Nexus one Review, now in English

[Guest Nesousx]

Hi all,

I bought a HTC Nexus a few days ago, and after playing with a little I decided to write a small review, comparing its features with my good old HTC Hero. I wrote the article on my blog. However, it is in French... for French "speakers", or the Google Translated Version can be found here.

In the meantime, if new buyers have specific questions on the device, just ask them here, I'll try to answer them. :)

Edited January 27, 2010 by Nesousx

[Guest Nesousx]

I finally did my own translation of the Nexus One Review. Should be a little better than the Google version.

orm-factor:

Nexus One is pretty slim, and quite heavy, but in a bad way. It feels strong! Plastic parts are good, they don’t move an inch.

You can hold and use the phone with only one hand: typing text with your thumb for example.

Volume button (on the left side) is far less sensible than the one from HTC Hero. You won’t press it by mistake!

Hero’s physical buttons: “Back / Menu / Home / Find” have been replaced by touch buttons. I was afraid about this “all-touch” thingy, but actually it is really neat, and works well.

The “Phone” button is gone, although it is not a problem at all, will explain it later.

However the “Power” button (located on the top side) is really hard to reach when holding the phone in one hand. And every time, you want to turn on screen (e.g. exit “sleep” mode), you have to press this button.

About the connectors, note that the Google Nexus One uses micro USB (and not mini USB as do the Hero, or the PS3 controllers).

Another drawback, the micro SD slot is located under the battery, which means you have to remove the battery in order to access the micro SD card.

To conclude the physical description of the phone, I want to add that the AMOLED screen is beautiful! It is full of colours, and very bright, impressive. Watching video is awesome!

The “non-Sense” Droid.

Once again, I was afraid I will be disappointed with a phone without HTC Sence. Now that I tried both I can tell you I prefer the non-Sense version a lot more.

Once you set up both your Google and Facebook accounts, contacts are automatically merged. Hence, in Contacts, you will see profile pictures from Facebook, and even birthdays. In my opinion this was the best Sense feature (e.g. the ability to link Facebook contacts to Google one, hence providing extra “funny” informations). If some contacts are not automatically merged with Facebook, you can do it manually as follow. Go to Contacts, then press: “Menu > Edit > Menu > Link” and voilà! If it doesn’t work, rename your Google contact, using the same name he as in Facebook, then link it (and then, rename it back if you want).

HTC Peep is gone, you can use Seesmic (free), which I find even better.

Biggest drawback compared to the Sense / Hero phone. Widgets are ugly(weather, time, etc.)! Well, not that ugly… but they are soooo basic, and so “not so nice”. You can still use Beautiful Widgets (paid) in order to get better looking widgets. They don’t beat the Sense one, but they do literally beat the ones from the Nexus One “stock” version.

Android 2.1, nexus flavoured:

What to say? It is really fast, and reactive, a real pleasure to use. Navigating in the phone menus, and on Internet is really smooth.

Live Wallpapers are totally useless but so beautiful. I couldn’t live anymore without those.

It definitely lacks a voice recording app such as AirVoice.

Misc:

Wifi works like a charm! On my Hero I had several troubles with Wifi and the French Freebox (disconnected, connected but no data, etc.). Everything is fixed, and it works fast!

Proximity sensor is THE feature. You no longer need that nifty “Phone” button from the Hero. The Phone rings, a big button appears to take the call. Put the phone next to your ear and the screen is deactivated (which means no battery drain, and no error “key/screen-press” on the screen with you face/ear/whatever touch it). You have to enter numbers on the Keypad (damn voice machines), just pull the phone out of you ear and the screens turns on allowing you to access keypad and/or hang up. Killer feature!

I didn’t bench battery life, but on the paper it is a bit stronger (1400mAh) than the Hero (1350mAh) one.

I didn’t test the sound, too subjective.

However, I found small bug. One installing all my favourite apps at the beginning, I noticed that while typing text in the market if a market notifications appears (such as “Download complete and/or Installation complete”), you will lose the focus from text area. This is boring…

Edited January 27, 2010 by Nesousx