|
Originally Posted by Tiernan Ray
I spent some time last week with a friend who happens to have in his possession one of Google’s forthcoming Nexus One smartphones, built by HTC and expected to be unveiled Tuesday.
Overall, I like it. It’s slim, fast and has a nice big screen. I happen to use Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone for everything, and I’m not inclined to switch. The iPhone simply has more spit and polish, and far more apps. But the Nexus One will be a fine choice for a lot of smartphone buyers.
How’s it different from other phones that use Google’s Android operating system? Ah, there’s the rub. For the most part, it doesn’t seem different at all. It’s slimmer than HTC’s Hero and Droid Eris, and it has a bigger screen than both, but otherwise it feels very similar.
However, the Nexus One is unlikely to move Google’s stock or those of any rivals, despite heavy anticipation.
But the phone is definitely intriguing, starting with its packaging. It comes in a really big, really spiffy white box with the Google logo subtly displayed and with colored trim around the edge of the box in Google’s familiar red, blue, green and yellow.
It sort of looks as if it should be holding a bottle of cologne.
On the more substantive, software side, the phone feels a bit snappier, more responsive than the Hero or the Eris. But the Nexus One has the same problem connecting to corporate Exchange mail servers that the Hero and other Android phones reportedly have had, says my friend, who’s in a good position to know.
I did a brief test comparing my iPhone on AT&T with the Nexus One running on T-Mobile in midtown Manhattan. The Nexus One proved to be slightly faster than the iPhone when loading a Web page, on the order of 10 to 15 seconds.
Whether this can be attributed to the phones or to the network is anyone’s guess.
But the Nexus One was able to connect easily to the T-Mobile 3G network, which is intriguing because, in my experience, unlocked iPhones used with T-Mobile are relegated to the slower Edge service. This suggests that T-Mobile customers who use the cheap $6-per-month data plan could find themselves with really fast mobile Web performance with the Nexus One.
Still, the Nexus One faces a hard fight to distinguish itself while swimming in the swelling sea of Android phones.
|
01-04-2010, 01:00 AM
Lower Navigation
Linear Mode
