Google Nexus One Review

“A super phone”,  said Mario Queiroz introducing Nexus One to public and I think this was the most frequent word used in most of the review titles. Well, in our case we are not really going to share the same idea unless having our own investigation of the phone. Who knows maybe this is just an exaggeration of the description? Or maybe its just a simple detail of a  PR campain? Official Google Blog announcement.

But one thing is for sure- Nexus One is there to beat the iPhone 3GS and Motorola Droid… or at least to become their main competitor. The competition is rather tough and we’ll check which one might survive  in-detailed comparison and get the title of the most advantageous one.

Technical specs:

Processor: Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz
Operating System: Android 2.1(Eclair)
Memory: RAM :512 MB, ROM: 512MB
Connectivity:HSDPA 7.2Mbps/HSUPA 2Mbps,GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Interfaces: Wi-Fi , Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, memory card slot format microSD
Display: 3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen with a resolution of  800 x 480 pixels
Camera: 5 megapixel with autofocus , LED Flash and 2X digital zoom
Battery: removable 1400 mAH
Dimensions: 119×59.8X11.5mm
Weight: 130 grams with battery

Design: The actual HTC technique combined with the Google design makes the best approach of making a stylish phone. This is especially true about the fact of the usual HTC quarter design without pointy edges and the added curviness for perfect balance of the overall appearance. The best way to describe this phone in short- an ultra-thin curved gadget with a light symmetric design. This is the point where the googlephone beats the iPhone 3GS while being slightly improved in both dimensions of being thinner and lighter.

Another good point can be made based on the feeling of the phone in the hand. Even though at the first glance the back of the phone looks like a hard one, that’s not the deal. The actual material of the back feels like a little rubbery, but not the one typical for the Droid phone as the touch feels much more pleasant.

Display: I might say that there is no detail on this phone better than the gorgeous 3.7 inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. Here we are left without a multitouch. As we might already know the thing is due to the fact that Apple actually registered the multi-touch and that’s why only European Nexus One will support multitouch where the US patents are not recognized. But I guess this is not a big deal due to the fact that it makes a difference while being compared with iPhone as the rest of the  advantages of the Nexus One leave no space for the competition loss.

It feels like the touch-sensitive buttons which are placed below the screen are simply taken from one of the popular HTC models- HTC Droid Eris. They are identical with all of the features including the issue that while pressing the button from the lower half, you’ll don’t get the registration of your command. It has to do with the fact that the contact point is set a little higher making the button pressing slightly difficult.

The main disadvantage of the phone is the fact that while trying to browse through the phone at the direct sunlight one cannot make succeed, as the screen finds to be almost not usable at the direct sunlight. So unfortunately it can not be turned into a communication device while having a morning run around the beach.

Anyways at the “normal” lighting conditions the display colors are live and enhanced and even brighter than of Droid and iPhone3GS. Except you never get a feeling of the colors to be washed out as everything is just perfect with a sharp detailing.

Hardware: Faster than iPhone 3GS, faster than Droid? Yes. You get a higher speed on loading web-pages, scrolling around, launching various apps. And all of this is due to the 1GHz Snapdragon processor. Well, Google wasn’t mistaken to follow the HTC advice while taking the advantage to use this quick and effective processor on its first mobile device.

One cannot imagine that Nexus One has twice as much of RAM than both iPhone 3GS and Droid- wholly 512MB. This leaves no space for those who are still hesitating on which one to choose.

The phone also supports world-wide 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and all of this wrapped in a slim 11.5mm package .It is equipped with a 3.5mm stereo headset jack.

Additionally there is a built in hardware  for decoding  H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 video, and is capable of playing MP3, AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and MIDI audio, and displaying the JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image formats.

Camera: 5 megapixel camera is equipped with an autofocus, LED flash and zoom for your own convenience. The speedy processor and the ability of fast photo snaps make the photo shot simply a pleasure. The fact of the viewing options varieties and the large amount of the phone memory serve as an additional motivation for making a lot of shots.

