Is the Nexus One a good choice?

[estefana]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if I could get some opinions and mini-reviews about the Nexus One. I'm looking for an Android phone with a 1Ghz processor and 512mb ram (min. specs to run Gingerbread) and the tricky part is, I live in Canada and Rogers basically owns my soul. The Nexus One seems to fit the bill, but I hear a lot of great things and a lot of bad things about it. I'm pretty sure many people have installed Froyo on it but there seems to be quite a few problems. It'd be great to hear about the N1 from people who have been using it for a long time.

Some of the things that concern me about the N1:
- Sub-par Screen (bad in sunlight)
- Finicky touch buttons
- Battery life that seems to spontaneously go down
- Crappy Camera (I'm assuming there is no flash or 720p video)

Also, is there any other phones you would recommend that would work on Rogers that fit my bill?

Thanks in advance for any answers, reviews or tips!

 

[ap3604]

The Nexus One is an absolutely god awful phone. Every day I use it I get reminded how I completely wasted $529 of my precious money. An iPhone would is a much better phone right?

 

[ianr]

It is a very good phone, not perfect of course, nothing is, and you'll hear about people having problems on any discussion board, the iPhone boards are packed with them, people don't go on there to crow about how wonderful the phone is, they tend to go to the boards when they have problems so don't worry too much.

The screen is excellent, it is hard to read in strong sunlight because you mostly see a reflection of your face, but I don't find that a major issue, it's not *that* bad. The touch buttons also aren't an issue really, true they're easier to hit by accident than a solid button but on the other hand I like the feel of them and the smooth phone front. You just don't notice them much and I'd happily get another phone with similar buttons or solid buttons, it wouldn't figure in the equation. Battery life I'm not so sure about, I tend to have my phone on charge a lot during the day, I always have had with all my phones and PDAs before them going back some 7 years or so, so I don't notice any problems if there are any. The camera is good, it's not going to challenge a dedicated camera but for a smartphone it's got a good camera and it has an "infinite" focus mode that I use a lot which makes it very responsive so you can take pictures quickly without the phone messing about getting focus. It focusses everything from about 3 feet away to infinity, sort of like cheap disposable cameras do. Picture quality is fine for what I've used it for, taking pictures at car shows and that kind of thing. All the pictures bar the first two in the following flickr set were taken on the N1 in infinite focus mode;

Brooklands Museum - a set on Flickr

And yes the camera does have a flash, an LED one. Works OK, not as good as a Xenon as you'd expect.

The only caveat I might have is that in October Gingerbread is due out and there will be some nice new phones coming, you could wait, or you could get an N1 now (or the HTC equivalent) on the assumption that the new phones won't be immediately available or there might not be one you want.

One good point with getting an N1 now is that I'd expect it to be the very first phone that gets Gingerbread, probably by a month or two at least, while the manufacturers decide how to tackle it as it won't be skinnable by HTC for example. You also control the phone, so if Gingerbread becomes available you can have it, carrier and manufacturer be damned. If compatible, try and get one that isn't localised so you can just bung any of the updates on it as you see fit.

 

[bitxboi]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if I could get some opinions and mini-reviews about the Nexus One. I'm looking for an Android phone with a 1Ghz processor and 512mb ram (min. specs to run Gingerbread) and the tricky part is, I live in Canada and Rogers basically owns my soul. The Nexus One seems to fit the bill, but I hear a lot of great things and a lot of bad things about it. I'm pretty sure many people have installed Froyo on it but there seems to be quite a few problems. It'd be great to hear about the N1 from people who have been using it for a long time.

Some of the things that concern me about the N1:
- Sub-par Screen (bad in sunlight)
- Finicky touch buttons
- Battery life that seems to spontaneously go down
- Crappy Camera (I'm assuming there is no flash or 720p video)

Also, is there any other phones you would recommend that would work on Rogers that fit my bill?

Thanks in advance for any answers, reviews or tips!

I'm the happy owner of a Nexus One since January, and regarding to your concerns I should say that:

• Only under the brighest sunny days I've struggled to look at the screen without making an extra effort. At full screen brightness you shouldn't have any problems 95% of the times.
• Touch buttons are fine to me. I use the phone with one hand, so the thumb is the finger I use for the touch buttons, so no worries about it. I can't remember the last time (since the first couple of weeks) that I actually missed pushing a touch button. Maybe some people has needle-like fingers that require terrific accuracy, not me ^_^
• Most of the times taht's due to some app not working properly or not fitted for 2.2 OR requiring access to data too often (like refreshing social networks every minute or push mail). I'm satisfied with my +40h of use per battery charge. I'm not a gamer, I must admit
• There is flash, now also included for video recording actually. There's no 720p video on stock ROM at the moment, but I'm sure it will be, as the hardware is prepared to do it.

