Anand's Google Nexus One Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 3, 2010 3:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The Keyboard: Form Factor vs. Speed
I was a Blackberry user for years before the iPhone. While I appreciated the look and feel of Windows Mobile devices nothing could ever replace the functionality of my Blackberry at the time. One trend I noticed however was with every new generation of Blackberry, the form factor got smaller and the keyboard became just slightly less usable. As Blackberries got narrower, the key spacing dropped and my peak typing speed dropped a bit. It never fell too much, but it was an annoyingly consistent trend. I was always fine upgrading because the newer phones usually had enough going for them that I was willing to make the sacrifice.
Using the Nexus One’s keyboard, I was reminded of the same feeling. While it’s a purely virtual keyboard, the key spacing isn’t quite as wide as the iPhone’s because the device is just slightly narrower. As a result, I can’t type as fast on the Nexus as I can on the iPhone. With a good amount of practice it’s possible to be quick on the keyboard. Using the keyboard in landscape mode was a lot more comfortable to me, unfortunately there’s hardly any remaining screen real estate when you do so.
The narrower keyboard is a side effect of the narrower device, which does make holding it up to your head to make a phone call more natural feeling than most smartphones, the iPhone included. It’s very difficult trying to strike a balance between smartphone perfection and comfort. Dell’s upcoming Mini 5 has an incredibly useful 5" screen, but it comes at the expense of not being very pocketable.
The Nexus One's keyboard is also missing multitouch support, which is something that the iPhone's keyboard originally lacked as well. This is mainly an issue if you're just transitioning from a physical keyboard and are used to having one key pressed as you're selecting the next key on the keyboard. I struggled with the lack of multitouch on the iPhone keyboard initially but by the time Apple added it in, I'd gotten used to not having it.
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Google Nexus One
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Apple iPhone 3GS
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Like most smartphones, the Nexus One will attempt to autocorrect your spelling mistakes as you make them. By default there’s a bar of words that appears under your text input box as you type. The spelling correction appears to be based on length of word and letters used, but not the location of those keys on the keyboard. For example, typing yjomh instead of thong won’t autocorrect, although on the iPhone it will. Overall the autocorrection and thus typing on the iPhone is better than on the Nexus One. With the iPhone you can really just type and mostly forget about mistakes (assuming you take the one finger, one thumb, two thumbs approach and really grow accustomed to the device over about a week). The Nexus One comes close, but it still ends up feeling like it’s using a dated form of text entry/correction compared to the iPhone.
This is a major issue because with any device this narrow, the pad of just one of your thumbs will cover up a huge section of the keyboard. You can either slowly peck at it or rely on the phone to be as smart as possible in figuring out what you’re typing. Apple simply does this better.
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There are other slight differences between Google and Apple’s virtual keyboards. Both magnify the key you’re pressing, but Apple connects the magnified key to the actual key you’re pressing - it’s a slight UI addition that does make it look nicer. Google does a better job of indicating that there are alternate versions of a letter by putting an ellipses after any key this applies to.
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Antioch18x - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Not only that but I didn't see mention of using a background task killer with "auto kill." (But, granted, I didn't *read* the whole article as I already own a N1 and didn't need to see your impressions of it). Due to the Android's method of multitasking, many times you don't actually exit an app when you think you do - it continues running in the background. You really do need a background task auto-killer to get the best battery life. This is one flaw, I think, in Android.Anyways, keeping this in mind I find that your battery life tests may be off. I get better battery life on my N1 than the old iPhone 3G.
spideryk - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
There are alternative keyboards available for the android. as of right now swype keyboard is the best available means of entering text on a smart phone. once you get used to swype, you only need one hand to type and most of the time do not need to look at the keyboard to type. a must have on android.bob1939 - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Great review as usual but you missed something I consider critical. The lack of support for hands free bluetooth dialing.Where I live it can cost $180 if you are caught using a handheld phone while driving, so Hands Free dialing is a must.
Worse Google insists in calling his shortcoming an enhancement and shows no sign of fixing it in the near term.
For me this is a showstopper.
Bob Benedetti
dvinnen - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Not sure what you mean by blue tooth dialing but there is certainly voice dialing. The whole voice integration in Android is really fantastic as Anand said in his review.bob1939 - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
I mean leave the phone in your pocket and press the button on the steering wheel, on the bluetooth speaker or bluetooth earpiece and say call whoever and the phone dials the number.My understanding of the N1 and other Android 2.1 devices is that you have to press something at least twice on the phone to operate the voice dial. Where I live that will cost $180 if you are seen by a cop fiddling with the phone while driving.
Bob Benedetti
LongTimePCUser - Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - link
I have a Motorola Droid and a 2006 Toyota Prius.The Droid connects via BlueTooth with the Prius.
I can dial a phone number on the Droid from the Prius touch screen.
joe6 - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
1) Good: Nexus One has a microSD card slot. Big advantage in my book.2) Bad: Nexus One doesn't support Exchange/Outlook calendar sync without going through the Google cloud services. This is just silly and frankly, kills the deal for me. I think most Nexus One RMAs come from this bullet alone.
Pitne - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
There an app for this. How do you people miss the point that is android? Android is all about being open and not LOCKED DOWN like apple. So go download the more functional exchange apps and STFUCali3350 - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Not sure if you posted it and I missed it or if you simply don't want to say in a public forum (which is understandable) but which do you , Anand, see yourself using in the future - the Nexus One or the iPhone 3GS? That sort of message says a lot about the current state of the platforms.Anand Lal Shimpi - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Honestly, I'm torn.After the review I switched back to the 3GS because of the simplicity and the keyboard (I type a *lot*). In doing so, I miss the screen, form factor (ugh it was painful holding the iPhone to my head for an hour long phonecall vs. the Nexus One), some of the apps/features and the speed of the Nexus One. Today my answer would be the 3GS, but after using the Nexus One so much over the past few weeks I have to say that some aspects of the iPhone really do feel archaic.
What I may do going forward is continue to alternate between the two to get a better feel for their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Take care,
Anand