You would think that a smartphone with a gorgeous 800 x 400-pixel AMOLED touchscreen measuring 2.2 x 3.7 inches, and a fast, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor would fly out of the door, but Google’s Nexus One didn’t.
Unlike the iPhone and some other products with Google’s Android operating system like Droid that sold millions, the Nexus One’s sales didn’t take off after it was launched in January this year.
Google just doesn’t know how to sell phones over the web, unlike the telcos with their retail stores. Did you see a promotion for the Nexus One? Did you even know it was available for sale? No? Nor did we.
So Google closed its online Nexus One store and handed the device to the telcos to sell directly. In New Zealand, Vodafone snapped up the Nexus One and it’ll be interesting to see if the device, by now six months old, can hack it against withering competition from the new iPhone.
Technically, the Nexus One model here is best suited to Vodafone’s network, as it supports 3G UMTS in the 2.1GHz band, which is found in towns, and 900MHz elsewhere around the country. For data you get HSDPA at 7.2Mbit/s for downloads and HSUPA at 2Mbit/s for uploads. And yes, the phone can be used to connect to the internet (Americans call this “tethering”) and also as a Wi-Fi router (802.11b/g), but the former feature is limited to Windows and Linux users only. Apple users will, of course, employ their iPhones for the above purpose.
In testing, the Nexus One hit 2.5Mbit/s down and just over 1Mbit/s up on Auckland’s North Shore, which is par for the course.
The solid-feeling and nicely built phone should also work fully with 2degrees’ network but it isn’t ideal for Telecom XT customers, since there’s no 850MHz 3G support in the Nexus One version from Vodafone. For GSM or 2G communications, the phone supports 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz, so it should roam overseas quite well, for wealthy people at least.
Bluetooth 2.1 and EDR with A2DP stereo are supported and, speaking of sound, the Nexus One supports a good range of audio decoders, with MP3 up to 320kbit/s CBR or VBR. The review phone didn’t come with earphones, but sound quality through a pair of Shure SE115m buds was acceptable
Call quality, too, was good, arguably better than on the iPhone 3GS.
A 5 megapixel camera with a 2x digital zoom at the rear with an LED flash is included. It takes decent pictures and 720 x 480 pixel video, at 20fps or faster. It’s no replacement for even a cheap compact digital camera, thanks to the plastic optics, but handy enough at times and it works after dark as well.
The feature list goes on and includes assisted GPS for location sensing, a digital compass and an accelerometer to detect movement, plus much more.
Plugging the Nexus One into a computer to charge over the supplied mini USB cable triggered an over-the-air upgrade of the operating system to Android 2.2, alias ‘Froyo’. This is the latest version of Android, and it looks and works great, especially if you take advantage of Google applications such as Gmail.
Unfortunately, not everything is brilliant on the Nexus One. Glorious as the AMOLED multi-touchscreen is, its digitiser is inaccurate. The phone misinterprets or ignores finger presses, a problem that’s exacerbated by the four navigation and menu touch buttons at the bottom of the screen. Being bumped out of the email or SMS client as you compose a message was a common and irritating occurrence.
More disturbingly, the phone would cease to communicate with the Vodafone network on a regular basis, requiring a reboot to bring it back online. For a $979 phone, such faults are disappointing.
Battery life can be limited as well, if you use 3G, the built-in GPS and leave applications running — Android multitasks smoothly, unlike iPhone OS. If for some reason you need to run Adobe’s Flash player, rest assured Nexus One and Froyo have the oomph to do it. It’ll kill the battery in just few hours though, and make the phone run really hot.
Who would buy a Nexus One? As it is, it’s more of a hacker phone than one suited for general or business usage. If you like tweaking stuff, installing new firm- and software, or developing programs for the Android Market, you’ll like the Nexus One. However, you’d probably like a newer Android phone with a better digitizer even more, and there’s a Nexus Two coming out around Christmas as well.
Furthermore, the iPhone 4 is likely to be a formidable competitor for the Nexus One.
JUHA SAARINEN
Google Nexus One Smartphone – Specs
PROCESSOR: Qualcomm QSD 8250, 1GHzSTORAGE: 512MB Flash memory; 512MB RAM; microSD (4GB card included, expandable to 32GB)
DISPLAY: 3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 800 x 480 pixels
BATTERY: Removable 1400mAH; talk time up to 10 hours (2G), 7 hours (3G), standby up to 290 hours (2G), 250 hours (3G)
CELLULAR AND WIRELESS: 3G UMTS bands I/IV/VIII: 2100, 1700(AWS), 900 MHz
CONNECTIVITY: HSDPA 7.2Mbit/s; HSUPA 2Mbit/s; GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz; Wi-Fi 802.11b/g; Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; A2DP stereo Bluetooth
CAMERA: 5 megapixels, 2x digital zoom, LED flash, video 720 x 480 at 20fps or higher
DIMENSIONS: 119 x 59.8 x 11.5mm (H/W/D)
WEIGHT: 130g with battery
http://www.tone.co.nz/reviews/google-nexus-one-smartphone-review/attachment/google-nexus-one-main
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