@ Dr Drane:
Americans have to deal with too many TLAs (three-letter acronyms).
GSM
This is, of course, a global standard. However, in the US it means going with AT&T or T-Mobile. Both use different 3G spectrum from European carriers. AT&T uses 850 MHz (like Japan and Australia in some senses) while T-Mobile uses the 1700 MHz AWS spectrum.
AT&T has much better coverage than T-Mobile, and their 3G rollout has progressed much more than T-Mobile's. That said, their device lineup is much less Android-centric at the moment.
Both carriers SIM-lock their devices, subsidize the phones via contract, have a 30-day grace period. For basic devices, unlimited data is 20 USD/mo, but for advanced devices it goes up to 40 USD/mo. Laptop cards are 60/mo. I have sneakily switched my contracts down to the lower tiers since I do not use subsidized phones anymore. I use AT&T for both; one SIM card is currently in an HTC Touch Pro (AT&T Fuze) and the other migrates between an iPhone and a laptop and a netbook.
CDMA
CDMA is the world's other cell-phone scheme. China used to have some CDMA networks, Canada and Mexico have them, and I know Ghana has at least one from personal experience. In the US, CDMA networks do not use SIM cards: there is no such thing as an unlocked phone, and switching carriers is not possible.
The advantages of this for the carriers are clear: no "churn" or customer turnover. Verizon and Sprint are the two CDMA networks in the US. Verizon has much better coverage than AT&T, (although AT&T's problems are partly due to the iPhone antenna design and urban population centers) and CDMA technologies have slightly longer range than GSM technologies. (This is generally not an issue in densely-populated Europe....)
USA
I don't appreciate being called a silly American, but I'll get over it. We have subsidized phones, because nice phones are expensive and thus unaffordable, because we like to buy things we can't afford, and because the telcos and manufacturers have a stranglehold on the consumer.
The iPhone was the first phone to be released where the manufacturer was able to take charge, much to the chagrin of AT&T. The Nexus One is basically the second example of a scenario in which the manufacturer/Google are taking control. The Nexus One is unsubsidized on certain US carriers.
Belgium's policy, (I spent a summer working at the European Parliament in BXL and used Proximus' data services extensively) makes some sense. The end user is not locked in to expensive monthly plans. With the prohibition of subsidization (for non-cheapo phones) end-users know what they are getting themselves into. I believe this is true in Finland as well, but it is generally not true in the UK or France.
The best part about European networks is the ease of switching networks since everyone is on the same GSM standard. (You all and all of the US networks will be switching to LTE, so this difference will disappear.) The worst part are the roaming fees, especially for data, between countries. I know that EU legislation is changing this. Still, GSM carriers have no incentive to merge and achieve economies of scale because they can charge so much for roaming. Even Vodafone customers in one country pay roaming fees on Vodafone in another (albeit reduced).
In the US, all networks are national, and thus there are no roaming fees across an area 2/3 (?) the size of Europe. (I'm not counting Alaska and Hawaii, though maybe I should.)
Lastly, I'll just point out that European governments are generally more interventionist. In the US, the FCC has mandated "number portability," but given the fact that we have 4 competing national networks (and other smaller regional ones), there is little incentive for the FCC or the FTC to intervene.
Europe's GSM networks are older, and roaming and formerly state-owned telcos make the whole thing more complicated. Interventionism is more popular, and arguably necessary.
Droid
This is a 3G CDMA phone based now on Android 2.1. The software stack was fully Google-designed, and this phone came out before the Nexus One. The CDMA variant had voice quality issues, in part due to the voice codec selected. A better codec is available in the phone's options, but not every cell tower/data center on the network supports it. The Droid is an excellent phone, nonetheless.
Nexus One
The Nexus One has a slightly smaller screen (800 pixels high instead of 848) than the Droid/Milestone, does not have a physical slide-out keyboard, came with Android 2.1 pre-installed, may have a slightly faster processor, has 512 MB RAM, and uses an OLED RGBG screen.
It has 3G reception issues that the Milestone does not have, they both have GPS, WIFI, compass, 10 MBps 3G radios, SD slots, etc. The Nexus One is more likely to have the latest and greatest Google software, although the Droid should come in close second. The Milestone/Droid only has 256 MB RAM. The Milestone/Droid has better battery life as far as I can tell. Hackers will likely bring all Droid/Nexus One software to the Milestone very quickly.
The OLED RGBG screen on the N1 is hard to read outdoors, and certain images look strange on this display, including text. This is in part due to the fact that there are two Gs for every R or B (red, green, blue pixels). Both devices uses Synaptics technology and capacitive touchscreens. The Motorolas have better battery life as far as I can tell.
Milestone
I bought a new, unlocked Milestone from Canada, where it is sold on Telus (this Canadian carrier has the same 3G frequencies as AT&T in the US; note that all US 3G phones work quite well in Europe). There are no high-end Android (I don't count the Backflip) slide-out keyboard devices on AT&T yet, and the Milestone is too juicy to pass up. I paid 560 USD and my purchase includes accessories.
Unfortunately I will still have to root the Milestone, and may have difficulty using the Google Android store as a result. That said, it has been proven that many of the shoddy default apps can be removed, and Motorola navigation can be replaced with Google Maps Navigation and nearly all of the other apps found on the Nexus One.
I will save money on my data plan by switching from my subsidized high-end phone to pretending that I will be using a feature phone, but slipping the SIM card into my Milestone.
My only fear is that I will miss the extra 256 MB RAM on the Nexus One, and that call quality might be a bit of an issue. The Motorolas and the Nexus one share a noise-cancelling, 2-microphone system. While the GSM Milestone will not have the codec problem of its CDMA Droid sibling, it will have the 2-microphone issue. It seems that sometimes the casing gets a bit loose on both the Motorolas, and as a result the noise-cancelling algorithm also cancels your voice.
MY TWO CENTS!
Still I wonder how come...can't all be just because of the hardware keyboard I guess.
I just had to google this to believe it...dindn't know about this until now...though I guess less pixels + faster cpu = more snappyness. And the droid has a lower res. camera I think, not that that matters a whole lot....
