Google Nexus One #fb
Thursday, March 25th, 2010Joe is probably right, I may have a problem when it comes to mobile phones. I have had the following in the past six years:
Treo 600, Treo 650, T-Mobile MDA, T-Mobile Wing, HTC TyTN II, Apple iPhone 3G, Apple iPhone 3GS,
and now the Google Nexus One. How long will I keep this? I would like to say quite a while, certainly based on how happy I have been with it over the past month since I picked it up.
But my track record is that I only keep these things for about a year before moving on. In my defense, technology changes so fast that after about a year these phones are obsolete anyway, maybe the Google phone will keep up longer than my past phones.
There is no reason why it should fail mechanically, these things have been tested pretty well by the manufacturer, HTC, as well as by Google. And the results have shown them to be pretty tough little buggers.
I left the Palm platform a while back because I was told by my tech guru that the Palm Operating System was a dinosaur. He advised me to move to the Windows Mobile operating system which would allow me to more easily integrate my mobile device with a Microsoft Exchange server. For the most part the Windows Mobile worked fine, certainly the service provider did not cause me any problems. I had been with T-Mobile for a number of years and was always happy with their network coverage and customer service. The Windows Mobile platform was just never quite good enough in that it was slow and cumbersome and just never performed up to the standard what I felt a mobile device should.
Over the next few years as Exchange service became the standard in the office place many more options became available for mobile device synchronization. Once Exchange connectivity was available on the iPhone I knew it was time to make another change. Now I could keep all my e-mail, contacts and calendars synchronized between my various devices while also having a mobile device that performed up to the standard that I expected. And, for a while, I was totally satisfied.
Hardware wise the iPhone is fantastic, no complaints. But the more I used it the more I wanted some features that Apple or AT&T did not deem necessary and therefore blocked access to. I finally made the decision to Jailbreak my iPhone in order to take full advantage of the phones capability to do what I needed it to do. Running multiple applications in the background, being able to use applications not authorized by Apple or AT&T (Google Voice), being able to make VOIP calls from the 3G Network; these were all features that I wanted but could not get without Jailbreaking. The price, however, was the I had voided the phone warranty and I was also at the whim of Apple for updates to their operating system. If they pushed out an update I would have to either decline to load the new operating system on the phone or accept the update and have to re-Jailbreak the phone and go through the set up process all over again. My guru advised me to consider an Android phone.
The beauty of Google’s Android operating system is that it is open to development. From the Android Wikipedia page:
The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 47 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.
With an iPhone that has not been Jailbroken you only have access to applications that Apple deems appropriate for the phone. With Android you have access to any application that has been developed for the phone. The only caveat is that if you want total access to the phone you need to “root” the device, similar to Jailbreaking in that it will invalidate the phone warranty but it will still allow updates to the Android operating system to be installed without having to go though the set up process all over again. The rooting process basically just assures that those who don’t know what they are doing with phone programming do not go in and mess up their device.
So how do I like it so far? Almost 5 stars. I really like this device. It does almost everything I want it to do right out of the box. I rooted the phone in order to allow me to install some power management applications to get better battery life out of the phone but I am still using and have been pleased with the factory ROM.
The Nexus One is 5 grams lighter than the iPhone but combined with the silicon case versus the iPhone plastic case I used it feels much lighter.
The screen is slightly larger but looks much better than the iPhone screen. Colors are deeper and the resolution is higher.
The camera is more powerful and has zoom capability, something the iPhone did not have.
The micro-USB connection means that it easily connects to a desktop or laptop computer without the use of additional software.
The Nexus One processor is faster but I have not noticed any difference in the speed of applications, but that is a good thing as the iPhone apps fired up pretty quickly.
It uses a microSD card for data storage which the iPhone does not offer.
On the downside, the music application is not as seamless as the iPhone, which only makes sense as the iPhone was originally just an iPod with phone capabilities. This may get better on Android but it’s not really a feature that I care much about.
Cut and Paste functionality is a bit limited. Some applications allow it, some don’t. I hope this is improved in future updates to the OS as it was with the iPhone OS.
The number of applications, and the sophistication of those applications is more limited in the Android Marketplace as compared to Apples iTunes but I would expect this to improve as the number of Android phones being used by consumers continues to increase.
Applications that I am currently using on Android include:
Dolphin Browser: More powerful and feature filled browser than the default Android browser.
inXs Dictation: Allows me to use voice dictation to write text messages or e-mails while I am in the car. No typing.
Google Voice: Totally seamless integration with my mobile phone as opposed to the Jailbroken application that I was forced to use with the iPhone. My Google Voice number is the primary number I use for calls and voice mail.
Nimbuzz: IM application for Facebook, Google Chat and Skype and also allows me to place Skype calls via WiFi or 3G.
Power Manager: Allows me to control various functions on the phone in order to save battery power.
SetCPU: Allows me to adjust the speed of the CPU depending upon that status of the phone. I clock the CPU down when the phone screen is off and speed things up when I am using the phone. Applications perform faster and I am also able to better conserve battery power.
Finally, the best part about this phone is that I am back on T-Mobile. If I would have waited a bit to get the phone I could have stayed with AT&T but I was motivated to drop them as I did not get a good signal in my neighborhood and, for how I am using the phone, T-Mobile service plans were much cheaper than anything I could get from AT&T.
So far so good!
Working awesome.