 

[Rusty]

There are no minimum specs to run Gingerbread, it was made up.

 

[bitxboi]

There are no minimum specs to run Gingerbread, it was made up.

actually, didn't Google say they were 'recommended specs' more than minimum ones?

 

[ecb]

I just purchased the Nexus One about a week ago because I was tired of the bugs that the software layers (i.e. Sense, MotoBlur, TouchWiz) introduced; I wanted a phone with stock Android.

Overall, the Nexus One has specs that are comparable with any phone out there now. The main issues I have with it is that the phone loses it's Wifi connection when it goes to sleep (even though I have the Wifi sleep policy set to never sleep)

The screen does wash out in sun light, but all AMOLED screens do and I've found the Nexus One screen to do better in sunlight than other phones with AMOLED screens (specifically, the Droid Incredible)

The battery seems to be average for Andrioid (ok, but not great) I'm still conditioning the battery and researching battery saving tips. I anticipate being able to get a full day out of moderate use (which is all I expect from any smart phone)

The capacitive touch buttons are not great (you have to hit them in the upper portion of the button to register) In fact, the touch screen as a whole is worse than other phones out there now (Droid Incredible, HTC Evo, iPhone) but I have not found that to be a major factor. The stock keyboard is pretty good. It does not have a true multitouch, but there is some logic that recognizes when you hit 2 keys at the same time and registerers both (ex, if you hit the 'A' key and then hit the 'L' key before releasing the 'A' key, both keystrokes will register)

The Nexus One is an absolutly solid phone. Froyo makes a difference both in speed and stability so it's as responsive as any Android phone now. For me, the capability to turn the phone into a mobile hot spot is huge. Also, given that the next version of Android (Gingerbread) may not be compatible with the software layers on top of stock Android, I think the Nexus One is the only phone that is guaranteed to get Gingerbread. It may not be a big deal to you, but I would not expect that any other phone out there now (other than the Nexus One) will get any Android updates beyond Froyo (Android 2.2)

As far as specs go, your shooting at a moving target. Every few months there seems to be a spec jump in Android phones. So, no matter what phone you get, it will be outdated in a few months.

Bottom line is that if your a fan of stock Android, the Nexus One is your best option. As long as you read through the forums you'll get a very good idea of the issues people are having and you can go into your purchase fully informed.

Good luck with your decision !

 

[RogerPodacter]

I love my nexus one. I wouldn't trade it for any other phone out right now. I think the problems people have are sometimes blown up more than they are.

 

[MartinS]

If you'd asked me a month ago I would have said that I was something like 95% happy with the Nexus One.

However, since Froyo the battery usage is dreadful - I mean a marked decrease in life from what I'm used to. I would perhaps have gone for nearly 2 full days before now I'm lucky to get 1.

The screen burn issue. Whilst not usually noticeable I have screen burn in on the notification bar which is noticeable on white and pale backgrounds when I rotate the phone to landscape. As I say, it doesn't bother me a lot but I know it is there and I know it will only get worse. AMOLED in my opinion (at least in this incarnation) is not good enough for this kind of application. Oh and the screen is very poor in sunlight.

Android market seems to get worse rather than better. Has anyone searched for live wallpapers recently? You have to scroll through what seems like every nation's flag on the globe to get to the good stuff. This seems typical of what I can only describe as App Spamming - see also crap expensive clocks, asian girls, climbing hippy (what's that all about?) etc...

That said, there isn't a device currently available in the UK that I would think of swapping the N1 for.

 

[dvandam]

First off, the clarify about the Gingerbread thing:
Dan Morrill Calls Foul On Whoever Started That Gingerbread Rumor | Android Phone Fans

I've owned the phone for about 2 months, and overall I am quite satisfied with it. That said, there are a few quirks of the phone that rub me the wrong way.

1. The camera and video are decent, but I've found them to be a little wonky. The camera will often try and adjust based on the amount of light in the room, but this can lead to some undesired color work. I can post a link to a film I made to illustrate my point, but basically it seems to favor a red hue very often, to the point where I would be filming and it constantly looked like a slight red tint was covering my lens. That said, while it (and really NO phone) will replace a dedicated camera, for spontaneous moments it will more than fit the bill. One other nice feature is that you can easily mute the "shutter" sound so you won't alert the world trying to get that anonymous shot.

