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In Depth: 30 Days with the Nexus One
By Leigh McMullen (9:30 am, Feb. 07, 2010)
Google's Nexus One smartphone. CC-licensed picture by ekai.
It’s been a month since my review of Google’s “SuperPhone”, the Nexus One. Since that time, we’ve surfed, updated facebook, navigated, called, played endless hands of cribbage and even tried to freeze it to death on a trip to Dayton Ohio. Follow me after the jump to find out does the “SuperPhone” stand the test of time, or is it a phonebooth’d Clark Kent.
In my initial reaction review I got called for gushing a bit. Again, as I said there, despite being a Mac-cultist, I’ve never used an iPhone for any length of time –I have to use T-Mobile, which meant best I could do, was Android 1 phones which even more now seem like a beta product to me. I was understandably crushing on the little N1 when I finally got my hands on it.
With gadgets, as in dating, you can’t really get to know someone over cocktails, ya gotta hang out for a while, get to know each other before you can decide if it’s beer goggles or true love.
In this hands on, we compare the Nexus One not to the iPhone but to it’s own hype, in short, does it walk the talk.
“Unlocked” Phone
I poney’d five bills plus for the unlocked version of the phone. Not to be able to use it on other networks as much as to not have to go through IT and get my service plan modified. Regardless, the Unlocked phone is a red herring, since in the US the only two GSM carriers use incompatible 3G networks. Just as an illicitly unlocked AT&T iPhone can’t be used on T-Mobile’s 3G network, so too, a legitimately unlocked N1 can’t be used in 3G mode on AT&T. You can however use each other’s 2G and EDGE networks –have fun with that.
Talking
Actually talking on the phone is a pleasure. The noise cancelling really works. That said, some users experienced a 3G error that caused the phone to drop its 3G connection mysteriously. I couldn’t tell because frankly T-Mobile’s network coverage in DFW is terrible.
Battery Life
Until there is some kind of standardized method for measuring smart-phone use and battery life, pretty much all manufacturers estimations are BS. The N1’s issues with 3G dropping, did significantly reduce battery life. The phone seemed to drain the battery double-quick trying to connect to the network. So much so that the phone’s built in battery usage meter would indicate that 80% of the battery drain was from “Wireless Standby”.
While in Ohio earlier this week, we experienced especially good 3G coverage and I actually got 2 days of regular use out of the phone. On Friday Google patched my phone, fixing the 3G-connectivity issue. This significantly helped battery life. Before I went to bed last night, I plugged the phone in and it still had 60% power.
Only time will tell if this fix really does increase battery longevity. Until my experience in Ohio, and the patch yesterday, I was charging the phone every night, with the phone having 10-20% juice left.
Applications
As much as I love this phone, the applications is where it shows it’s rust. Those designed by Google, or updated for Android 2.1 are pretty nice. The Android 1 apps, are low-rez and showing wear. More than all of this, though, is the lack of any kind of design standards. While I enjoy Google’s “openness”, someone needs to pass out copies of Apple’s Human Interface Design guide to prospective developers. Most of the non-Google apps on the phone seem completely random in their design.
The ‘Google’ Experience.
Contrary to the user experience of many Android applications, the Google experience is Awesome. There are layers of integration and intelligence in design in this thing that are pretty amazing.
My best example: a colleague was searching for directions to a restaurant named Cuba Libre on his (Windows mobile) phone. He had to open a browser, search for the restaurant on ‘Bling’, filter through the results to find the restaurant rather than the Elmore Leonard novel copy the address into his GPS, and so on. He was literally goofing around with this process for several minutes.
On Nexus One I typed “Cuba Libre” into the global search box on the home screen, the phone determined my context, and popped up the most reasonable result, the restaurant just down the street. It gave me both a phone number and a “navigate here” link I could click on. Total time: 10 seconds, before the phone started giving me walking directions.
It’s just like that everywhere. Very nicely integrated. Very nice anticipatory user experience.
