Google Nexus One: Hands On
12:33 pm, January 8th, 2010, Leigh McMullen
I’m not going to use the word “iPhone killer” to describe the Nexus One, such phrasing is trite at best. Not to mention that the only thing that’s going to kill the iPhone will be Apple, and then, only when iPhone 4 or whatever comes out.
That said, of the current crop of pretenders the Nexus One seems to be something special. Follow us after the jump for our first impressions after 48 hours.
I’m forced by my employer to use TMobile, and I have long looked at iPhones with the sort of envy that only a devout Mac-cultist deprived of the sacred ‘Jesus Phone’ could. I had tried the pretenders, the other supposed ‘iPhone Killers’, and finally just settled into a comfortable groove with my Android G1. Sure it was no iPhone, but it worked reasonably well, and I was used to its quirks.
Enter the Super Phone.
Right off, I’ll tell ya, I just love this dog-gone phone. I didn’t expect to, I expected to be impressed by some of it’s sexy features, but to become frustrated as my big sausage-like red-neck fingers tried to type on the on-screen only keyboard.
I was wrong. The screen is so large, the onscreen keyboard is plenty big enough for me to accurately type. What’s more every text field on the phone is voice enabled, so I can dictate rather than type. This feature works reasonably well though sometimes how the phone interprets my “Texan” into written English yields some comical results.
USER EXPERIENCE
The hand feel of the phone is fantastic. It’s solid enough that you know you’re holding a precision instrument, but not heavy. The shape of it fits my paws pretty well. It’s longer but thinner than the iPhone, the screen is massive, and beautiful. Actually, you know, talking on the thing is a dream thanks to the twin microphones and noise canceling. It’s clear as a bell.
What is very telling is the UI. It’s clear that Eric Schmidt was taking notes while sitting on Apple’s board. There is a level of refinement in the interface not present in other Android phones that is darn near –dare it say it- Apple like.
When I place a call, big bright buttons show up, enabling me to trigger the keypad, Bluetooth headsets, or the speakerphone. Gone are the G1’s layers of menus to get to needed on call features. When I pull the phone away from my face the screen turns itself back on to give me instant access to needed features (like uh… hanging up).
This is what Android needed to be all along, and really reaffirms Apple’s strategy of perfecting products. Apple would have never released the G1 in it’s current state, but the Nexus One with its year+ of refinement, is a product a cultist can be proud to carry.
Performance is crisp, and even silly features like animated desktop wallpaper don’t seem to tax the mighty 1GHz ARM processor. We’ll need to wait on developers, however, to see how high-end games play on the phone.
APPLICATION INTEGRATION
One of the coolest things I’ve discovered in the past 48 hours with this phone has been how tightly Google has integrated different application platforms together on this phone. Of course the phone works with Gmail, and like every smartphone there is a Facebook application. What I didn’t expect was for them to be integrated. My Facebook contacts are incorporated into my Google contacts. Moreover if one of my contacts doesn’t have a picture associated, it will download their headshot from their Facebook profile.
That’s a trivial feature, to be sure, but it demonstrates the kind of attention to small details that we’d heretofore only gotten from Apple.
And the whole phone is full of them, I’m still discovering small touches that make me go, WOW!
The phone is of course integrated with Google Voice, which was an add-on for the G1. Conspicuously, the only major Google platform not supported is Wave.
SIDE BY SIDE
| iPhone 3GS | HTC Android G1 | Google Nexus One | |
| Screen Size | 3.5 Inch | 3.2 Inch | 3.7 Inch AMOLED |
| Resolution | 320X480 | 320X480 | 480X800 |
| Processor | 600MHz | 528 MHz | 1GHz |
| RAM/FLASH | 256MB/16-32GB | 256MB/192MB | 512MB/512MB |
| Expansion | NA | mSD Cards >32GB | mSD Cards >32GB |
| Networking | 802.11g | 802.11g | 802.11n |
| Camera/Video | 3mp/VGA | 3.2mp/VGA | 5mp/720p |
| Height / Width / Depth (mm) | 115.5/62/12 | 117/58/17 | 119/60/11.5 |
| Weight (grams) | 135 | 158 | 130 |
| Battery Life, Spec/Actual | |||
| Talk Time (3G) Hours | 5 / 3 | 5 / 2 | 7 / 5 |
| Casual Use (hours) * | 16 | 10 | ~24 |
| Heavy Use (hours) * | 8 | 5 | ~12 |
| Video Playback Hours | 10 / 5 | na / 3 | 7 / 5 |
| Audio Playback Hours | 30 | na / 10 | 20 |
| Internet Use (3G/WiFi) | 5/9 | ** | 5/6.5 – *** |
*Light usage = checking email, appointments, and such, with no heavy browsing, a few short phone calls, Heavy Usage = This is your only computer & phone.
** not spec’d separately, Actual web surfing on the G1 is so painfully slow you’d never do it long enough to actually drain the battery.
*** not had the Nexus One long enough to provide reliable data for pure surfing.
CONCLUSION
The Nexus One is fast, with a high rez bright screen that sips batter power. Of course, it has a set of wiz-bang features that will probably be old news by the end of next week, as phones continue to leapfrog each other. But more than its specs, it has the refinement and attention to detail that an Apple aficionado can appreciate.
While not necessarily an iPhone killer, the Nexus One is no poseur either. This phone stands on it’s own, living up to it’s own hype. It’s not the second coming of the Jesus phone… But it is something different… perhaps a true Super Phone.
Posted by Leigh McMullen in News, Reviews, Top stories, iPhone | Comment on this article
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Nice post Leigh, would love to read a detailed review of Nexus One though. I’m already convinced to get one!
