nexus one

The Nexus One is the next big thing to hit the mobile phone market. It has been lunched to compete directly with the Apple iPhone. It can be purchased directly from Google online store.

This is the best Android powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways. In this rapidly evolving market there is sure to be something better just around the corner. But if you are looking to buy a high end smartphone right now, this is the phone for you. The Nexus One is the Android signature device.

Notable Features

The Nexus One, which runs the new Android 2.1, has a number of notable software features that make the phone a pleasure to use.

First, Google Voice is deeply integrated with the phone, as it is with all Android phones. That means you can assign your Google Voice number to the phone, and use it to make all outbound calls and text messages. This is the single biggest selling point for Android phones.

Google’s Voice Keyboard is amazing. It goes way beyond the Voice Search application. Every text field in the device is now voice enabled. In most apps you can choose the microphone button and talk into the phone, which then converts your speech to text. I’ve found it to be around 90% accurate with no background noise (dropping to around 70% accuracy in a moving car). It’s easy to then go in and edit out errors. It’s a massive time-saving feature of the phone.

The Live Wallpaper feature is pure eye candy, and fun. You can choose a variety of wallpaper settings like Grass (blades of grass wave gently in front of a day or night sky), Magic Smoke (my favorite, draws smoke, clouds, water and plasmas in eye popping colors), Water (touch it and it ripples), and a Polar Clock (presents the date and time as clockwise arcs).

The new clock application, which runs automatically in the charger doc, shows the time, local weather and has easy access buttons to the alarm, pictures and music. Keep a charger next to your bed and toss out that alarm clock.

Google will also offer a Settings Backup service that backs up profile, application, ringtone and other settings to the cloud. Setting up a new Android phone after using the backup service is a breeze. Even without it I was able to set up the phone in about ten minutes with my Google contact, calendar, email and important applications.

Finally, Google has added a lot of nice graphical touches, including 3D scrolling of apps, and a new way of viewing photos using the CoolIris technology. Photos dip into the plane as it there is depth. Tipping the phone trips the accelerometer and the photos dip in the same way.

Specifications

Manufacturer HTC (Designed and branded by Google)
Type Candybar smartphone
Release date January 5, 2010
Introductory price $529 unlocked

$179 with 2 year contract

Operating system Android 2.1 (Eclair)
Power 3.7 V 1400 mAh

Rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery

Audio – 20 hours
Video – 7 hours
Talk time – 10 hours (2G) or 7 hours (3G)

CPU 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250 Snapdragon
Storage capacity Flash memory: 512 MB microSD (Class 2) slot: 4 GB included, expandable up to 32 GB
Memory 512 MB DRAM
Display 480 x 800 px, 3.7 in (94 mm), 3:5 aspect ratio, WVGA, AMOLED with 100,000:1 contrast ratio and 1 ms response rate
Input Capacitive touchscreen display, trackball, headset controls, proximity and ambient light sensors, 3-axis accelerometer, digital compass
Camera 5.0 megapixel with video (720 x 480 px at 20 fps or higher), geotagging, LED flash and auto focus
Connectivity Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Micro-USB, A-GPS
Quad band GSM 850 900 1800 1900 MHz GPRS/EDGE and Tri band UMTS 900 1700 2100 MHz HSDPA/HSUPA
Online services Android Market
Dimensions 119 mm (4.7 in) (h)
59.8 mm (2.35 in) (w)
11.5 mm (0.45 in) (d)
Weight 130 g (4.6 oz) with battery, 100 g (3.5 oz) without battery