Has anyone used the Nexus One ? The reviews about it appear to be divided.
Or would you recommend going for Droid/iPhone ?
Thanks
*Disclaimer: This post was not A/B tested nor optimized for maximum viewing.
The hardware itself is outstanding. The screen is gorgeous, I like the haptic feedback, and there are lots of nice touches like the trackball that lights up.
The software has a few great points too. The voice recognition is incredible. I like having the choice to run background apps.
This is also my first Android phone. After hearing early complaints about the OS, I thought I'd put it off until it's fully baked. The fact 2.1 was touted as a great OS update gave me the feeling it's time to try it out.
Well, I can say there are a lot of annoyances that are piling up.
Scrolling, especially flick scrolling, is inferior to iPhone 1.0. It's jerky and fickle.
The onscreen keyboard feel less accurate. I don't mean the predictive typing, I mean the prediction of what keys I'm trying to hit.
Navigating text fields is bad. When the voice recognition gets one word wrong, it's a pain to go back and fix it.
No multitouch. This is a pain in maps or zooming in on a web page. I know there are patent concerns, but as an end user, I don't care.
In general, I feel like the OS is half done. Someone cranked out a feature and performed zero refinement. I have to load a submenu to stop loading a web page? I would sacrifice wizz-bang features like voice recognition to fix all these little annoyances.
I'm going to give the phone a few more days. If I still haven't adjusted, I'm selling it.
I came from a iPhone 3g. The spit and polish just isn't there on Android like it is on the iPhone OS. I'd rather have a little less spit and polish in exchange for a little less parental intervention. I want my Google Voice and don't want to wonder if Steve Jobs will decide to allow my phone to have the "next big thing."
> I have to load a submenu to stop loading a web page?
The icon up by the location bar doesn't turn into an "X" for you while a page is loading? (When the page is fully loaded, it's the bookmark icon; when the location has focus, it's a search icon. This is on the Droid, though.)
In general: your points might be right, but it's also tough to tell how many of them come from being used to the iPhone, vs what your experience would be like coming from a blank slate. I'm certain some of that comes from falling short of Apple's high usability standards, but I'm also certain some of it may just be that you've gotten used to The One Way To Do Things. ;)
I've never used the iPhone but in the few weeks I've had a Droid, I've been annoyed very rarely and impressed more often.
I loaded a web page I'd bookmarked on my home screen. The top part of the screen shows the loading bar. The bookmark button is still a bookmark.
When I click a link, it doesn't change into a stop button until the actual page has started loading.
But it looks like loading the bottom menu shows me stop consistently.
The "you're just not used to it" argument constantly rears its head when people criticize usability. That's why I was careful in pointing out the deficiencies.
I can understand that the keyboard takes adjustment. Notice I didn't criticize the android "word menu" auto-complete.
The poor scrolling is a technical failure. Nobody wants jerky scrolling.
And the lack of pinch-and-zoom has repeatedly been covered as a patent issue, not a UI choice.
"You're just not used to it" is extremely dangerous reasoning.
I wasn't quite trying to say exactly that, at least not in a blanket manner.
But, let's take scrolling as an example: I haven't noticed that the android scrolling is jerky, not even a little bit. This is probably because I've never used something as silky as the iPhone. ((Or, perhaps, if I did try an iPhone, I would find its scrolling too smooth with no satisfying 'thump to a stop' at the end of a scroll or 'jump into motion' at the beginning.))
In other words, it's not "You're just not used to it" -- it's "without the other point of reference, would you even notice it?"
Yes, I would live with the scrolling on the Android, because I'd say to myself, "That's pretty good for a mobile phone." However iPhone 1.0's scrolling was vastly superior to today's Android. That's over two years ago. I think it's safe to declare iPhone 1.0 as the bar.
And, again, I'm not criticizing the thump-to-a-stop behavior. I'm criticizing the frame rate and responsiveness.
'The Switch From iPhone To Android, And Why Your First Impression Is Wrong'
Individually no. Your experience provides a sample of one case against the their proposition (at least for periods up to a few months). Whether this can be reliably generalised to others is still in question. To do fair test you would need also do a good sample of people trying to move from (up to years usage of) the N1 to the iPhone. You could see how they are doing after a few days, weeks, months...
