Anand's Google Nexus One Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 3, 2010 3:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Android's Gmail app is also pretty straight forward. By default it checks the Google account you setup when you first turned on the phone, but you can add more accounts as necessary.
Both the Gmail and Email apps work fairly similarly, although only the former supports full text search putting it at an unfortunate disadvantage to the iPhone.
The Gmail app does support push, making it perfect for anyone who does rely on Gmail as their primary email provider. As I mentioned before, it's only because Google's web apps don't actually suck that this works out. This is one of few times where total integration makes sense.
The Gmail/Email UI isn't as gesture heavy as it is on the iPhone. Swipe up/down to scroll but to delete you have to check boxes next to messages and hit the delete button that comes up. It's quicker than the iPhone for batch deleting, but slower for removing just one message. On the plus side, it's more difficult to accidentally delete a message because of this.
Messages are automatically downloaded from the server as you reach the end of a screen of messages. All in all, it works pretty well.
Some have complained about how many taps it takes to switch between accounts on Android. Personally it's not a huge deal since I don't maintain that many different email accounts, but you do get a combined inbox if you'd like. I do agree that since you don't swipe to delete, you should be able to swipe to switch inboxes in message view mode.
Despite the high resolution screen, responding to an email is cluttered with UI elements that take up far too much real estate. Quoted text is always off screen.
Syncing
The concept of syncing is quickly changing. On the Nexus One your contacts and calendar are synced over the air using your Google account. Windows, OS X and Linux all have routes to sync your existing contacts with your Google account, so the import process isn’t painful at all.
You can put the Nexus One in USB storage mode, in which case it’ll appear as a USB storage device where you can quickly copy files to the SD card you have installed in the device.
There are other third party apps you can use that perform more traditional syncing options (e.g. The Missing Sync, doubleTwist) if you miss them.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
95 Comments
View All Comments
bjacobson - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
Motorola Droid is no better, my friend has one and OC'd his processor to 1.1Ghz and it still lags just as badly. Both choppy and lags where my finger is. I don't like it at all. This is the main reason I haven't even considered the Android platform yet. I probably will when they fix this.LongTimePCUser - Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - link
Have you tried the Moto Droid after the Android 2.1 upgrade?My experience was that the ui seemed smoother and faster after the upgrade.
eva2000 - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
bummer about battery life, sounds like nexus rev2 with 1700-1800mah battery in the near future hehhugov - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I'm not sure the Adreno 200 is as far behind the SGX530/535 as you suggest. The iPhone 3Gs chip (Samsung S5PC100) states in the docs (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconduct... that the GPU is capable of up to 10M triangles/sec, a far cry from the 28M reported in popular press recently. QSD8250 docs suggest up to 22M triangles. And the Adreno is a unified shader architecture GPU with no fixed-function pipes, similar to the PowerVR SGX. OTOH, the *drivers* appear to be quite lacking compared to the PowerVR drivers, at least on Linux/Android.TheHolyLancer - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I mean wow that dog seems to be focused directly on something above the camera, is that a treat or something?ThePooBurner - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
I really enjoyed reading through this review. I have been wanting to move to a smart phone, but haven't been able to decide what i want. This helps put android devices into perspective in terms of what they can do and what i can expect. I happen to abhor apple, and so i will never own an iphone. I can't stand closed platforms or someone else telling me what i can and can't do with a device that i own. Their stance on "jail-breaking" sickens me. It's like telling me i can't put a new engine in my car if i want to. But that is besides the point. Windows P7 looks like it might be good, but that is a ways off. The Pre-pro looks the most appealing of the phones i have seen reviewed.However, there are 2 devices that i would love to see added to the list of reviewed smart phones: The Nokia n900, and the Samsung Omnia II. For the n900, I would love for you to do a review of it and show us what the Maemo platform can do, as well as a quantifiable battery life test. The phone can do just about everything, but knowing how much doing all of that affects the battery life would be great. The device from a hardware standpoint isn't that different from some of the other smart phones out. It's an Cortex A8 at 600mhz. It's got 32GB of storage (expandable to 48), 5mp camera with flash, WiFi, BT, and it also has an FM transmitter. So on paper it looks great, but there haven't really been any solid reviews on the device from good review sites that use quantifiable testing, or from non-marketing type sites. I know that it also has integration with google voice and google chat. The Omnia 2 has an 800Mhz CPU, and a lot of the same hardware features and uses the TouchWiz 2.0 WM6.5 GUI, which appears to be samsung's platform of choice going forward. It's fairly new so there isn't a whole lot of information out there on this phone yet, but it seems to be marketed as the flagship product from samsung at the moment.
Do you think that you could review these for us? From what i have seen they both look pretty good (though the N900 looks better), but 600$ is a lot to spend without having more than marketing to go off of.
If nothing else this article has at least brought me up to speed on android and it's benefits.
pepsi_max2k - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
"For example, typing yjomh instead of thong won’t autocorrect, although on the iPhone it will. "And I think I speak for everyone, Anand, when I say: Under what situation did you actually find this highly intriguing piece of information out?
SuperFly03 - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - link
Ugh, this review is full of misinformation. I had to say something.http://forum.xcpus.com/blogs/superfly03-341.htm
coolVariable - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - link
1. No mention of the lacking exchange sync.2. No mention of the lacking copy & paste within emails
3. No mention of the connectivity issues.
4. No mention of attachment issues (sending or saving).
5. No mention of file download issues.
...
What a BAD review.
SuperFly03 - Friday, April 9, 2010 - link
I'm not sure what Google phone you are using but the only problem I've had is no. 2. You can't copy paste within emails. I do believe that is a silly limitation but I do not think it is a big problem in the grand scheme of things.No. 1 is complete BS. I have been hooked into my exchange account since day 1 and have never had any issues.
No. 3 is about as generic as you can get. I realize it is a problem that is on the Google sub-forums but likely a firmware issue not an Android issue.
No. 4 and 5 is just laughable.