Software: Noting that the phone is based on Android 2.1, which makes the features even more professional and easy-accessing. It was the first phone to challenge the usage of the latest OS. This means that the need of updating your phone OS will not accure at least for a long period of time.The only unfortunate part is the fact that the same Android OS is being planned to use on Droid, so not long after the advantage of the latest OS usage will be left behind.

Some of the things that are added to make your homescreen more comfy for the use is the fact that now the amount of the possible homescreen display is increased from 3 up to 5. Another cute feature is the 3D animation for the screen icon scrolling up and down. It kind of feels like a closer interaction with your smartphone.

No doubt that the phone will be full of various all-Google apps: Google Maps, Google Navigation, Google Voice Search, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Voice, Google Market, Google News and Weather and many other.

But as we are going to make a long stop on them, I think it makes sense to go through some other more interesting ones.

The feature of Live Wallpapers is just amazing. If you are not too worried about the battery condition you can enjoy the flow of the dynamic changes of homescreen wallpapers based on timing, sound shifts and touch. The variety of those is just eye-catching  options between Grass ( which shows grass waves making you feel more relaxed), Magic Smoke (which is drawing smoke, clouds and plasmas in bright colors), Water ( sensitive to touch- making waves ), and a Polar Clock ( which shows the date and time at a very unusual and stylish design ).

Voice Keyboard  is rather cool. Just get this- you’re thinking of e-mailing your friend but don’t have enough time, then this feature is best for you. You simply need to turn the microphone and dictate the message and the phone will try its best to figure out what you are saying and return it back in a written form. The only exception is that the feature is not sensitive to speaking patterns, accent and background noise.

Noise cancellation. HTC did its best to use all of the ability of the dual microphones to offer the best noise-cancellation ever. This not a new feature as it’s been used on other models of various manufacturers but this one is just perfect. I can see this googlephone user walking on the noisy streets of NYC and talking about his achievements without bothering the speaker with the surrounding noise.

Google Apps: There is such a big amount of them that  stopping on each will take us too long. Anyways I suggest to go through the most common ones.

Google Calendar. It helps you to schedule and keep track of the most important events. The best thing about it is the fact that the first time you open this application, it displays the info of your already existing Google Account.

Google Contacts: This application automatically synchronizes the  list of  your possible contacts from your account. Info on your contacts is also shared by some other apps like Gmail, Google Talk, Messaging and Gallery- while sharing photos and videos.

Google Maps: This feature is rather useful for those who are driving while providing info about the current location, traffic conditions, get directions of how to get to a specific place both by a car or by foot, viewing a satelite image of a specific address or locating it on a map and etc.

Google News and Weather. It is almost perfect and a 100% customizable, which helps you to get rid of annoying misinformation.

Battery: This awesome smartphones comes with a 1400mAh battery… “What? Is it good enough for 1GHz CPU? “  These will be your first questions. No stressing, the battery holds up quite well. This doesn’t mean that the charger will be needed only once in a while but for the regular use of just phoning, browsing, emailing the phone actually lasts almost the whole day. As to the official info the phone has the ability to work up to 7 hours while talking, 250 hours of standby, 5 hours for 3G Internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback.

Conclusion: Overall the first representative of the Google smartphone family leaves an impression of a superior smartphone. It has a wide range of all the possible hardware and software advantages combined in a slim body of the phone.  It’s uniting all of the classics of the HTC and Google with all of the newest trends of the mobile industry. So I can proudly say that the final release of long-awaited “Google Phone” is simply remarkable.

I just wished that the Google could improve its Customer Support. The thing is that the work is shared between Google (sales), HTC (device support) and the carrier (network and connectivity issues), no surprises why the cooperation was problematic for the first weeks of sales. Hopefully the issue will be solved shortly.

Pros:

Nice design
Fast
3.7″screen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen with 800 x 480 pixel resolution
Light weight and small size
Huge list of Google Apps
Second microphone for active noise cancellation
Voice Keyboard

Cons:

No AT&T 3G

No multitouch
Poor display performance at the direct sunlight
Touch sensitive button mysfunctioning
Poor organized customer Support