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.'"
This is a engineering issue, not Googfle's call. (Score:4, Informative)
T-Mobile and ATT operate on different 3G frequencies. Supporting all frequencies would be prohibitively expensive.
Re:More vendor/carrier lock-in (Score:3, Informative)
You can get commercially available unlocked iphones. They just cost so much that nobody does it.
Apparently people would rather spend less money up front, and more money in the long run. Either people's budgets are so precariously balanced that an upfront fee is unviable, or humans are just bad at math. Possibly both.
Re:More vendor/carrier lock-in (Score:4, Informative)
Right now, in the USA, there's only one provider (T-Mobile) willing to discount your service if you decline the hardware subsidy. If you want to use anybody else, you pay the same rate even if you decline the upfront money.
Either T-Mobile subscriptions will go through the roof, or we've got proof that the public just doesn't care. People with money seldom understand math, see also: Las Vegas.
Re:AMOLED screens in a completely different class (Score:2, Informative)
unless if you use it in daylight...
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Informative)
In Q3 2009 Nokia sold 16.16 million smart phones. Apple sold 7.04 million.
Apple's market share is certainly growing, but in the world of cell phones, they don't come much larger than Nokia.
Re:AMOLED screens in a completely different class (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed, I have a Samsung Galaxy (which has an AMOLED screen), and indoors it looks amazing, way better than my friends' iPhones' screens. Introduce direct sunlight though, and you're looking at a dull, dark-grey mess.
Ok.. (Score:5, Informative)
So you can buy a Nexus One for $530 and pick up a data SIM for $29 a month. You get unlimited voice, unlimited SMS. I think the data SIM is capped at 5 gigs/month....which at 4 minutes/megabyte comes to thousands of 'minutes' a month. 5 gig is a little sparse for watching youtube videos, but more than adequate for finding information and checking maps.
2 year cost comes to $1,226. Iphone 3G two year cost is $1,975. Pretty substantial savings.
I would guess that google voice is/will be a ton more flexible than other voice providers...can probably do VoIP using wifi whenever you are near a hotspot. Can most likely auto-forward to a home VOIP system whenever you are at home or the phone is turned off. If you have wireless internet at home and at work (who doesn't?), that basically means unlimited everything whenever you are there.
Better display and better hardware than the iphone as well.
To be honest, this sounds like a winner. This smartphone can do many of the tasks of a real PC, yet the 2 year cost is about what you'd pay on the cheapest plan offered by a major wireless provider in the United States.
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
Have you been paying attention to T-Mobile at at all lately? Because that's not even true. They're 3G coverage has expanded to the point in the last year alone that it's at 85-90% of AT&T's 3G coverage. They cut the timetable for their rollout of 3G from 36 months to 17 months. I literally had 3G turn on overnight in my own neighborhood just a couple of nights ago.
And even IF you don't have 3G coverage in your area - you will soon - and if you have WiFi in your house (who doesn't?) you'll be off and running with high speed internet access when you're at home.
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
The N900 PIM-specific functionality is far behind what Android or iPhone is capable of.
But it does run the google-apps mail & calendar web version well - both main and mobile versions.
Re:Ok.. (Score:4, Informative)
The Nexus one only really supports T-mobile. I did think about that...VoIP on a wireless link does sound pretty unreliable. There might be static, garbled communications, needing to speak loudly into the phone...even dropped calls. Then I thought "just like the kind of service I'm getting for ~$40/month through AT&T right now..."
At least with google voice, you'll get great reception when you are connected via wi-fi to a decent internet connection (like at home for sure). Probably get about the same quality at home as you'd get on a real landline. And you don't have to pay any sort of long distance charges, or worry about minutes. Plus, all your voicemail gets transcribed and you can read it right there in gmail. Sounds like a winner to me.
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
and if you have WiFi in your house (who doesn't?) you'll be off and running with high speed internet access when you're at home.
If you have WiFi in your house, you already have that, and without having to deal with the tiny screen and awkward data entry.
In a phone, Wifi is a fallback, at best. The only advantage a phone has over other internet devices is portability. And "must be near a hotspot" is not portability.