MultiTouch
Android phones have always had swipe left & right to move pages, finger scrolling, and such. As of last Friday’s update (2/5/2009) it includes the pinch to zoom gesture. Beyond that I don’t know what other multi-touches the iPhone does, that might be lacking in N1. I do know that you cannot, as of yet, do a “Circle-Circle-Dot-Dot” gesture and have the phone give you a cootie shot.**
Dictation to Text
Every text field on the phone can be spoken to; this feature works surprisingly well, and I use it more than I thought I would. The phone has worked out my Twang and it’s results are often as accurate (and similarly comical) as the recommendations from”no look” touch typing on the screen. Google asserts this gets better the more you use it, lets check back in on this feature in a year.
Multitasking
The phone does it. Apparently iPhone does not. Frankly I don’t see what the big deal is. The phone can only show one open application at a time. While on N1 you can hold the ‘home’ button to bring up tasks and switch between them, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference to me. Except that my Mail, contacts or whatever application I was using is in exactly the same state as I left it when I switch back.
Gripes & Conclusion
There is still stupid stuff with this phone, you try to power it off, and thirty seconds after you select “turn off” it popps up a dialog asking if you really mean it. I’ve left the phone on overnight, on airplanes, in movie theatres because of this “feature”. Of course I understand why they’re so cautious about letting you turn the phone off, because you could order and have delivered a new phone from Google faster than you could cold boot this device. My last gripe: While it far exceeds expectations that the phone will have been patched in it’s first 30 days, not including the ability to run apps from SD cards when google promised they would ASAP, is a serious oversight.
In short, though, I have to say, I remain very much in love with this phone, I think it’s got solid long-term relationship potential (you know, at least until the Nexus 2 comes out).
**UPDATE: for non-Americans, “The Cooties” and “cootie shot”, are defined in the comments.
Posted by Leigh McMullen in Hardware, Reviews, Top stories | Comment on this article
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“You can however use each other’s 2G and EDGE networks –have fun with that.” Actually, we’re using the Nexus One on AT&T’s Edge network with excellent results. In fact, I have yet to notice that it’s not a 3G connection.
As for multitasking, consider Trapster, gMail, fring, Messaging, SIPdroid, Twitdroid, weather, and news. While, as you noted, you only have one screen, that doesn’t mean other apps can’t be downloading updates and monitoring other types of inbound calls in the background. Then the apps can pop up notifications and task switching options when they might be appropriate.
NerdUno, on February 7th, 2010 at 9:52 am
“More than all of this, though, is the lack of any kind of design standards”
Just an FYI, Google has extensive HI guidelines on their developer website, photoshop templates, icon resources, etc. Sad thing is the people who are developing for Android have no consideration for these guidelines.
I also own a Nexus and don’t understand your problems with shutting down and powering it up, odd. Anyways, sound off and airplane mode should be all we need.
lmjabreu, on February 7th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“…despite being a Mac-cultist, I’ve never used an iPhone for any length of time –I have to use T-Mobile”
Waaaaaait a minute. What kind of Mac Junkie are you? I’ve been using an unlocked iPhone on T-mobile for nearly 2 years. So let me just get this straight so that I’m sure I’m not making a mistake. On an Apple site, you claim not to have used the most important Apple device of the past decade, the cell phone that every cell phone that has been released within the past 2 years get’s measured against (and found wanting)… to review a cell-phone? This whole article is cloaked in failure.
Dante, on February 7th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
@Dante: I don’t use an unlocked iPhone on t-mobile because iphone can’t access T-Mobile’s 3g network, and I travel ALOT so sometimes my phone is my only computer.
Additionally, I would argue that the iPod is probably the most revolutionary product Apple has released in the past 10 years, in terms of both revenue for the company as well as cultural impact. Second to that would probably be Intel Macs, which opened up macintoshes to a whole new world of consumers.
—
@Imjabreu: I have my phone set to black the screen after 30 seconds of inactivity. when I select, “Power off” it invariably takes longer than 30 seconds to show the “Phone will power off now” screen. Which means I hit power off, the screen goes black and I figure the phone much be off.
Leigh McMullen, on February 7th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Whats the fuss of multitasking?? Well in simple terms, it is the ability to listen to music, surf the net while you speak through your Bluetooth device all at once.
