Android – Part #1

I love my Apple iPhone 3GS and I can’t really imagine life without it – it takes pictures, video, has great games, FaceBook and TweetDeck rock and when you need to kill time it’s awesome. However, my business phone is just not something iPhone is meant for. So after over a year of searching around I’ve decided to try and replace my business cell phone with the Google Nexus One.

Reasoning

Microsoft will be releasing Windows Mobile later this year. It’s about 90% likely to suck as Microsoft always does when they chase. I’ve never been a fan of Palm and it looks like they are about to die. Blackberry I have religious issues with.

So that left Android. I chose Google’s Nexus One because it got great reviews and unlike literally all the other handsets, it’s not controlled by the carrier so I don’t have to be at the mercy of a carrier when it comes to upgrades.

First Impressions

It’s an HTC. If you’ve ever purchased nearly any Windows Mobile phone you know what I mean – cheap Chinese piece of junk. Feels and looks cheap. Accessories look 3rd world all the way.

The OS is clunkier than the iPhone, not quite as intuitive and the keyboard is not even close to the iPhone one. Nexus One also has four shortcut keys underneath the screen so when you’re typing an email you can hit the buttons rather easily. The app selection is pretty diverse and looks better than the App Store. The Exchange AS works, but there is no way to provide a signature for sent mail – very, very strange but apparently being worked on. The phone itself is very responsive but also very hot. Multitasking implementation is awesome – killing applications isn’t, you need to launch another app (task killer). Voice Search is not very accurate. Battery life is about the same. The camera is amazing. Tethering is supported and the AT&T 3G is moving quite fast. Customizing ringers, etc is a bit touch and go.

In a nutshell, it’s decent. It’s no iPhone, not even close. If I had to choose only one, I would definitely get the iPhone. But for pure business… That I’m not so sure on.

So far, no show stoppers. I’ll post an in depth review after using it for more than 1 day 🙂