Re:Only one question... (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt that the antenna is the actual problem. From what I remember and it has been a long time 20 years since I did any serious antenna design. You actually need longer antennas for lower frequencies eg 1/2 the wavelength for a dipole and 1/4 for a whip antenna. So the phone antenna can be quite small. Similarly I would be surprise if you couldn't make a fairly broad band antenna at for a mobile. The biggest problem with broadband antennas is impedance mismatching and hence VSWR problems mainly for TX. As you move up the frequency a given antenna can generally operate over a wider band more easily because the wavelength difference between the antenna length and the TX frequency becomes for a given TX band. A 20MHz (capital M for Mega not small for milli) TX band at 100 MHz will give you ~ a 20% variance in wavelength which is larger than the wavelength variation from 1.7 GHz to 2GHz.
Having said that I haven't done any RF design for phones so there may be some gotchas antenna wise that I am not aware of but I suspect the problem if it is a space problem may come from other front end requirements such as the high Q crystal filters, diplexer if they use one, and power amp (depending on design) but I am only guessing. Certainly there are lots of small quad band phones that seem to have solved this problem. Expense is another factor.
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is a engineering issue, not Googfle's call (Score:1, Informative)
That just isn't true. A tremendous number of phones support all 4 (850, 900, 1800 and 1900) GSM frequencies and all the UMTS freqs. (The iPhone 3G for example. Oddly, the 3GS I have does NOT support all four..)
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what you're smoking, but I've had my Android a lot longer than that and it was larger than 'a few square miles' in Orlando alone. All of Orlando, in fact.
Up in New England, T-Mo sucks. Down here in Florida, it's the best service. It all depends on your area. They are, however, improving all the time.
Re:Critical (Score:3, Informative)
Why exactly do you need to hit more than 1 key at a time? Hint: You don't.
Or maybe you were suggesting that multitouch is necessary to make a touch-interface that doesn't screw up all the time. It isn't.
I've got the G1 with the new updates and the on-screen keyboard is almost as easy to use as the physical one. I rarely pull out the keyboard any more because it isn't worth the time.
Re:I laughed at the live wallpaper crashes (Score:3, Informative)
If you are going to say you are not hearing good things about a product or a person, please share what that bad thing is. Otherwise, go back to your cubicle at your PR firm.
Android is remarkably difficult to crash. There are some applications that crash from time to time, but an application crash does not take your phone offline. Google's built in aps are remarkably reliable. Third party applications can extend or replace included applications (like the dialer or address book) it is possible that an unstable 3rd party app can make things less stable. That's the price you pay for having an open platform, and well worth it based on the functionality that I have on my phone that you can never, ever have with an iPhone (try to get Google Voice, Handcent SMS, Locale and Lattitude on an iPhone).
Re:Only one question... (Score:1, Informative)
Since you've clearly never spend any time using an Android phone, I've fixed some of your usability tests:
Usability test: how to change a contact's Name and Surname.
Nokia S60: Open "phonebook", select the contact, select "edit", edit "Name" and "Surname" fields, select "end".
Android: Open "Contacts", select the contact, press Menu button and select "Edit contact", edit "Name" and "Surname" fields, press Done button.
Usability test: how to send to your PC some photos you've taken with your phone.
Nokia S60: Open "gallery" (with a dedicated button on many phones), all the photos in your phone will appear, with the latest photos first. Select the photos you need to send (1 keystroke if your phone has hardware buttons, 3 taps if it doesn't and you have to open the menu), select "send", select "bluetooth", select your PC (already selected if you've used it before).
Android: Open "Gallery" (or press Gallery key shortcut on phone), all the photos in your phone will appear, with the latest photos first. Press the Share button, and select "Picasa", followed by pressing the Upload button. Visit the Picasa website on your PC and download your photo.
Usability test: how to listen to some random music from YourFavouriteArtist.
Nokia S60: Open "music" (again, with a dedicated button on many phones), select "artists", select "YourFavouriteArtist" (just pressing Y will usually do), select "all tracks" because you're not looking for a particular album, select the first track.
If later you want to change artist, press "back" (you're, well, back in "all tracks from YourFavouriteArtist"), press "back" (you're back to the artist list).
Android: Open "Music" by selecting it from the applications menu (or use key shortcut), select "artists", select "YourFavouriteArtist" (just pressing Y will usually do), long-press to play all tracks, and press back button to change artist, etc.