Imran Hussain, on January 8th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Thanks. That was the first good article on the Nexus. It was fun reading it, and i appreciate the specs table. I hope it will be avalaible in Germany soon.
onesixone, on January 8th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Yet another article on the Nexus that fails to mention you can only install a few hundred MB of apps. Some super phone.
No you cannot run apps from the SD card.
I do like seeing the excitement about Android though even from people who should know better because it means the next iPhone will be that much better. As it is the 3GS is at least a generation ahead of any Android phone.
Darwin, on January 8th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
@Imran: I wanted to focus more on the experience of using it (hence it being a hands on), more than a feature by feature review. On a specs basis one could look at the G1 and say: “Hey that’s pretty much the same as the iphone”… but using the two is vastly different.
The Nexus One is such a revolution above what’s come before (especially other android phones) I wanted to give folks a window into the ownership experience.
———
One thing to add: I ordered my phone at 2 PM on tuesday, Google had it to me wednesday AM no charge.
Leigh McMullen, on January 8th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
@Darwin:
Google has committed to allow encrypted apps on the SD Cards**… we’re hoping this change comes soon. I totally agree, though, this fact came as a real shocker to me when I got my G1.
I’m sorry for not mentioning it, in the post, I guess I over looked it because its been the status quo for all Android phones.
All of that said the 512MB the Nexus One is way better than the 190M the G1 shipped with.
**they really will do this too… if they don’t there will never be any games worth a damn for Android phones.
Leigh McMullen, on January 8th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I’m thinking about getting the N1, especially because I can just use GV instead of paying Verizon $20 for texting (or I am under the impression that I can, not sure how well GV does texting).
However, hopes of a Verizon iPhone are holding me back (well that and the N1 isn’t available on Verizon…yet).
It looks like a spectacular phone, though.
Alex, on January 8th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Nexus One’s native google apps has no multi-touch.
Original Android phones are stuck with their v1 software.
Last year’s Android (aka Droid) cannot be upgrade to this year’s software.
See a pattern here?
Up to 32GB claim is BS. There is no 32GB micro SD card on the market at this time. There is 16GB but NO 32gb, heck, why don’t we list the specs as up to over 9000 GB, as there might be MicroSD card of that size decades from now.
It uses non-standard antenna set up. That’s why it works with T-Mobile, but not the world-wide 3g standard supported by AT&T.
Some A-GPS devices lack standalone GPS capability. Nexus One lists only Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning.
Obama Pacman, on January 8th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Also, the N1 has a crap music player.
Ted, on January 8th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
I wonder if all the AAPL fanbois saying the N1 is “crap” notice it’s not any worse then the 1st gen iPhone.
ArrowSmith, on January 8th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
“I wonder if all the AAPL fanbois saying the N1 is “crap” notice it’s not any worse then the 1st gen iPhone.”
That would be relevant if it was competing against the 1st gen iPhone. 2007 called and wants it’s limitations back…
Sam, on January 9th, 2010 at 10:59 am
“2007 called and wants it’s limitations back…”
more like 1982 called and it wants its limitations back, multitasking has been the norm in mainstream computing for a long time, but I guess AAPL fanboys will always defend apple’s decisions.
nabil2199, on January 9th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
So. You work at cult of mac, but did not figure out how to jailbreak an iphone to work on T-mobile? and.. you didn’t figure there’s a “continue” button below that warning about google wave, after which, on the iphone, it just works? (albeit very slow) but hey, it’s a beta.. ofcourse they won’t support it.
Herman, on January 9th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“I wonder if all the AAPL fanbois saying the N1 is “crap” notice it’s not any worse then the 1st gen iPhone.”
I wonder if dimwits like you notice that you just implied that the Nexus One is only a fair comparison to a 1st-generation Apple iPhone from 3 years ago (which is long long long ago in Internet Time). Fair enough. Google comes out with its “best thing ever”, but it only rates par with a 3-year old outdated Apple device?
Conclusion: Apple has a 3-year lead ahead of the posers and copycats.
Mattzook, on January 9th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
@Obama:
If AT&T is the worldwide 3G standard, then why is it that here in the UK we can use the Nexus One on all of our networks and have 3G?
Scott, on January 10th, 2010 at 6:40 am
June should be the time when Apple usually update the iPhone range, will the Nexus seem that good then?
Poppa, on January 10th, 2010 at 6:49 am
“It’s clear that Eric Schmidt was taking notes while sitting on Apple’s board.”
Great review, but the question remains – was it right to sit on Apple’s board, and steal ideas and technology, then go back and incorporate it into the Google phone?
What the author describes are changes to Android that ape directly from the iPhone. That’s not right.
Google has a ton of money and bright people. They should be changing the game with their own ideas, not stealing from others.
Frank, on January 10th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Eric Schmidt’s presence on the Apple board clearly resulted in him pilfering ideas from Apple and then bringing them to Google. Was it wrong? Yes, probably about as criminal as “Insider Trading”. Can anything be done about it now? No. The government made it clear that they wanted to drop the case. Also, the majority of Eric Schmidt’s presence on Apple board was during the time when Apple and Google were clearly friendly allies (teamed up against Microsoft), not as direct competitors. It’s only in the past 12-18 months that the relationship changed drastically.
Mattzook, on January 10th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
“” Google has a ton of money and bright people. They should be changing the game with their own ideas, not stealing from others. “”
Or maybe they don’t really have a ton of bright people that can come up with new ideas on their own. Just a ton of money and a penchant for copying the ideas of others. Sadly I’m talking about Google, but I could have easily been describing Microsoft.
Mattzook, on January 10th, 2010 at 11:41 pm