The Nexus One Full Review

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It seems Engadget weren’t the only guys to get their hands on the Nexus One, Nexusoneblog.com have manged to get one for themselves and have written up a full review of it. See their review here.

The overall impression I get from this review is that it more than matches the iPhone, the only area where the iPhone seems to win is with the camera and gaming.

Unfortunately you and I can’t get one until its released, rumored to be Jan 5th ( tomorrow ) at a Google Android Event

Here are some extracts from the Nexus One Blog review:

Design

The Nexus One is a very slick and beautiful phone that almost makes other devices look out dated. Rather than going the direction of the Motorola Droid with it’s hard edged corners, it took on the characteristics of the iPhone head-on by creating a more curvy device. Where the iPhone flattens out on the top and bottom, the Nexus One takes on subtle curves that make the phone feel less boxy. The face of the phone even curves down slightly at the very bottom. There are four buttons and a trackball at the bottom of the phone which are very similar to the Droid, you know the regular features: Back, Menu, Home, and Search.

Display

The display screen on this phone is simply incredible. There has yet to be any device out on the market to date that looks as crisp and clear as the Nexus One. The difference is like taking a look at a 30” television and trying to compare it with a brand new 46” Sony LCD. The Nexus One boasts a 3.7” (diagonal) widescreen, WVGA AMOLED screen, delivering at 720×480. Picture quality is very impressive. The sad part here is that there is no multi-touch on this device.  So forget about pinching to zoom in and out, however if you MUST insist on using these gestures you can download an application called Dolphin. This app is a browser that allows you to do anything on an iPiPhonehone, within your browser on your Nexus One. It actually works very well.

Swipe

There are 2 options on the home screen. One option is on the lower left side of the display, and is used to unlock the phone. If you place your finger on it and swipe to the right, it will unlock everything. Prior to unlocking the phone the second option is on the lower right side.  This option will mute or un-mute the phone. If you place your finger on it and swipe to the left, you can change that setting

Speaker

The sound quality of the speaker phone is pretty good. It’s a lot louder then the iPhone, but the sound isn’t totally crisp. It’s likely that they may have tried to cut costs here, and opted for a loud speaker rather then a good quality sound. It beats holding my iphone up to my ear in the car, while it’s on speakerphone. Kind of defeats the purpose of a speaker right?

Camera

The camera on board the Nexus One has 5 megapixels, with mechanical autofocus and LED flash.As soon as camera mode is prompted, the phone goes in to landscape mode, offering the ability to snap a shot, switch from camera to video camera, or view previously taken photos. On the left side of the screen you’ll notice there is a bar that gives you additional options. If you drag it out (or simply press the menu button and select settings), you’ll see setting for Flash mode, White balance, Color effect, Store location, and Picture size. The camera feature gives you control over the pictures you take with these options. If I was to compare the camera quality with the iPhone I prefer the iphone because of it uses of natural colors while the Nexus One doesn’t. The Nexus One causes you to have to play around with the settings more to get the perfect picture.Unfortunately, we can’t give the Nexus One a perfect review when it comes to this area. Photos and video are just average, and very similar to all of the rest of HTC’s devices in the market as well as the Motorola Droid. iPhone definitely kicks but in this area.

Android 2.1 & Processor

It’s safe to say that the paring of android 2.1, snapdragon, and it’s processor (QUALCOMM QSD 8250, 1GHz), it’s a sure shot! The phones speed is simply amazing. Navigating through the phone, installing applications, and surfing the web is blazingly fast.

Overview

If I had to walk in to a store today with endless funds to purchase a phone, I would have to go with the Nexus One. The main reasons I chose this phone is simply because of it’s hires display, speed, and it’s extremely attractive UI. On a 3G network, there is no reason to stray to any other device. Yes the iPhone shoots pictures and video a bit better, but if I REALLY want to shoot crisp photos I’ll do that with my real digital camera. At this point iPhone has the better gaming applications, but again the android Market is growing at a rapid pace. We’re likely to soon see some amazing stuff when developers get their hands on the Nexus One. I’m more concerned with the fact that I can actually MAKE phone calls from the Nexus One, and the fact that it makes browsing the web a truly unique and visually stimulating experience.

Currently, my main phone that I’m using is my Nexus One, and my iPhone is now my iPod. Hats off to Google and HTC on an amazing device!

So there you have it, the first full review of the Google Phone ie. The Nexus One. I must say it is mighty impressive and I’m very tempted to get one myself when its released.

Please note I didn’t write this review as I’m not lucky enough to have a Nexus One of my own…. yet. All credit for this review and pictures go to Nexus One Blog.com

Here are the specs just in case your missing them

Physical Dimensions:

• Height: 119mm
• Width: 59.8mm
• Depth: 11.5mm
• Weight: 130g with battery; 100g without battery

Storage:

• Flash: 512MB
• RAM: 512MB
• SD card: 4GB Micro SD card included (expandable to 32 GB)

Camera, photos, videos:

• 5 MP camera
• Mechanical autofocus
• 2x digital zoom
• LED flash
• Geotagging capable

Cellular & wireless:

• 3G T-Mobile and EDGE on AT&T
• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Location:

• AGPS receiver
• Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
• Digital compass
• Accelerometer

Display:

• 3.7 inch (diagonal) widescreen, WVGA AMOLED screen

External buttons & controls:

• Physical power key
• Physical volume up/down key
• Tricolor, clickable trackball
• 4illuminated softkeys (Back, Menu, Home, Search)
• Haptic feedback
• Teflon-coated back cover

Connectors and sensors:

• Dock pins for the Docking Stations
• 3.5mm, 40connector, stereo headset jack
• Earpiece
• Speaker
• Microphone
• Second microphone for active noise cancellation
• SIM card slot
• Micro SD slot
• Micro USB port
• Proximity sensor
• Light sensor
• Tricolor charging and notification indicator LED

Processor:

• QUALCOMM QSD 8250, 1Ghz

Audio decoders:

• AAC LC/LTP, HE-ACCv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced ACC+)
• Mono/Stereo standard bit rates up to 160kbps and sampling rates from 8kHz to 48kHz
• AMR-NB 4.75-12.2kpbs sampled @ 8kHz
• AMR-WB 9 rates from 6.60kbit/s to 23.85kbits/s sampled @ 16kHz
• MP3 mono/stereo 8-320kbps constant bit rate (CBR) or variable bit-rate (VBR)
• MIDI SMF (Type 0 and 1), DLS Version 1 and 2, XMF/Mobile
• XMF, RTTTL/RTX, OTA, iMelody
• Ogg Vorbis
• WAVE

Audio encoders:

• AMR-NB 4.75-2.2kbps sampled @ 8kHz

Platform:

• Android mobile technology platform 2.1 (Flan)

Image formats:

• JPEG (encode and decode)
• GIF
• PNG
• BMP

Video decoders:

• H.263
• MPEG-4 SP
• H.264 AVC

Video encoders:

• H.263
• MPEG-4 SP

Power and battery:

• Removable 1400mAh battery

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Related posts:

1. Google Nexus One Official At Last
2. Google Nexus One – First Hands On & Unboxing
3. Get Android 2.2 Froyo For Your Nexus One Now
4. Nexus One Coming To Vodafone In April
5. Nexus One Update Enables Multitouch