It seems that for a some people, their first use of the iPhone was a life changing experience and it is possible that they have been so marked by it that they will always prefer that interface. Also different interfaces are probably a better fit for the way different people's brains work
(Edit : From my experiences the strongest iPhone fans seem to have a more personal/intuitive approach to things rather than being focussed on statistics or logic. Exactly the group who would be least impressed with the arguments I'm making).
With so many matters of personal taste/preference/experience involved I'm not sure if anyone's proclamation of 'the best interface' has more value than the 'best food' or 'best movie'.
To truly escape the realms of relativism the article should have included 'Good Design is Measurable'. In many ways of course it is measurable - you can ask people to rate their experience or measure how long they take to learn to perform various tasks. These measurements would not necessarily be universal though for the following reasons
* They would apply only to the segment of the population being measured (may not generalise to other populations such as Chinese nationals)
* Within the measured populations there will be differences in preference. If a particular subgroup or individual exhibits different preferences does that make them 'wrong'.
* Different UI's might serve different purposes better. One may be easier to learn but another more powerful once learned.
There would be chefs, movie makers, authors, musicians who would argue even more strongly that there is a definite 'good and bad' in their fields as well. To me there argument is just as valid as for UIs.
It's an obvious point that there will be some rare souls who prefer Android. For example, if the importance you put on a working Google Voice implementation counts for more than the sum of all possible other goods a phone might offer you, then maybe the iPhone is not right for you. Likewise, a child who will eat nothing but fish sticks will likely prefer them to the best filet mignon ever cooked. But for the most useful definitions of "good," there's still an order on the set in both cases.
It probably won't surprise you that I mostly agree with the hypothetical chefs and authors you cite.
Actually the child in your analogue more closely resembles a devoted iPhone user than anything else. The image of a reluctant child being encouraged to try a new food is quite a good match. 'I TOLD you I wouldn't like it' they say.
Of course in the case here we aren't comparing frozen food with high cuisine where 'better' really is obvious. We are comparing the meals of 2 of the most accomplished chefs in town. In that case individual differences in taste are often likely to be the deciding factor.
> It probably won't surprise you that I mostly agree with the hypothetical chefs and authors you cite.
Correlations in taste are to be expected. Within a cluster of highly correlated tastes the notion of 'better' will make more sense. If you chose to define your cluster as being 'better' then by extension you could say that their/your tastes are 'better' in some absolute sense.
My 6101 does what it's supposed to do and I think it does well, especially in my fringe area. On that note, why are radio specs never included? I've had 2 other phones and had to go back to the old Nokia because reception sucked.
I'm a Mac nerd. I hack on my mac, I worked at an Apple store for a couple of months for fun, and I really believe that they have their shit together and produce magnificent products. I never owned an original iPhone, but had a 3G the day they were released (see a pattern, like many of you I am a gadget freak).
I eventually just got bored with it. It's a great device, but like I said I'm a gadget freak so I needed a new fix. Android was an attractive platform because of it's tight integration with Google (I'm an apps user), and T-Mobile offered much cheaper plans. My girlfriend is also on T-Mo, so the path was clear. I bought my first Android device in October of 09, a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. It took a lot of getting used to. I figured that since the iPhone was the gold standard for smart phones, a lot of the Android experience would be a copy and therefore I'd learn it quickly. Sort of... but no. Unlike the iPhone, there are many devices running Android and most of them have a lot more external buttons. The UI depends on it. The back button for example, and the menu button, are critical on Android. Being a UI guy I learned things quickly, and after hacking and tweaking the phone with Cyanogen's mod, I came to like it. I missed my iPhone though, and longed for a better android experience; especially after the Droid came out, running Android 2.0. Unfortunately I had unlocked my iPhone and given it to my girlfriend, so I wasn't about to take it back.
Enter Nexus One. I had known about the physical device for a long time. Most people referred to it in the HTC community as the Passion. I was pretty damn excited when the Nexus materials started to leak. The device was gorgeous, and the specs were fantastic. I quickly sold my MyTouch on Ebay and bought the Nexus as soon as I could.
Best $530 I have ever spent, by far. The new OS is an amazing improvement on the old. The experience has almost done a 180. Everything is smoother and quicker. Things are more convenient and not as convoluted as they once were. I'm sure the 512MB of ram and 1GHz processor have a great deal to do with that, but I'm not complaining. The hardware is gorgeous too. It feels great in your hand (much like an iPhone) and like many say the screen is beautiful.
