Google Nexus One Hands-On, Video, and Impressions 262
wkurzius writes "Engadget has gotten their hands on a Nexus One and have put their first impressions up for the world to see, including whether or not they think it's the 'be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone eviscerator.' Their opinion? 'Not really.'"
Only one question... (Score:3, Interesting)
my old samsung i8510... (Score:1, Interesting)
running s60 v3 can do : ...and is over 2 years old and obsolete at this point. and android phones dont even have half this functionality in 2010.
8.1 mpx photos
has a dual led flash
has a wifi client
can do skype over wifi (fring)
does 3G/quad band GSM
runs garmin/tomtom/route 66 GPS software with over 8 GB of maps.
has 32 GB storage (16GB on board, 16GB microSD)
has accuweather 15 days forecasts and reuters new feeds
does RSS with mobispine
has the usual calendering stuff with sync and does gmail/search/google maps with native apps.
has opera, the symbian web browser and literally hundreds of symbian apps for reading PDF/doc/chm etc
has mobioffice for office docs, divx player, real player and dozens of mp3 players available.
can connect to a projector and output sound + video on the same output cable.
Glaring problems (Score:-1, Interesting)
It is not toad compatible. And it costs more than bread. And it spyes on you and reports to the pig. And, worst of all, it weighs like ten billion pounds. Nobody will buy it, I GUARANTEE!
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a Nokia N900 if you want that killer feature.
Debian ... check ... check ... check
root access
ssh + screen
apt-get install damn near anything ... CHECK!
AMOLED screens in a completely different class (Score:1, Interesting)
Google just trying to see what sticks? (Score:2, Interesting)
In the past, when Google was a smaller company, we'd see very direct and targeted products being developed. First was their excellent search engine, then AdSense, and then GMail and Google Maps. The quality was good, the feature set was quite complete, and they were rife with innovation.
Lately, however, it seems that Google has just started throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. There seems to be a significant lack of focus. Android, Chrome OS and Nexus One follow this path. There's nothing about them that really sticks out relative to the competition. It's more just Google playing catch-up.
Especially in the case of Chrome OS, nobody has a fucking clue what Google is trying to accomplish. Power users find it extremely limiting, and "normal" users really have no use for it. Hopefully they abort it soon, and instead just make Chrome the best browser it can be.
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia took a big turn a few years ago, dropping the "free after service provider subsidy" models in favor of going very geek. I had one of their recent phones earlier this year while I was waiting for my subsidy to get an iPhone to come available.
The initial failures of the Ovi App Store were annoying, and with only the built in apps available to me it needed some work. They're racing in the same division as much bigger fish called Apple and Google, but they seem to have a neat device in the Booklet 3G... just a plain Windows netbook with a $300 provider discount making it $299.99, and Best Buy was kicking in another $100 to make it $199.99 over the holidays. The killer feature on this one is a solid battery.
They're really going for the geeks... but are there enough geeks who will pass on both Apple on AT&T and Google on Verizon and T-Mobile?
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Are the right wingnuts resorting to calling people "hippies" now? Boy, talk about running low on brainless insults. You guys should have rationed your rudeness to make words like "liberal" and "socialist" last longer. Oh wait, conserving natural resources is "fascism", isn't it?
I laughed at the live wallpaper crashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, hope I dont come across as a jerk. I have big hopes for Android, although I dont see myself leaving my iPhone soon. The Nexus One seems to have a very nice interface with some software features that Apple would do well to copy. I dont like the look of the hardware, I'd prefer the iPhone. Its good to have strong and healthy competition in any market, I dont think Android handsets have been on par with the iPhone yet. Im trying not to get too excited over the Nexus One, as too often we hear "iPhone Killer" bandied about. Perhaps if we didnt have such high hopes, we would be more tolerant of Androids current flaws, rather than instantly dismissing the device when it turns out not to be made of solid gold and curing cancer. I remember the ridiculous hype over the Droid, with a massive marketing campaign, and then it seems to have just fallen dead? When I hear of the Nexus One, commenters will often mention "the Droid sucked" or "this is so much better than the Droid" etc.
I hope the Nexus One comes out soon so I can see it, although New Zealand seems to only have one or possibly two Android handsets on sale?
Re:More vendor/carrier lock-in (Score:3, Interesting)
And I need to go inside a steel and cement storage building to lose a signal here in Orlando while my friend with his iphone can't even get one less than 4 miles from one of the largest universities in the entire state.
I can cherry pick anecdotes too.
Re:Google just trying to see what sticks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but this is what Google wants everyone to believe. They want you to think that they're just messing around and dabbling in every tech-related market. But the truth is far more subtle and interesting.
Google's real product, its core focus, has always been and remains its analytics. Everything they have developed or acquired--GMail, Maps, YouTube, Android, and of course, Google search--has been about one thing, and one thing only: gathering data and analyzing it in order to better match the consumer with the advertiser. You want to know/buy something. Someone else wants to tell/sell it to you. And Google's entire business model is about profiting off the need to make this connection efficient.
When viewed in this context, it becomes crystal clear why they have their hands in all these seemingly disparate technologies. They have a huge advantage, in that by cross-indexing the data they have collected on you, they can have a very complete picture of your preferences. It doesn't matter that YouTube doesn't turn a profit on its own. It doesn't matter that GMail and Android are free. In a sense, these things are not really products. They're more like...well, bait. They are a means to understand you better, and in turn, sell that understanding to people who want to sell you their products. Therefore, you are not Google's customer. The advertisers, the ones who pay Google for their analytics, are their real customers.
Given Microsoft's recent unveiling of Bing (and their "cashback" program), it appears that MS management still doesn't understand Google's strategy. They are trying to compete in this one area, thinking that if they could attract people to use their search engine, they would be competitive. While that tactic might have worked a decade ago, it's much too late now. They are throwing money at the problem because they don't understand that Google is successful because they offer services that are free, easy to use, and effective, then take the data they collect and sell that knowledge to advertisers. They have misunderstood in the same way that people misunderstand why Google developed all these different technologies and offered them for free.
It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.
Re:I laughed at the live wallpaper crashes (Score:3, Interesting)
And while I do agree that wallpaper changing should be simple, in reality on most Android phones they work on the core first and move outward to the UI, OS X development works first on the UI then works on the core.
Re:Critical (Score:4, Interesting)
I am wondering if Apple has some sort of patent on using multitouch in a UI which is preventing other phones from implementing it without getting a license from them. On the face of it, I'd consider it an obvious invention since the whole reason humans have thumbs is so they can manipulate objects with 2+ digits. But you never know with our crazy software patent system.
Re:Ok.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Who says the Nexus One has an OLED? I keep on seeing it from people commenting on articles about the phone, but it's not said in the articles themselves.
Honestly I'm not sure I prefer OLED for phones. As much as I'd kill for an OLED display at home, it seems like a bit of a problem for something I'll be using a lot outside during the day.
I agree about the keyboard thought. I would love something like the Droid, but I'm not about to switch to Verizon for it.
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Interesting)
The difficulty with microwave (ghz) is that because wavelengths are so short, the entire circuit needs to be tuned, not just the antennae.
Re:Critical (Score:1, Interesting)
Apple's key multitouch patent involves having the device determine what a user wants to do when more than one option is available; i.e, is the user trying to scroll a screen or select something on it?
It seems like a fairly small thing, but it actually puts a pretty severe limit on what you can do without it.