2. The WiFi has a quirky habit of disconnecting from a network randomly after being connected for long periods. I don't know if this is a phone issue or a router one, but from all the complaints I've read about the phone's WiFi, I'm going to assume it's not just isolated to me.

3. Multitouch isn't perfect. You may have a hard time playing games that require multiple presses, such as using a console emulator like Nesoid. The screen can only register so many presses in a given area at a given time, so I wouldn't recommend playing many precision platformers like the Super Mario Bros series.

To address the issues you brought up:

-It's not great in sunlight, but often this can be remedied by just turning up the screen brightness. I don't think I've been in any situations where I simply could not see the screen even with full brightness. I'd strongly recommend you get a light control widget so you can easily and quickly brighten the screen as opposed to trying to dive through Android's menus when you can't see anything.

-This pops up occasionally, but since installing FroYo the number of incidents has dropped significantly. It's not annoying enough to be a deal breaker.

-This will be dependent on how you use your phone. If you're constantly making phone calls during the day and have widgets running and using push email, your battery life won't be great. It'll also help if you condition your battery well, which you can find information on how to do in other parts of this site and the internet. Still, considering it uses a standard micro-usb charger, it's very easy to charge in various places and will also be easy to get new chargers (although I wouldn't recommend the really cheap ones you can get at the Dollar Store or Gas Station.)

-There is a flash (although it's not the best) and the phone is capable of 720p recording, but it requires a hack: [MOD] NeXuS HaZ 720p @20fps and 480p @ 30fps (Update BITRATE CAPS) Source is up - xda-developers

While I do recommend the Nexus One, I would suggest waiting a little while until more phones come out this summer. Samsung has some exciting phones coming out, and it looks like Rogers already has a decent amount of Android phones available. I have AT&T, and their selection of Android phones is SEVERELY lacking, to where you basically HAVE to buy a Nexus One in order to get a good Android phone.

 

[cyberbob25]

One good point with getting an N1 now is that I'd expect it to be the very first phone that gets Gingerbread, probably by a month or two at least, while the manufacturers decide how to tackle it as it won't be skinnable by HTC for example.

Android is open source, and as an open source project, it will ALWAYS be skinnable, and carriers/manufacturers will always have the ability to add their crap and UI's. All that Google can do is to make them not want to create them, which I don't see happening.

 

[ashman70]

I just came from a 3GS, this phone is fantastic. I am on Fido (same as Rogers) so in terms of using the phone on the network there are no issues, its highly customizable depending on how far you want to go, the screen is fine and does no better or worse in direct sunlight IMO, battery life is on par with other smart phones, the camera is more then adequate for me and I don't find the screen finicky at all. Are you looking for a phone that you will mostly be using in direct sunlight that has an excellent camera, touch screen and awesome battery life to boot, sorry to tell you no such animal exists. The Nexus 1 however, is about as close as I think you'll find.

 

[estefana]

Thanks for all the great responses, I'm really getting a feel for the N1 situation. I'm thinking that maybe I'll wait a little longer to see if more phones become available that will run on Rogers. The N1 seems like an excellent choice albeit some quirks, but for me I think it's going to come down to whether or not I want to run stock Android or if I can put up with a third party Sense, Blur, etc. Anyone know of other powerful phones coming to Canada that will run on Rogers? I know the Samsung Galaxy S (vibrant?) is coming to Bell but I don't know if that will work on Rogers.

 

[techdaring]

If you choose the phone and want it run with Android, you can choose Nexus One. There are no big issue with this handset, except the sound is not good. But you can using headset.

 

[E92Vancouver]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if I could get some opinions and mini-reviews about the Nexus One. I'm looking for an Android phone with a 1Ghz processor and 512mb ram (min. specs to run Gingerbread) and the tricky part is, I live in Canada and Rogers basically owns my soul. The Nexus One seems to fit the bill, but I hear a lot of great things and a lot of bad things about it. I'm pretty sure many people have installed Froyo on it but there seems to be quite a few problems. It'd be great to hear about the N1 from people who have been using it for a long time.

Some of the things that concern me about the N1:
- Sub-par Screen (bad in sunlight)
- Finicky touch buttons
- Battery life that seems to spontaneously go down
- Crappy Camera (I'm assuming there is no flash or 720p video)

Also, is there any other phones you would recommend that would work on Rogers that fit my bill?