I've never owned a Droid but I've played around with one. I don't like the hardware keyboard and the device is slow. It doesn't have the OS that the Nexus has (2.0 compared to 2.1) and there's a big difference. The snapdragon processor is amazing. This thing screams compared to a Droid! Unfortunately... if you're on Verizon you have to wait a while for the CMDA version... but it's worth it! The Droid was a great effort, but it's not as nice as the Nexus.
tl;dr - I went from iPhone to Android (with a MyTouch 3G) and was unimpressed. I'm a UI guy so I'm real picky. I just got myself a Nexus One, and I'm finally able to say that the Android experience is on equal playing field with the iPhone. No other Android device can say that, except the Nexus One.
I'm the same way Michael.. I've owned the iPhone, 3G and now 3GS.. and I'm getting bored with it. But there are a few apps I've grown to love and can't be without (iKindle is one of them) so I will be sitting tight for a while.
People complain that the $99 fee and approval process of Apple is so bad, that the $25 and no approval process of Google is the way to go. Problem is... many of the apps you see on the iPhone are quality apps. They look great, they function great, and they make developers a lot of cash. While you still see similar things on Android, it's far far less common.
The Facebook app is a prime example. Comparing Facebook on iPhone to Facebook on Android is like comparing a Bugatti Veyron to a 1989 Taurus SHO.
Or I could just stay home and play with the SDK if I want. To me, the technology in the phone itself is nowhere near as interesting as what it enables.
(What's funny is that most of my acquaintances think that I am a gadget freak. I, who own an original 2G iPhone! By the standards of the true gadget freak I am a hopelessly mundane fuddy-duddy.)
What you have to realize is that an actual operating gadget that one uses from day to day is a disappointment to gadget freaks. I suspect that a gadget freak's favorite moment is the one right before he or she opens the box... the moment when the device is fully alive in the imagination, the moment before one's dream collides with the drab reality of the actual world and the inevitable letdown begins. That, I hypothesize, is why there's such a fetish for "unboxing" videos.
Fun stuff if you have the cash, I guess!
It is nice that Android devices are finally getting hardware on-par with what Apple ships.
No matter what you end up with, I'd say that the differences by upgrading far outweigh which particular 'cutting edge' phone you end up going with.
I didn't think much about the transition -- just aiming to phone and portable web browser. In less than a month, though, it turns out I've got:
- a suprisingly decent point-and-shoot camera, as long as it's not dark
- a hiking/biking/skiing GPS
- a car-nav GPS
- a guitar tuner
- barcode scanner & product nutrition database
- portable music/video library
- and more! ;)
Really, it's a general purpose computer that happens to be bristling with both sensors and telephony capabilities, and an almost always-on connection to the internet. Regardless of whether it's 95% as slick as it could be and more 'open' (Android) or 98% slickness level and less 'open' (iPhone), they're still pretty much equally revolutionary.
(N.b. as a developer it was very nice to be able to write software for my phone from day one, without having to jump through a ton of hoops.)
(Edit for bullet points.)
my only advice is to try the phones yourself (preferably without having to buy them) and see how you like each one. go to a store, find a friend with one, whatever. but try them yourself without having someone standing there trying to "sell" it to you (literally or just trying to get you to get what they have).
these modern smartphones are so complex and powerful that asking for someone's opinion is like asking "what kind of car should i buy?" there are things you may like about a particular phone that others hate. there are things that will matter more to you than to others. you may require some functionality that someone else doesn't, and vice versa.
Wow, I find that surprising. Smart phones are just incredible pieces of technology, and have made my life a lot more convenient in lots of little ways. Obviously there is tons of room for improvement, but I think you'd have to be pretty jaded to truly "hate" any of the smart phones. (Value-for-money is another question, but you can always choose not to buy one.)
Fundamentally, I just want to make phone calls on my cell phone - for everything else I want a laptop with a 3g card.
Android vs. iPhone is a religious debate, and it's unlikely you'll receive enlightenment from flames. Android 2.X (N1, Droid) is a big improvement over Android 1.X (everything else).
I am not from US and we have excellent GSM coverage here.
The Droid's keyboard sounds like the big winner. Especially with all the stuff about no multi-touch on N1.
If you're mostly interested in command-line work over SSH, though, I can see how a phone with a physical keyboard would be the best tool for the job.
