Google Nexus One Review: The Real Android

by Stefan Etienne on 13. Mar, 2010 3:23PM in Android, Google, Mobile, Reviews, T-Mobile

Presenting the LaptopMemo review of Google’s official smartphone, the Google Nexus One, in our snazzy new headquarters. Sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon chip, 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, and Android 2.1, the Nexus One has yet to be ousted or even challenged as the best Android phone. Our Nexus One review is seen below with all of the details you could possibly want. So, would you please, join us?

Price as reviewed: $179.99 on 2-year contract with T-Mobile

Full Disclosure: This Nexus One was provided by Google

The “Quick” Specs overview

As I mentioned earlier there’s the 1Ghz Snapdragon chip, 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED screen, Android 2.1 “Eclair”, 5 megapixel camera and flash, trackball, 4 touch-sensitive buttons, T-Mobile 3G, 512MB RAM, 4GB microSD card, a proximity sensor, light sensor, dual-microphones for noise cancellation, bundled soft case, 3.5 mm headset, charger, USB cable, and — that’s it. Let’s move on…

Hardware and Design: The Main Picture

The Nexus One is simply a pleasure to look at. At almost a hair thinner than the iPhone the Nexus One also is lighter. The actual thinness comes in at 11.5mm and weighs 130 grams with the removable 1400 mAH battery. Your first impression of the Nexus One (if you’ve used previous HTC-built phones like I have) is that it almost directly mimics the Sprint Hero, and borrows many traits from it. But the Nexus One is a completely different phone altogether. Read on and we’ll explain why later.

Besides looking like the best phone you have ever seen, the four touch-sensitive navigational buttons (back, menu, home, and search) are not always responsive. They can get annoying at times but overall they do work, as long as you strike closer to the screen than to the actual layout of the button.

The 3.7-inches of pure technological advancement combined with 800 x 480 pixels makes the N1′s AMOLED screen look clearer and brighter than any other screen on the market, and mainly shows its superiority when watching videos on YouTube and using apps. After explaining everything about hardware and design that you will encounter on a daily basis, it’s time to take an overall look at the industrial based design and inspiration of the Nexus One: it’s a direct cousin to the iPhone. No offense here Google, no offense here at all, but come on it looks like a brown iPhone. And that’s exactly what’s so good; Android needed a modern, industrial looking phone, one that’s not the Motorola DROID.

Moving on to the phone call quality of the Nexus One; T-Mobile 3G voice clarity isn’t the best I’ve experienced or the best there is, but it’s all in line. By recording background noise, and then filtering it through with the main microphone, your voice is completely audible and clear. Reason? Dual microphone noise cancelling technology. If the iPhone is seen as elegance, the Nexus One should be thought of as the ultimate technological machine. A real “Android” if you will. Of course in everything though, there are faults, and the loudspeaker is one of them. It’s more like a “weak speaker”, if you know what I mean.

And lastly, let’s put up a shot of the amazing 5 megapixel camera with flash and very solid video recording. By far one of the better cameras that HTC has put in its phones:

Notable Software Improvements

The N1 runs the latest and greatest version of Android; 2.1 “Eclair” brings major graphical and important improvements. First off is the new 3D app screen which has replaced the App Tray in previous versions of Android, Motorola’s Droid included. The 3D cube effect is powered by the Snapdragon chip and is very smooth. As you move your selection of apps up and down, they “bend” as if there is a crease at the edge of each app icon. While this is not going to do anything anymore important than browsing all of your apps, this is a sign that Google also cares about how Android looks, and they’re willing and ready to improve your first impressions.

Second is the live wallpapers — pure eye candy — by default you have Galaxy, Grass, Magic Smoke, Many (a combination of different audio related wallpapers), Nexus (default), Polar clock, Spectrum, VU meter, Water, and Waveform. Of course the live wallpapers are basically just out to distract you and eat your battery alive, but there’s many reasons to use them and even buy the Nexus One simply to look at them. My favorites are Nexus, Water, and Galaxy. All very appealing, all very exquisite, and all well designed.