Or listen to music, while you have the GPS going on giving you the directions you searched and talking to your girlfriend on the phone.
That iPhone currently can only dream of, cause it can only do one at a time.
Ural, on February 7th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
“…despite being a Mac-cultist, I’ve never used an iPhone for any length of time…”
I am with Dante on this one. I would be willing to bet that most people that read this site carry an iphone as their phone of choice. The most important question I had about the Nexus One was never answered… ‘Is it better than the iphone?’. Or if you are one of those that would say you can’t compare apples and oranges (which you can by btw) at least do us the honor of telling us how it is different than the iphone. You claim to be a Mac Cultist but you have never used an iphone for ‘any length in time’. Well, when the first iphone came out it was edge only. Why didn’t you ‘Mac Cultist’ urge make you get one then?
O E B, on February 7th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
who cares about the nexus
iphone ftw
bubbakush, on February 7th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
What nonsense I does hear people talking about boy?
I am not knocking the Nexus one because from the begining, I’ve been looking at it as a very capable device. The only thing I didn’t like about it was its lack of multitouch. I’ve used every iPhone since 2007 and I have grown accostumed to it.
Now the nonsense I reading all the time is that the iPhone does not support multitasking.
BS. And it upsets me. Because people are not informed about certain things and they hear or read what other people write and say and they just regurgitate it.
The iPhone does multitask.
It does not allow multitasking with 3rd party apps.
Take for instance the example the idiot used above:
“Whats the fuss of multitasking?? Well in simple terms, it is the ability to listen to music, surf the net while you speak through your Bluetooth device all at once.
Or listen to music, while you have the GPS going on giving you the directions you searched and talking to your girlfriend on the phone.
That iPhone currently can only dream of, cause it can only do one at a time.”
How de arse you will be listening to music and talking on the phone at the same time? I want someone to explain that to me.
Here is what you can do on the iPhone for multitasking-
Read SMS messages or MMS messages while Mail downloads messages and you listen to music or you may be on a call, your friend sent you an email and that and whatever attachment downloads while you have an app open and you do a search to confirm a reservation.
Or you can you can do these things. I am fed up doing them. I do them all the time. And even the applications that you wished you could have multitasked with, there are Push Notifications for that. Beejive, eBuddy, Tap Tap Revenge, Facebook, WhatsApp, iCall, CNN, N.O.V.A., Bargain Bin- the list goes on.
Unless you want a device like the Blackberry that runs apps in the background and then more often than never, the phone becomes unresponsive because too many tasks are running because of background apps. (That’s why there are even reports that Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile 7 will ahve no backgrounding in it.)
So even if you want to talk about the iPhone not doing backgrounding, please use inteligent examples to at least try to give the semblance of articulate input and not foolish comments that you regurgitate from other mindless drones and infecting impressionable minds.
Please!
Kofster, on February 7th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Thanks for the write up. Don’t know why everybody’s picking on you, all you did was a review.
Burt Reynolds, on February 7th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I thought this was a ‘Mac’ blog. Why are you reviewing the Nexus One? I don’t Get It. There is Engadget for this kind of stuff
AkiraTeam, on February 7th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
what’s up? I am looking for a date on Valentine’s Day my profile @ http://bit.ly/cqd0a2
Litacecily, on February 8th, 2010 at 5:09 am
@Ural
the iphone will in fact do all those things you mentioned. in picking an example of what it cant do, you picked the only things it does do multi tasking with! doh…
I can have music play through the bluetooth kit in the car, then when a call comes in, it pauses the music so i can talk, and while im in the call, i can exit and use any app that I want to, including google maps, to search for a location or use it for its gps feature.
