people who use Google as their rolodex. Transferring numbers over from my SIM card took almost a day and was a pretty confusing process. The lack of any kind of manual or support didn't help matters.

The phone layout is also a little odd. The trackball glows when there's an unread notification, but other than that I don't use it too often. There's a nice and large touchscreen, but no dedicated buttons to make or end a call (every other phone I've had had these, and it's what I miss the most). You can get around it by making shortcuts on a homescreen that call someone directly, but it takes some getting used to. The battery can quickly die with lots of features turned on, but by careful monitoring of the running applications (KillApp is handy for this), you can easily squeeze out 2-3 days worth of idling and 5-6 hours of talking/web surfing.

By far my favorite thing about this phone is the voice integration, though. The way it's integrated into Google Maps makes the phone into an excellent GPS, and it was a little freaky how well (and how easily) you can find a specific address. It's also extremely helpful for web browsing. and is an absolute win for Android.

My least favorite thing is the way media is handled. Although I finally get to dump iTunes (which has only gotten worse with every incarnation IMO), there's just no good media player app for Android yet. The native one is passable, but there's no decent 3rd party app that integrates audio, video and pictures well (Nemoplayer is one, but you can't create playlists and it's got very limited features).

Overall the hardware makes for a pretty sweet handset (that should last a couple of years at least), but the phone rises and falls with the OS. What I like is that software updates are continuous and will (likely) be available over the air. Android shows a lot of promise right now, and they've gotten a lot of things right with 2.1. With the addition of Flash support, better media handling, the release of Opera Mobile, and continuing system updates, this phone has yet to reach it's full potential. I only hope that T-mobile will be rolling out their new 3.5G/4G networks soon* so that I will be able to stream World Cup games to my phone at work.


* Yeah, I'm thinking that Verizon is probably the best carrier for this, as they seem to have the fastest implementation roadmap for their LTE network.

So March 23rd seems to be the magic day for Verizon.

A looming thought I have begun to have though is why Google is dead in the water with advertising? There isn't even a direct link to the Nexus One on the main search page anymore. The Droid did adequate numbers with Verizon's advertising full force behind it and the Nexus One sales figures have been downgraded significantly.

Does Google think they are so omnipresent that they don't need to advertise?

Are they truly trying to dominate the iPhone and the smartphone market?

Why are they not pimping the living shit out of this phone with the rumored iPhone 4G coming to Big Red within a years time?

WTF Google?

Yeah, when I was just ordering a new phone for T-Mobile I ended up going with the Samsung Vibrant rather than the Nexus One. Google needs to have an 'official' device on at least one network to pressure other handset makers into keeping the OS up to date (and to have a a reference platform to support/manage).

As of today this phone is officially dead (from Google). They sold the last of them they had in stock.