It’s all in the title! I recently got my beautiful Nexus One from Google and there are lots of things about it which I truly like. But for some reasons that I will try to clarify in this post, I can’t seem to give up my iPhone.
Google Nexus One – The Pros:
- Sleek design, well polished: The first thing you’ll realize once you hold the Nexus is a sleek beautiful design and finishing. It makes your iPhone look like a 2-3 year old device, which it is by the way. Its casing feels nice in your palm, it looks significantly slimmer than its rival (although its true dimensions are very comparable).
- Beautiful 3.7″ hi-res AMOLED Screen: switch it on and enjoy. Blacks look deep. Colors look sharp. The 800×480 WVGA resolution makes everything look stunning !!
- Gmail: that’s true for any Android device but even if Google’s exchange gateway gives you true push email on the iPhone, there’s nothing like a native Gmail client if you use Google’s email services.
- Notifications and background applications: There again, it’s more an Android thing than a true Nexus’ feature but I have to say that applications running in the background combined with the notification bar (and the lightning trackball) is a fantastic approach to bring your attention to incoming messages, tweets, reminders, etc…
- Widgets and customizable homescreens: If you’re tired of your iPhone’s home screen, which honestly looks like those application launchers on my very first palm pilot back in the 1990’s, then you’ll like the ability to customize your phone with a search bar, weather, Facebook or world clock widget. And they don’t only look good. They’re pretty useful too.
- Voice recognition: I have not really played with this attractive feature but A. it is well integrated with the onscreen keyboard and B. people seem to like it and find it accurate.
Keyboard, touchscreen, camera, apps and media player: the deal breaker !
If you’ve read that far, you would have noticed that for a true iPhone fan, I give lots of credits to Google’s latest baby and I love it. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to adopt it and keep switching back to my iPhone.
- The Android keyboard, let’s admit it, just sucks! Keys are too small, typing is not accurate and if, like me, you write half your messages in English and the other half in a second language, you can’t easily switch languages for predictive typing and auto-correction. Sure the Android platform allows you to install alternative keyboards but I am yet to find the perfect one. You may try HTC_IME.apk (just google it) and AnySoftKeyboard (Market). They’re much better but typing on my iPhone still seems way more accurate and efficient.
- The touchscreen accuracy: let’s hope this is only a software issue which can be addressed in future updates because everyone, including myself of course, seem to agree that touching the screen ends up with randomly accurate actions. Unacceptable. You might even notice that the four softkeys below the screen only respond on their upper halves. Worse: typing space bar when composing a message often hits the home softkey and leaves the current application.
- The camera: it’s got flash, it’s got 5Mpx. But for some reason it is slow to focus and very bad at balancing whites and colors. There again, let’s hope that can be fixed in a future software update.
- The apps: some people even call those smartphones (or superphones) App Phones ! And when it comes to apps, well you know that the iPhone has got an app for everything. In my opinion, the iPhone actually has too many apps, making it difficult to identify good ones. And I have to say that with 20,000 over apps, the Android Market not only has a few good titles but, and that’s great, most of the major apps I use have now been ported to Android: Skype, Facebook, Evernote, RememberTheMilk, Foursquare, etc… That’s great ? well if you’ve tried Skype and Facebook on Android as well as on the iPhone, you would certainly agree that the Android versions are far far behind.
- The media player: it might be very personal but if, like me, your entire media library lies in iTunes, there is no such thing as a good iPhone or iPod to play your content on the road !
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, the Google Nexus One is a great phone. It is even, in many aspects, superior to the aging Apple iPhone. Unfortunately, the accuracy of the screen and more importantly the keyboard, as well as some major apps such as Skype and Facebook, prevent me from fully adopting the Nexus as a replacement for my iPhone. More importantly, if iPhone OS 4.0, expected to be announced next week, brings in the ability to run apps in the background, Google might have a tough time trying to impose its new device as a serious competitor to Apple’s best seller !
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