Thanks in advance for any answers, reviews or tips!

I have a Nexus One and a Blackberry 9700.

Coming from a blackberry, the screen and keyboard on the Nexus sucks. Battery life is terrible. I can burn through 30% of the battery at lunch hour.

The video camera is HD but only 20 fps as opposed to 30 fps on the iphone. There is a flash for the camera.

I got the Nexus One for travelling out of country. It is a lot easier to buy a prepaid data SIM than a prepaid SIM with a Blackberry BIS data plan. The wifi hotspot feature is another reason.

This phone is a toy and not suitable for business.

On Gmail, there is a 5 minute lag for messages to get to my Android. On my Berry, it is instant.

I am keeping my Berry for business and the Droid for playing and travel.

 

[E92Vancouver]

Thanks for all the great responses, I'm really getting a feel for the N1 situation. I'm thinking that maybe I'll wait a little longer to see if more phones become available that will run on Rogers. The N1 seems like an excellent choice albeit some quirks, but for me I think it's going to come down to whether or not I want to run stock Android or if I can put up with a third party Sense, Blur, etc. Anyone know of other powerful phones coming to Canada that will run on Rogers? I know the Samsung Galaxy S (vibrant?) is coming to Bell but I don't know if that will work on Rogers.

Get an unlocked Nexus One from Google direct. That is what I did.

 

[bitxboi]

On Gmail, there is a 5 minute lag for messages to get to my Android. On my Berry, it is instant..

it is instant on the Nexus One too. Actually, sometimes it arrives earlier to the phone that to the gmail inbox in by web browser.

 

[Teknologic]

it is instant on the Nexus One too. Actually, sometimes it arrives earlier to the phone that to the gmail inbox in by web browser.

Same here.. Don't know why it doesn't with vanc.

 

[E92Vancouver]

Same here.. Don't know why it doesn't with vanc.

My corporate email is hosted by Google. Emails show up on my PC about 5 minutes ahead of the phone.

I just ran two tests now and the lag was about 20 seconds which is more than acceptable. It was slow late last night. Maybe maintenance on the servers?

 

[Kurisu]

I must say I'm pretty impressed with the N1's camera Then again, I'm coming from an E71

Brooklands Museum - a set on Flickr

Nice picture's mate, I would love to visit Brooklands' famous banked track one day myself Is that a silver AC Frua that they're driving around the cones? What exactly were they doing, allowing folks to have a leisure drive around in the AC?

 

[ChiTownJim]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if I could get some opinions and mini-reviews about the Nexus One. I'm looking for an Android phone with a 1Ghz processor and 512mb ram (min. specs to run Gingerbread) and the tricky part is, I live in Canada and Rogers basically owns my soul. The Nexus One seems to fit the bill, but I hear a lot of great things and a lot of bad things about it. I'm pretty sure many people have installed Froyo on it but there seems to be quite a few problems. It'd be great to hear about the N1 from people who have been using it for a long time.

Some of the things that concern me about the N1:
- Sub-par Screen (bad in sunlight)
- Finicky touch buttons
- Battery life that seems to spontaneously go down
- Crappy Camera (I'm assuming there is no flash or 720p video)

Also, is there any other phones you would recommend that would work on Rogers that fit my bill?

Thanks in advance for any answers, reviews or tips!

I dont own a Nexus but have used a few and own an Incredible . Somewhat similar

The Screen is definetly anything but Sub-par, it's a gorgeous screen not the best in Direct Sunlight but most Touchscreens aren't

-I haven't noticed any of the touch buttons being finky in my expierence

-Batterylife from what my friends have told me is pretty good, easily makes it through a day of solid use

-The camera quality is fantastic, infact I'd say just as good as the Incredible. The Flash works great in low light situations.

You won't be upset with this phone, plus it has direct google support so you get updates pushed immedietly.

 

[bgoody]

The Nexus is a great phone. especially compared to a Blackberry. The screen is nice, there are only two buttons to get sticky or full of dust and the camera takes very adequate snaps. But the most important thing, ESPECIALLY here in Canada and ESPECIALLY with Rogers is that it is unlocked and is a Google experience phone.