Im with the review on multi tasking. seeing as you can only have one app on screen at any time, theres no need for several others to be running in the background. when you think about it from an everyday, non geek users point of view, all multi tasking presents is a faster way of switching between apps. which will save you about half a second in most cases
Ben, on February 8th, 2010 at 6:31 am
AT&T and T-Mobile are not the only GSM carriers in the US. There is also CellularOne, and I use my Nexus One on their EDGE network with great results. Both data and voice service are great and CellularOne’s roaming agreements make the phone usable in the entire country. Granted it’s not 3G, but no carrier other than AT&T or T-Mobile has any 3G coverage anywhere in the country, so that’s a non-issue for those of is in the 85% of the country not covered by 3G. Full disclosure: I also have an iPhone 3Gs but only use it when I travel to an area that has AT&T service, since AT&T evidently cannot roam on CellularOne or any other GSM carrier.
Glenn, on February 8th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Thanks @Ben, you beat me to the punch with @Ural…
I can listen to music, play games, or surf the web, I can load up a podcast and listen while my navigon is pointing me to where I need to go, and I can do all of those things AND talk on the phone via bluetooth or not!
What was your point again Ural?
Bill, on February 8th, 2010 at 8:56 am
thanks @Bill haha.
what would be really good is the same suggestion that was on here last week or week before. instead of having several apps running at once, just make each app aware of other apps, and enable them to communicate with each other, through services (like in OSX)
seems a bit silly that i have both the ebay and paypal app, but the two cant talk together to let me buy something on ebay the whole way through the process without having to head back to my desk to pay for it.
Ben, on February 8th, 2010 at 9:51 am
For non-Americans (or am I just showing my age?) – what’s a “cootie”?
Doug, on February 8th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Palm (Pre) already failed as an iPhone wanna-be. No one hears them touted or even mentioned any more. They got their 15 seconds of hype as a wanna-be ‘iPhone Killer”. What a flash in the pan that turned out to be.
Montana Bob, on February 8th, 2010 at 11:39 am
@Doug:
“The Cooties” are an affliction that plague children aged five to ten, though the pathology of the “cootie” is unknown, the disease “Zero Vectors” (or initiates) usually by the child having close contact with a member of the opposite sex of the same age / peer group. This Patient Zero does not need to be symptomatic to cross-gender infect.
it’s worth noting that this contact does not need to be intimate, and that even casual contact such as one typically sees with same-gender play will often result in an infection.
Additionally, researchers have witnessed cooties infections being passed from especially aged grand parents onto children, regardless of gender.
While not life-threatening, once infected, and displaying outward symptoms, the child with the “cooties” is immediately shunned by all members of their peer group regardless of sex until that person is cured. This is a presumed biological response to prevent further infection, as an infected symptomatic child can infect any other child regardless of gender.
Symptoms include: revulsion, disgust, exclaiming, “oh, I’ve got the cooties”, and other like expressions.
Cooties contracted by a boy, caught by his peer-group to be “kissing” a girl, are almost always socially fatal.
The only known remedies for the cooties are (for girls) a “Cootie Shot” which is administered by the care-giver drawing two circles on the patients arm, and punctuating each with a “dot” inside the circle. This treatment is usually accompanied by the sing-song: “Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot. now you have a cootie shot”. Laboratory tests reveal that the singing has no medicinal value, and is probably a bed-side ritual for the benefit of the patent.
Though any girl of the infected’s peer group can administer the shot, tests reveal that girls with higher socail standing, have a substantially higher cure-rate among care-givers. Nevertheless, it is often difficult to convince such high-standing proto-alpha-females to expose themselves as even caregivers are susceptible to infection.
For boys the treatment is simpler, usually involving a punch in the arm, with the force of the punch acting in direct proportion to the level of infection. Also note, that male care-givers will often hit harder than necessary, to prevent any “back flow” of infection reaching them.
Leigh McMullen, on February 8th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
@Leigh
Thanks for the in-depth explanation of the cooties / circle, circle, dot, dot reference. I’d never have guessed! I had found various definitions about lice and STDs, but couldn’t make the connection with the gesture. The only thing that I visualised when I read “Circle-Circle-Dot-Dot†was a pair of breasts!
Doug, on February 8th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
@Doug: understandable visualization, especially since Boobs are a well known Cooties pathogen.
