My Nexus One Review: Part 1 of 2

It's been awhile since I last wrote about an Android phone. My last post was about my move from a 3G iPhone to the Sprint HTC Hero with Google. The experience was seamless and though I did miss the App Store initially, the Android OS proved to be a great experience. Now, about only 2 months since I wrote about the Hero, I am now writing about the Nexus One. To back up a little bit, I actually cancelled out my Sprint service without having to pay any early termination fees. I can explain how I did this later. I was able to get my hands on an unlocked Nexus One. I decided to get it unlocked and sign up for a TMobile 'no contract' monthly plan with 500 minutes and unlimited data/text/web for $60 a month. Its not as good as the Everything plan with Sprint, but it will have to do for now.

I'll be breaking this review up into 2 parts. The first part, I will discuss my overall impressions on the phone as well as the battery life.

Overall Thoughts:

People are comparing the Nexus One aesthetically to the iPhone and most are saying that the iPhone is a better looking phone. Now, I am in no way biased and I do like the look of the iPhone. I think Apple made a great device. On the other hand, the Nexus One is a smartphone made by HTC. Google may have had a hand in the development, but HTC at the end of the day is HTC. They are probably the only smartphone manufacturer that has some of the most nicest looking phones period! So far, I have had the Nexus One (N1 for short) for about a week now almost. The thing most people are talking about is of course the 1ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. This phone really moves. Everything you do, whatever task you call up, the phone just reacts. I have seen no lag at all. I think a processor of this power will be the standard for smartphones in 2010, hopefully. Another great feature of the N1 is the Google integration. All your Google accounts sync up without any issues. This here is what set's Android apart from the iPhone. Unless Apple has something up their sleeve for this June when they release the next iPhone, Android is the winner till then. I actually have a feeling that Apple will open up their OS somewhat, or make some drastic change to their UI to keep up with Android.

One of my favorite UI pieces are most notably the notification slider in Android. I've talked about this before and it is definitely the one thing that drew me to Android. The iPhone does not have anything like this. Another feature, that is part of the 2.1 OS, is the ability to tap a contacts picture in the contacts screen; which from there, will pop up a small window displaying key actions such as: view contact, call contact, chat in google talk, or view facebook profile. The Android OS is partly to thank for this feature. This type of integration should be standard. It allows for less back and fourth between various other screens. I'm not going to talk about how great the Google Maps Navigation is in this post. We all know Google has now set the standard for any portable maps device. Since Eclair 2.1 has Google Maps Navigation, you can say goodbye to your Tom Tom.


Battery Life:

Now that I have covered my thoughts on the N1 itself, it's time we talk battery life. After reading many posts online, I have seen some mixed reviews. Just to get to the point, if you use this phone day in and day out, you will probably go through your battery fairly quickly. I did a more real world test when it came seeing how long my battery would last. Since most of us work during the day, we probably aren't on our phones for the full 8 to 10 hours or so each work day. Before I begin, I'd like to note that my N1 is setup as such below to allow for low battery consumption. See below:

My optimal settings after using the N1 for 1 week:

From 630am to 7pm I have wifi OFF. I turn it on after 7pm when I am home.
I keep bluetooth OFF during the day.
I leave GPS ON all day.
I leave sync on for all mail folders.
I leave my twitter and facebook to update every 30 minutes.
I have brightness off or at the lowest level. The screen is still pretty bright. :)

During the day, I probably use the phone for about 30 minutes to 1 hour in all. This includes about 20-30 minutes of music during the train ride to work. With all this and the settings the way they are, I have been getting about 15 hours of battery life until the phone dies. I think for a smartphone with all the features that it has, this is truly amazing. To get through the entire day with enough juice, is amazing.

That's it for now. I'll write the second half of this post in a few weeks.