What that means is very important in the Android world as updates to Android come out frequently- the Nexus gets them first and are NOT carrier dependent or manufacturer dependent. If you get a phone with the Sense UI (HTC) you could end up in a situation like I have with my other Android phone- the Magic. It is still on 1.5!!! Rogers after about two months of hassling by many people promised to update it with 2.1 but they had to wait for HTC to write the Sense update, now they are modifying it again to put their crappy Rogers stuff on it. Even France has updated their Magics about 9 months ago.

If you don't get a unlocked Nexus , you end up very fast with an outdated phone.

 

[gomisensei]

I bought a Nexus one direct from google as soon as they became available for rogers/at&t. I bought it with a bedside dock, and an extra battery for $609 CDN or something like that. It showed up after 3 days, via DHL (soooooo much better than UPS or fedex, only $18 brokerage, as opposed to the $125 UPS charged me for duty and brokerage when i got a $500 package). I used to have a (jailbroken) iPhone 3gs on the Fido network (and now my kid uses it for youtube and games).

I gotta say, the Nexus one was amazingly fast, outta the box with android 2.1, especially compared to the iPhone, I conditioned BOTH my batteries over the next week, then i rooted and updated to Froyo (frf83 build) and was even more impressed with the speed. The soft buttons took some getting used to, but now they're like second nature. The touchscreen is as good as the iPhone, plus i like the colorful trackball. Took me a while to get used to the power/wakeup button being on the opposite side as the iphone, and not being able to wake it up by pressing the trackball, but i fixed the latter by running the Cyanogen Mod (which also has lots of other neat features, I'm running the froyo alpha version of CM6). The noise cancelling external mic makes talking on the handset like a dream of clarity once you find the right ear positioning, google voice searching and commands work very well, especially with the headset (included, but not perfect, better than the iPhone ones). I still have some trouble with the bluetooth connecting, which is probably the only real complaint I have about it so far. Keep in mind I AM a power user, so I go though all the settings and fine tune everything to the way I like before I use anything.

As for comparison with Blackberry and iPhone, the Nexus One is marketed more towards the Intelligent net savvy type. As opposed to the iPhone; marketed to people who don't wanna have to think about, and are happy using it exactly how apple tells them they should. The blackberry is more for the business type, who get a work phone from their company, but usually have their own phone as well for personal stuff.

AS an analogy: the Nexus One is like a sports car, whereas an iphone would be a minivan (albeit a shiny one), and the Blackberry a K-Car, or some other dull featureless but useful fleet vehicle.

and e92Vancouver, how fast your phone get's email has has almost NOTHING to do with the phone, but it's the settings as to how often it checks the server.

 

[E92Vancouver]

and e92Vancouver, how fast your phone get's email has has almost NOTHING to do with the phone, but it's the settings as to how often it checks the server.

Gomei, my email is Gmail and on the Nexus One, it is setup with an IMA Protocol. So yes, it should be push. On Android, you don't have a 'fetch' option where you set the polling interval. Email is suppose to be instant if you are using Gmail or Google Apps.

AS an analogy: the Nexus One is like a sports car, whereas an iphone would be a minivan (albeit a shiny one), and the Blackberry a K-Car, or some other dull featureless but useful fleet vehicle.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but since you have probably never owned a Blackberry, I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with its features.

More like an iphone is for teenage girls and boys who like apps (not appetizers by the way). The Nexus is for more of the Geeky types who like the open source aspect of the OS and want to play with their root. Blackberry is the ultimate business tool, whether you are dealing on Wall Street or doing monkey business.

I just came from a 3GS, this phone is fantastic. I am on Fido (same as Rogers) so in terms of using the phone on the network there are no issues, its highly customizable depending on how far you want to go, the screen is fine and does no better or worse in direct sunlight IMO, battery life is on par with other smart phones, the camera is more then adequate for me and I don't find the screen finicky at all. Are you looking for a phone that you will mostly be using in direct sunlight that has an excellent camera, touch screen and awesome battery life to boot, sorry to tell you no such animal exists. The Nexus 1 however, is about as close as I think you'll find.

Don't you like th 3GS better? What about the iphone 4? Pretty sweet.

 

[ianr]

Nice picture's mate, I would love to visit Brooklands' famous banked track one day myself Is that a silver AC Frua that they're driving around the cones? What exactly were they doing, allowing folks to have a leisure drive around in the AC?

Cheers, not sure on what car it was, I'm not too interested in that type of car, prefer the open-wheel racers myself!

As for what was going on, it was the VSCC Double Twelve driving tests, probably fun to take part in but very boring to watch, no racing, just people doing manoeuvring tests against time. There were a few of them dotted around the Brooklands museum that day.