[1] Multitouch API added in Android 2.0: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3323 [2] Multitouch keyboard in Android 2.0 (in section "Android virtual keyboard"): http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.0-highlights.html
- Better screen than iPhone
- Physical keyboard
- Verizon service (I guess this doesn't apply as you aren't in the US)
There's no question that the iPhone OS is slicker and easier to use, but the Droid lets you do more at once.
I'm not sure why you'd want to go with a Nexus One right now. Droid is about the same price, gets better network coverage (clearly that will change when the Verizon N1 comes out), and has a keyboard.
My only real complaint with the droid is that I wish the microphone was a little better. It's possible that the Nexus One has that advantage with their two-mic noise control system.
Edit: iPhone's biggest advantage imo is the app store. Android Market just isn't there yet.
The mac is cool, OS X is cool, developing for the mac is cool. That's why people like the iPhone. It's cool. People want their shit to be rad, and they want others to think that they are rad too. You don't get this with Java, so I don't think we'll ever get this on Android.
Suffice to say... I have a Nexus One (previously I had a MyTouch 3G, and before that an iPhone 3G) and I love it!
1. I bought myself a Mac desktop last year and I love it. I felt the iPhone would compliment nicely.
2. They've had a couple of iterations to sort out the kinks in the iPhone now and IMHO it shows.
The 3GS feels very polished to me and I don't regret my decision. I've only had my iPhone for about 10 days and I already have Google Sync set up for email/calendar syncing, I've used it as a Skype VoIP handset (in conjunction with my home Wi-Fi), I've got games on my phone that are actually worth playing, mobile Internet access that's actually practical to use and I've got an awesome remote for use with the VLC media player.
I've even made a few phone calls.
I really thought about getting one of the slightly less mainstream phones that might give me more "geek cred" or something. But in the end, I just want as good a user experience as possible and I felt I would get that from the iPhone. YMMV.
Granted, upgrading from a SE w800i I probably would be more than happy with any of the current generation of phones and I can't directly comment on the N1. But all my research led me to the conclusion that if you're looking for polished, go with the iPhone. If you're wanting a little more bleeding edge and experimental, go for one of the other options.
My personal preference is still the iPhone for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is the UI is entirely touchscreen driven. Android phones have 4 or more physical buttons so as you're using the phone you have to switch between the touchscreen and buttons. It may not seem like a big deal but I find it makes most applications less obvious to use since they don't have to represent all their features on the touchscreen where my attention is focused. Sometimes I have to remind myself there are 6 buttons on my Android phone and explore what each one does in each different application. Lots of functionality is revealed when you use the Menu button so I frequently have to stop using the touchscreen, hit the menu button, and go back to using the touchscreen again. It's not hard to find and press the menu button, it's right there, but it interrupts the flow of what I'm doing and I don't like that.
Precise what you need and then decide each one to choose
Battery life could probably be better - it seems to be about on par with the G1, maybe a little better. I get about 4-5 hours of heavy game playing or navigation/GPS use, 2-3ish days on standby.
Would be interested in answers to that, too. I haven't joined the fun yet, but I wonder if there really is anything life changing about it (yet)?
And yes, you can browse HN on the toilet. Life is good.
If you want the best current smartphone (and AT&T works in your area), buy an iPhone.
Or waiting a few months for the next release of N1.
The Android software has been in the wild for more than a year now and it's pretty well developed, so it's not accurate to compare that to the original iPhone software. The N1 hardware appears to be top-notch so I think the word crappy applies even less to that than the software. So then I guess you are saying the N1 will suck for awhile until they work out problems with the interaction between the hardware and software. That's a fair criticism I guess, although I think unfounded.
I can tell you that this phone does not suck. My girlfriend works at Google so I've played with this phone since the beginning of December. It is most definitely the best smartphone on the market right now. I'd say if T-mobile has a decent presence in your area you'd be a fool to go with an iPhone over an N1.
2) All Droids lacks the wealth of apps the iPhone has.
3) All Droids lack years of market testing like iPhones have.
4) If your girlfriend works at Google, you are certainly biased, and I think anyone who has touched all the major smartphones can't really say any of them are the best except the Blackberry or the iPhone, depending on the application. All Droids and Palms are just me-toos trying to catch up right now. I'm not saying Android and its phones won't get there, they just can't be there yet.