Continuing with the improvements, every text field excluding passwords is now voice enabled. By pressing the voice key included in the 70% accurate on-screen QWERTY keyboard, you can speak the words you want into the text field. Surprisingly it works well, and about 90% of all text spoken is interpreted correctly, all thanks to the noise canceling technology that is provided by the dual-mics.

Awesome performance on the Nexus One is a given with the 1Ghz Snapdragon to play with. There’s no visible lag or stuttering while pushing the phone to its limits, and you can be pretty much comfortable that you won’t be slowed down while doing 20 tasks at the same time (not that I do that, I think).

And of course, what would be a review of the software on a phone without taking a peak at the web browser? Let’s try and keep it short. There are many improvements once again in the UI of the browser, while not major, are very essential. This means that web pages load much faster than other Android phones, and with the upcoming combination of Verizon EV-DO and Snapdragon, the browser speed could (and should) kill. Now as most of you might know by now, the Nexus One includes multitouch via its first OTA update. The multitouch is very good for a start, but has some bugs that may or may not cause problems. On numerous occasions the Nexus One cannot tell where my fingers are by using the Multitouch Visual Test, an app available on the Android Market, and in a real world situation, would make mistakes while pinching-and-zooming. According to Google, this is due to the sensor in the Nexus One’s screen, therefore possibly dooming it, unfortunately. Otherwise you can enjoy (mostly stable) multitouch in Google Maps, Browser, and Gallery.

And before I magically forget, Google Maps Navigation is supreme. And it’s free.

Battery Life Usage

All of this performance and multitasking comes at a price: battery life. Officially (that is according to Google), the Nexus One can last on a full charge for 7 hours of talk time, 250 hours on standby, 5 hours of 3G Internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 20 hours of audio playback. On my real-world testing the Nexus One lasted nearly entire day of watching 10-minute videos on YouTube, playing several high-quality and graphical intensive games, a short amount of talk time, and constantly checking email and Twitter updates before giving me battery warning signs. If you want me to shorten everything I just said into one word, then I could say this: impressive. But keep the charger handy, you’ll still need to keep it around somewhere close; it died on me when I needed it the most. Ugh.

Pricing and Availability

For new customers the Nexus One is available unlocked for $179.99 on T-Mobile USA, and for those of you who want no part in a data plan there’s the $529.99 unsubsidized option, which turns the Nexus One into a global phone. The only T-Mobile USA monthly plan offered gives you 500 minutes/unlimited SMS/unlimited data for $80/month. Still, the T-Mobile plan is worth it, because the phone is still unlocked, and can be used on trips where there isn’t any T-Mobile 3G USA coverage.

Google is being very nice in fact in terms of the options they give you; if you’re not keen on joining T-Mobile at all, keep on waiting (if you can wait any longer) for the CDMA Verizon version. And of course there’s those rumors of AT&T and Sprint versions, but let’s not talk about that here.

Google Nexus One: King of All Android Phones

What can you say that’s wrong with the Nexus One? Maybe it should have come sooner? Maybe the annoying touch-sensitive buttons? Maybe the multitouch bugs? The color? Actually, all you can really say that’s wrong with the Nexus One and Android is three things. First, the Android Market is seriously in need of a spam cleanup, to make room for all of the amazing apps that are making their way there. Second, those “buttons” really are inconsistent at times, not always, but at times. Third, the lack of advertising that the Nexus One has, and instead phones like the Sprint Hero, Motorola Droid, Samsung Moment, HTC Desire and others steal the spotlight and more disastrously the face of Android, and excluding the DROID and Desire, are not really the best. That, and the ridiculous amount of Android OS version fragmentation that all sorts Android phones have. You know, there’s 1.5 “Cupcake”, 1.6 “Donut”, 2.0 “Eclair”, 2.1 “Eclair, and an unnumbered future release officially called Froyo (frozen yogurt).

Clean all of that up Google, and the guys at Cupertino will be shaking in their cubicles. Oh, and you can be pretty sure I’ll snag one of these as my main smartphone, unless your “partner” HTC steals your crown and wows everyone with the HTC Desire and Legend (which they pretty much are). Otherwise I’m upgrading to one of these.

In fact what I should be saying here is that if Android can get the developer community behind it to develop groundbreaking apps, Android could take over the world.

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