My First Week with a Google Nexus One

by Scott Jangro on 10 January 2010

Nexus 1

I sold my soul to yet another wireless carrier (T-mobile) so I could be one of the first to try out the new Nexus One (N1). Gadgetlust has a firm hold on me.

I’ll likely be ditching the Droid and my Verizon contract because oddly, Verizon’s service sucks here (I figured they’d fix it after three years). I seem to be in a dead zone, so while the “Can you hear me now” guy is slogging through the bayous of Louisiana, there are some of us up here in Metro-west Boston who can’t get a consistent signal. Since I work at home, that’s a problem. The Verizon techs blame it on a body of water that’s not far from here. Apparently microwaves cannot pass across the flattest surface possible. I don’t know.

Having been an iPhone user since he first one came out, I didn’t like the Verizon Droid hardware very much. If I could have snapped the keyboard off and used the rest of the phone it would have been perfect. That’s essentially what the N1 is (but with much rounder edges).

While I think it is important to keep in mind when reading this that I’m a huge iPhone fan, that’s all I’m going to say about the iPhone in this review. Comparing the two is a subject for a different post, and a topic that’s being hammered on by the A-listers all weekend.

Here’s what I like about the Nexus One

(though most of this is Android 2.1 stuff)

  • The hardware form factor. It is a great size. The case is slightly rubberized and seems like it will wear well without a third-party case.
  • The glowing trackball is fun, but almost useless. The fact that it works as the camera button saves it.
  • Google Apps integration. Gmail on Android kicks ass. Google Voice integration is extremely well done as well.
  • Voice Search. Really cool, and it works very well.
  • The camera hardware is nice. It takes great pictures and the LED flash is a nice thing to have in a pinch.
  • Facebook phonebook is an awesome idea. (though the Facebook app still sucks)
  • The multi-tasking is nice. Best part is the notifications, but it’s also nice to be able to listen to Pandora while doing other stuff, or take a call or tweet while the GPS is running.
  • The turn-by-turn GPS works great
  • There are finally some really great apps appearing. I think 2010 will bring us some well done Android apps.

Here’s what I don’t like

  • The Marketplace. Finding apps is a total drag. Keyword searches often come up empty (though there MUST be an app for what I’m looking for) but more often a bunch of crap icon packs appear rather than what I’m looking for. And why isn’t there a great website for searching for apps?
  • I can’t easily take a screenshot. srsly? I was really hoping they’d fix this one in 2.1.
  • The touch screen seems to lose its mind sometimes and either stops responding entirely or I have to do the gesture a few times.
  • The software keyboard is sluggish. I can easily get ahead of it and it drops keys. It seems like it could be better at not only catching every keystroke, but guessing which key I meant to press based on the previous one. There must be some intelligence available to look at key-tuplets to predict what key I’m intending to press.
  • the bar for app development quality and standards is pretty low. Consistency across apps is not great, so it can be a mystery whether you need to to a long touch on the screen, look in the menu button, find another button, etc.
  • The four hard-coded buttons at the bottom of the screen. They’re either too easy to press by accident, or too hard to press on purpose. Why aren’t these actual buttons anyway?

Bottom line

I’ve been really enjoying the N1 this week and I’m going to keep it. (and ditching the Droid), but I’m not giving up the iPhone. Even if I did, from the sounds of it, Apple would have me crawling back this summer. I’m resigned to keeping two phones.

{ 46 comments }

Hey, I can’t subscribe to your RSS feed!

by Scott Jangro on 30 December 2009

RSS isn’t quite dead yet. If you’re relying on the browser to provide access to your RSS feed, you’re leaving a bit too much to chance.

Understandably, we’ve all become very used to our browsers auto-detecting a blog’s RSS feeds and providing a link somewhere up in the browser interface.

Like in Firefox we have a convenient RSS button in the address bar:

Chris Saad – Paying Attention | Personal Blog of Chris Saad.png

Problem is, Google Chrome (at least on OS X) doesn’t have this basic browser feature yet (which is just ridiculous).

So when I’m using Chrome, I can’t easily subscribe to Chris Saad’s blog, for example:

Chris Saad – Paying Attention | Personal Blog of Chris Saad.jpg

Sure, I can enter the blog’s URL into Google reader. Or I could open up Firefox. But don’t make me work for it. An RSS link is basic stuff that should just be there in your blog’s template.

(Sorry to pick on you Chris. I see this all the time. Yours was just the final straw.)

{ 31 comments }

RockBand 2 Wii: The Missing Redemption Code and Bonus Songs

December 27, 2009

We got Rockband 2 for Christmas as the “Family Gift”. read “for Dad”. We’ve been having a great time with it.
I will say, however, that I’m a bit disappointed with the songs that come with it. Maybe I’m just showing my age. Rockband is SO much easier if you actually know the [...]

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Droids, Google Phones, Contracts, and Termination Fees: What’s a Geek to Do?

December 18, 2009

If you’re plotting and planning your way through Smartphone waters, trying to get your grubby hands on the latest, hottest phone and mobile OS, you’ll need to be very strategic. Either that or willing to drop some dough.
At this point, in order to feed my gadget-habit, I’m carrying two wireless contracts. It’s not cheap, [...]

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Open Source Life Streaming

December 17, 2009

Do you feel like your participation on blogs and social media can be wasted effort?
I love blogging and social media, but much of it feels like I’m dropping content into a well to never be seen again (like delicious), or a fast moving river that sweeps it away (like Twitter and FriendFeed).
We’ve got all these [...]

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Use Your Old iPhone as a Backup Phone

December 10, 2009

Now that I have pared down my twitter list to a small enough number of people I’m following so that I can actually pay attention, I saw this come across the twitter stream this morning.
My friend Todd Crawford wants to break his old iPhone 3G so he can get an iPhone 3GS…

There’s a place in [...]

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Twitter Purge

December 10, 2009

I just went through a massive twitter purge. I do this every once in a while, usually after realizing (for the umpteenth time) that auto-follow is a bad idea.
I’ll say it again. Autofollow is a bad idea.
Wait…

There, maybe I’ll remember that for next time.
I used Tweepi to go through my whole list [...]

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What is a Jumper?

December 6, 2009

I get a lot of questions in blog comments and emails asking the question, “What is a jumper?” Many of the Samsung color wheel repairs require that a small jumper be removed in order to get proper colors after a color wheel replacement.
What is a jumper?
If you’re from England, a jumper is a sweater.
Or, [...]

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Droid Does T-shirts

December 1, 2009

I got a nice surprise today in my mailbox.
That box on the lower right contained a nice long-sleeve T-shirt that says, “Droid Does” on it.
I’ll wear it with pride, glad that I got my little bit out of Verizon’s $100 Million Droid Ad Campaign.

Yes, those are two iPhones. One of them is green with [...]

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Droid Battery Cover Problem Update

November 24, 2009

I know you’ve been hanging on the edge of your seat about this one.
A week and a half ago, I posted a video on how to fix your loose droid battery cover.
It has actually turned out to be quite a heated issue amongst Droid owners with discussions popping up in several Droid forums and blogs, [...]

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