Leigh McMullen, on February 8th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
cuties is a handsome girls
that is what my english teacher told to me in tokyo english class
- hello! from tokyo!
japanguy, on February 8th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Leigh – “…despite being a Mac-cultist, I’ve never used an iPhone for any length of time”
Dante – ” This whole article is cloaked in failure.”
Leigh, I am sorry but you have absolutely NO credibility at all. Everything you said after “I’m a Mac-cultist non-iphone user who has a flair for bitter irony” is just…..
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
Next you’re going to tell us you’re a die-hard Star Wars fan but have only seen the last 3 movies. You’re not a die-hard fan. If anything, I think you hate Apple for making the iPhone cool, popular, and useful to “the masses” and that’s why you don’t have it. You decided a long time ago enough was enough and you weren’t going to buy into this new corporate image.
Well Leigh, I am sorry you feel that way but to not have used, dare I say, the most important gadget/phone EVER created and then have audacity to WRITE an article about a comparison between the two on a site called cultofmac.com. WOW. Just F’ing WOW.
Jan Itor, on February 9th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
@Jan, we said right in the article it wasn’t a comparison to the iPhone. but comparing the nexus one to it’s own hype.
I will agree with you on one point, Apple has made iPhone so accessible, every booger eating moron with low reading comprehension skills seems to have one.
That fact alone **does** make it a little less desirable to me. That’s for sure.
(why do I suddenly feel like I need a cootie shot?)
Leigh McMullen, on February 9th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Ural Said: “Or listen to music, while you have the GPS going on giving you the directions you searched and talking to your girlfriend on the phone.
That iPhone currently can only dream of, cause it can only do one at a time.”
That’s right, because talking to your girlfriend while listening to music through the same headphone/earbuds/whatever really helps to ignore her.
You obviously don’t own an iPhone because if you did you’d realize that you can listen to music and access web connected applications at the same time. True this feature only works when listening to iPod music but you CAN listen to music and access other apps. Even other apps/games with sound.
I don’t know about the N1 but I know the other Google phone, the Droid, can’t access the web while talking. That’s something the Verzion network could “only dream about doing”.
Mark, on February 9th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Oh yeah, and if you’re a so-called Mac cultist I don’t see how you could not own an iPhone.
Next we’ll find out that you’re using a netbook running Windows 7 to manage your blog.
I’m not saying you have to hate Windows to run a Mac blog but if you’re in love with the N1 and don’t own an iPhone I don’t know why I come here. I might as well stick with Tuaw and TheAppleBlog for all my (sometimes biased but that’s okay) Apple news.
Mark, on February 9th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Firstly, give the author a break! At least he has bothered to share his experience of owning an N1 with us. The iPhone however is an overated toy that only scrathes the surface when it comes to mobile computing.
What’s with you Americans? Do you purposely act stupid or is it a direct result of there being something in the water you drink? Take it from an iPhone user, the phone cannot multi-task unless jailed, case closed.
The thing about nexus that’s different than the iPhone is the google experience. Everything from voice to buzz. Apple will do better with their next installment so stay tuned! Exciting times for mobile computing.
The idiot who said palm are nothing, just you wait. Personally I think WebOS has the best potential as a mobileOS. Meanwhile RIM are making storm 3! Yes, this time with a new OS from scratch using web kit. Apple and the 4G. Nexus 2 and Htc supersonic also android improvements. Nokia are trying but still unsure. Why bother with windows mobile, what a joke. Good time to buy some stock. Watch this space!
Moronic comments from US citizens, on February 12th, 2010 at 11:50 am
This is the kind of information that is really important to me about a phone. Once the honeymoon is over, how does it stand up to some real scrutiny. I’m thinking of switching to the Android platform after I’ve seen the best of what both Apple and Google are offering this summer. This is the most helpful information I have seen thus far.
raddevon, on February 17th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
beautiful phone. couldn’t ask for more. upgraded from my old phone and this is like a little computer! bought one for me and my partner and it’s great for business and on downtime it’s great for facebook and twitter. also fast, great touch screen, it’s responsive and i love the htc apps. very impressed. got mine at gsmallover.com and the other one on ebay. great unlocked cell phones.
logan, on July 2nd, 2010 at 8:27 am