Engadget, the popular gadget blog, has gotten its hand on their own Nexus One and they have put it to the test. Let’s see what they found.
Nexus One is Google’s next big Android phone highly rumored to be announced at a Google event tomorrow. Nexus One was introduced and made available to their employees a few weeks back. News has been flying around about Nexus One and it’s competing with Droid’s publicity even without the blitz by Verizon.
If you want to learn more about Nexus One, Engadget has been doing a whole series of posts on them and you can drink up on it all you want.
I am going to bring out the salient points from the extensive look at Nexus One.
- Built by HTC and soon-to-be sold by Google
- Runs Android 2.1 on a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU
- 3.7 inch 480×800 display
- 512 MB ROM & a 512 MB RAM
- 4GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB)
- Supposed to work on T-Mobile GSM network (no 3G if you try to use in on AT&T network)
- Has a light sensor, proximity sensor & accelerometer
- 5MP Camera with a LED flash
So, now to the obvious comparison to the iPhone. Again.
Nexus One seems to be a little slimmer than the iPhone and much sleeker than the Droid. But, is it the iPhone killer? Engadget doesn’t think so.
It is very smooth, though we still noticed a little stuttery behavior (very slight, mind you) when moving between home pages. Still, opening applications and moving between them was super speedy, as was Google maps, and any area of the phone where you’ve got to get through long lists. Don’t get us wrong, the phone cooks — but it’s not some paradigmatic shift for Android.
One big thing left off in Nexus One is multi-touch support even though the functionality is supported in Android 2.0.
To be fair, Nexus One seems to be very fast and the UI seems a lot smoother than it’s previous version. Also, they have done a cool thing with the homescreen with a video wallpaper which sends out ripples when you touch.
Check out this video of a hands-on impression on Nexus One.
I like it that Android is making great strides and while it is questionable if it will be a iPhone killer in the near future, but it is blowing the final nails in the coffins of other weak smartphone operating systems.
IMHO (which is a little biased since we own an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 3GS and run a iPhone blog), there can’t be a single iPhone killer phone because the efforts of making THE smartphone is getting fragmented with different manufactures, different standards, etc and Apple has the advantage of making it’s one device the best.
So far, Apple has stayed ahead of the curve in the smartphone world and I like it that they have some very close competitors chasing them to be even better.
Update:
All seriousness aside, you have to read this hilarious Top 10 Reasons Nexus One is the iPhone Killer article.
[via Engadget]
I’m so sick of every phone being touted as the “next iPhone killer?”. Gimme a break. The reality is this: Apple is, always has been, and always will be a solid 5 steps ahead of the competition. So, as Google and HTC and RIM are all launching their next “iPhone Killers”, Apple is quietly working away behind the scenes on the next greatest innovation when it comes to this market. So stop. Enough already. The whole lot of you….give it up. Face the reality – You.Will.Never.Catch.Up.