ScottAllyn

Here are some of my thoughts on the negatives that he covered in his review. I was thinking about doing the same for his rant but parts of that sound like the ravings of a lunatic to me, so I think I'll pass. Plus, this post is already too long winded without adding that.

1. The capacitive display, while excellent, doesn’t have the same response as its largest competitor in the touch screen arena. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but we feel like the 5% or so difference becomes noticeable with everyday usage.
   
   He doesn’t explain what he means by this. I haven’t really had any issues with the touch screen in the main display area. I have had it glitch a few times where I’d press one icon and an icon 3 rows down would actually get selected, but in each case, it happened while using the callused fingers on my left hand to select the icons. I ran into similar issues with the Droid as well as with the “largest competitor” – everyone who plays the guitar probably runs into this. Switching to the other hand fixed the problem.
   
   
2. One other annoyance is the touch-sensitive buttons below the screen, however. They seem to be the exact same as what’s on the HTC DROID Eris, and we are having the exact same issues. Their contact point seems to sit a little higher than it should, so if you press the button normally from the bottom half, your touch probably will not register.
   
   This is a very valid point. I’ve run into this on my Nexus One and it was quite frustrating at first. I’ve since adjusted to it (for the most part), but still consider it to be a problem. My Droid doesn’t have this issue at all.
   
   
3. And while in our testing Android 2.1 worked reasonably well, we just can’t get over the fact that in addition to software inconsistencies which we’ll touch on below, there are still small slow downs and hiccups even with this 1GHz processor. That’s not good.
   
   No, it’s not good, but hiccups are not unexpected with a brand new phone running a relatively new OS (or even an established one, for that matter). The iPhone has definitely not been immune to slow downs and hiccups over the course of its history. These things happen… and they get fixed. Owners on both sides of the fence rant and rage about the problems… and then they forget about them (until it’s time to point them out on a competitors phone).
   
   
4. There’s also a News and Weather widget/application set which looks great and is pretty customizable. It’s definitely the best implementation we’ve seen on Android in terms of a news/weather widget, but that also speaks to how poorly 3rd party widgets and applications are designed and developed on Android as a whole.
   
   There are indeed plenty of poorly designed 3rd party widgets and applications for the Android OS. From what I’ve seen, it’s a higher percentage of available apps than what we see with the iPhone. Users really have to wade through the chaff to find the gems, but they’re definitely there.
   
   A lot of this has to do with the fact that there’s no screening process for developers – anyone can add apps to the Market… and anyone does! As far as I know, there’s also no standardization for the UI designs, or at least no enforcement of the standards – the method for accessing UI elements in one app may be very different in another. That seems like a pretty big negative for Android, especially in the eyes of the users coming over from the iPhone, where those standards are enforced. I’d personally prefer to see more uniformity between Android apps.
   
   
5. The actual loudspeaker on the phone is decent. It’s definitely loud enough, but it’s not that clear and can get distorted pretty easily if the volume is raised up enough.
   
   The loudspeaker on the Nexus One just plain stinks. The speakers on my Iphone 3GS and Droid are quite a bit better. At first, I thought it was due to the tiny hole on the battery cover above the speaker – how can any decent sound get through that little hole? But even with the battery cover off, the speaker sounds horrible. It’s usable in a pinch, I suppose, but I’m definitely going to avoid using it.
   
   
6. When you think of an AMOLED screen you probably think bright, beautiful colors, crisp, sharp detailing, and you also probably think, “that might not be the best screen to use at the beach.” And, if you thought that last part, you’d be right. The screen on the Nexus One, while gorgeous, is not usable in direct sunlight and it’s rather depressing.
   
   Yup. This screen suffers a LOT more in direct sunlight than the Droid and iPhone screens do. Even in the shade outside on a sunny day, it doesn’t appear to be as bright as the Droid’s screen. When I use the Nexus One in my car during the day, I have to manually set the brightness to 100% and it STILL doesn’t look as bright as the Droid’s screen. It’s definitely still usable in the car – ‘just not quite as pleasant to look at as the Droid’s screen (which I always left on Auto).
   
   Indoors, the opposite is true. My Nexus one looks brighter than the Droid when they’re both set to the same brightness level. ::shrug:: ‘One of the down sides to having an AMOLED screen, I suppose.
   
   
7. Getting over the sunlight issue, the screen isn’t as rich as the Motorola DROID’s display, unfortunately. We didn’t miss the actual resolution in terms of having more room, but the DROID’s display doesn’t show pixelation like the Nexus One does, and just honestly seems like a better product.
   
   My initial reaction to this was, “WTF!? The Nexus One’s screen looks richer than the Droid’s screen to my eyes!” But then he goes on to talk about the resolution so I think his definition of “rich” is not quite the same as mine.
   
   For the most part, those extra pixels on the droid screen don’t buy much. The only place I notice it is on really small print, such as the smallest text on the WeatherBug Elite widget. On Nexus One, that small print looks blurry from a distance and pixilated up close – on the Droid, it’s very sharp. I can see a similar difference in the fine lines on the gStrings icon and on all icon text if I really examine them closely. Score one for the Droid! That same text on the iPhone would be completely illegible, though…
   
   
8. Android’s default camera application is mediocre at best, slightly frustrating, and mildly confusing.
   
   Indeed. The camera app doesn’t even blend well with the rest of the native apps – it feels more like a 3rd party app! It gets the job done, but it really does need some work.
   
   
9. One of many issues is that there isn’t a single amazing application on the Android platform.
   
   I must be a complete simpleton, then. I was fairly amazed when I took Google Sky Maps outside to look at the stars for the first time. My neighbor thought I was high until he looked at the screen. He’s now a Droid owner, btw…
   
   

He does make a lot of valid points in his review & I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that (else I'm about to be torn a new one). There was obviously some bias in the review but nothing really unexpected, especially from a site such as his. If he'd left that rant off the site, I think many of us probably would have agreed with most of what he wrote, frowned at his bias, and just moved on.

In case anyone asks... yes, I do own all three: http://www.scottallyn.com/images/phones.jpg

Last edited by ScottAllyn; January 10th, 2010 at 11:43 AM.