Few months ago, I saidPalm, trust me, I'll buy this mobile the day you release an unlocked,GSM version. Of course you have to price it reasonably. Same with you HTC, get me a great looking Android based phone, unlocked and reasonably priced and I will get it.
It was bound to happen. I knew HTC was capable of doing it. I knew Android was capable of doing it. What I didn't know was the fact that Google would get so much involved in the making of this device. Nexus One is an awesome piece of gadget. So you may be thinking what makes Google/HTC made Nexus One so much better than iPhone? Read on
Hardware:
1GHz Snapdragon, WVGA AMOLED and 512 MB RAM. period.
Google services integration:This is the best thing to happen for Android. When you switch on the handset for the first time, the device requests you to set up your Google account on your handset. All you have to do is key in your Google user id and password. Rest is magic. Your contacts (gmail contacts), calender (google calender), photo gallery (picasa) become available for use on the first sync (sync service is a background service that keeps everything in sync between the server and your device). It takes 1-3 minutes for everything to be available for use. Since I had my iPhone contacts sync'd up to Google with Google mobile sync tool, I didn't have to do any copy. Ah, you've got to love the magic of cloud computing when it works.
Multiple Exchange accounts:One of my biggest complaint with iPhone was its lack of support for multiple exchange accounts. There's no way you can set up more than one exchange account. I,infact, had three accounts that needed Exchange support - work id for the company I work, client id and then Google/Gmail for push email. This works flawlessly on Nexus One. I would pay anything for staying connected and this feature alone would be worth $571!
Background apps:I am a guy who always believe in having more control over what I own. Device manufacturers should not decide what I want. I decide whether I need a feature or not. If you think background apps suck battery life, give us the switch to turn off the services.. just like the Notifications ON/OFF switch on settings rather than totally removing the option of third party apps to be used in background. In my opinion, it sucks to see a device capable of running background apps (yes, iPhone can multitask and does it so beautifully) yet be limited by the manufacturer just because someone who created it thought it would not help the users. I am sick of this kind of attitude and Apple is full of clowns with this kind of attitude.
All that said, I do understand that battery life is crucial. And here's the trade off. Always carry a spare battery and the charger. Phones of today are not Nokia 1100 (Who doesn't love this mobile?). To me, phones today are replacements for laptops. Why do I use laptop? Casual browsing, work, chat, music, video. Same is true with smartphones of today. I want to carry one device and it should do all the above.... doesn't really matter if I have to keep connected to the charger twice a day. I've been doing that with my iPhone and I will be doing it with Nexus One. So no difference there.
Replaceable battery:We all know Apple revolutionized the mobile industry. What is not talked about widely is how it removed some of the basic features along with all the great things it did with iPhone. Replaceable batteries. Nexus One is probably my 7th or 8th mobile handset and the only handset that never came with replaceable battery was iPhone. Why? Only Apple knows the answer.
Google Voice:When Apple rejected Google Voice app, I knew I am switching boat as soon as someone made a decent looking unlocked Android device. What I have right now in my hand is one of the gorgeous pieces of gadget. More than what I asked for.
To be frank, Google Voice is not a feature I thought I would be using. It's the attitude of Apple that's so wrong.
Sideloading apps:You can side load apps. In other words, Android market place is not the only source for Apps. This can be a good thing. This can also be a bad thing. Again, this comes to more control to the device owner rather than device manufacturer. So far, it's been a good feature.
Customizations/Widget support: How long can you look at the same home screen before you snap? In my case, it's 49,852,800 (579 days or 1 yr 7 months approx). My complaint for lack of iPhone's customization started 6 months since the day I bought iPhone. With every passing day, the hatred only grew.... to the point that I made the switch just three months ahead of next gen iPhone announcement. If Apple addresses the backlog of complaints with iPhone 4 (I am pretty confident they won't), then I am willing to get 4th generation iPhone. I will be due for an upgrade on AT&T in another 5 months. If they don't come up with something mind blowing, I will stay with Nexus One.
Better Notifications management:Android's notification management blows iPhone's out of the park. Seriously, push notifications on iPhone 3.0 OS was an eye wash. Looking back, I remember how excited I was when Apple announced push notification feature on iPhone OS 3.0.. but that excitement was equivalent to a man's excitement on getting food after 10 days of starvation. It was half baked, short termed solution to shut down complaints about push notifications. It's hard to believe Apple came up with such a non-elegant solution.
Camera:For a 1.3 mp camera, iPhone did an extremely good job. But lack of auto focus (which they introduced in 3GS) and flash was unacceptable. On the other hand, Nexus One's camera is pretty decent. Flash, Autofocus and 5MP.... I am not going to argue on this one.
All that said, I do miss certain things on making this switch
- To be frank, I didn't expect a Tweetie equivalent on Android. I can assure you that only tweetie developer can outdo tweetie client. But what surprised me was the lack of choice for twitter clients in Android market place... after combing through the marketplace, I ended up with three choices - Twidroid, Seesmic and Swift. I have Swift and Seesmic installed. Pretty much does the job.
- The keyboard: If you are going to shed the physical keyboard, make sure that the virtual keyboard is easy to use. iPhone's keyboard beats Nexus One keyboard hands down. There's no contest here. iPhone's keyboard works incredibly well that you'll never ever feel the need for physical keyboard. On the other hand, Nexus One's keyboard makes you feel the lack of physical keyboard. Kind of difficult to adapt to.
- Polish: While I am not denying that Nexus One is dropdead gorgeous, the OS seriously needs an update to fix those little pesky things that can annoy the hell out of you.. for eg. some of the touches doesn't get registered. The menu key at the bottom of the screen most often brings up the virtual keyboard instead of the menu of the app. Very very annoying.
- Lack of 3G on AT&T: Nexus One doesn't support AT&T's band for 3G. Sucks but the browser speed on Android is blazing fast. Kinda makes up for the lack of 3G. Of course, if you are on tmobile, you'll have this capability. Also, this handset will work perfectly fine with Indian operators. So no worries on that front.
- Copy/Paste & text selection: This has to be discussed because this was a big talking point on iPhone. Selecting a text and Cut,copy,Paste works flawlessly on iPhone. Apple did what it said.. it waited until it found the right solution. Can't say the same about Nexus one. Selecting a text for cut, copy can be annoying as hell sometimes. Half baked, hit or miss solution. For eg. the other day I was trying to copy, paste the UPS tracking number from my mail to the tracker app. I found it so difficult to copy the tracking number alone from the mail that I ended doing the copy paste work on PC.
