One week with the Nexus One

I bit the bullet and ordered the Nexus One and decided to use it exclusively for a week and see how I liked it. My thought process was that in a worst case scenario, I would hate it and would have to return/sell it, with the best case being that I would love it and begin to use it as my everyday phone.  In the end I certainly did not end up hating the device, but did choose to sell it and stick with the trusty 3GS.

Usage Background

Couple of notes on usage.  First of all, I have an iPhone 3GS already therefore I used my sim card from that phone during the week of usage.  The card worked like a charm with the only disappointment being that 3G was not supported.  Calls, EDGE data and wifi connections all worked great.

I primarily used the device while traveling in Philadelphia for a business trip, therefore relied heavy on mobile internet, maps/GPS and phone calls.  

Pros

• Widgets - being a first time Android user I loved the widget concept.  Have interactivity on panels is a great feature.
• Screen - The OLED screen was beautiful.
• Camera - The 5 MP camera with LED flash was a nice touch.
• Nav - Built-in turn-by-turn navigation was easy to use and one of the better GPS units I have operated.
• Build quality - Had a very sturdy feeling in your hand.
• Multi-tasking - Being able to run multiple apps was great; however eventually you will notice a slow down and app crashes with too much running at once.
• Gallery browser - I was surprised at how I loved the gallery browser application.  It displayed photos in a refreshing way and not simply a re-hash of iPhone apps.
• Soft buttons - The 4 soft buttons along the bottom were useful to always have present.  Haptic feedback was also nice.
• Google integration - A very deep integration with all Google apps, including Voice, Gmail and Picasa.
• Voice entry - I didn't think I was going to like it, but being able to use a fairly accurate voice entry proved to be very useful.

Cons

• Android - with all the great things Android has, it was surprising unstable and laggy.
• Smoothness - Nearly all motion seemed slightly jerky compared to the iPhone.
• Keyboard - I found the virtual keyboard to be very inaccurate, especially buttons towards the edges.
• Scrollball positioning - the scroll ball on the bottom is nice to have, but it seems positioned to low and too close to the bottom edge.  Felt awkward in the hand.
• Apps - There are certainly a lot of apps available, but the apps I use everyday were not available (i.e. Dropbox) and the ones that were available seemed much less functional and clean as their iPhone counterpards (i.e. Facebook and Evernote).
• Exchange - The phone supports exchange for email and contacts, but does not include calendar integration.
• Music player - it sucks.  There is just no other way to say it.
• iTunes support - I use music on my phone everyday and the fact that there is no iTunes support is a killer to me.  Using DoubleTwist and other alternatives are ok, but are very lacking.
• Memory - For over $500 you think they could have put in more than 4 GB.
• No visual voicemail - the lack of integrated visual voicemail was annoying.  Obviously you can use Google Voice, but that would require a phone number change.

Final Conclusion

At the end of the day my decision to sell the device and stick to the 3GS was due to three factors:

1. Exchange support - Not having calendar sync seems to very surprisingly overlooked.  Most people who use Exchange use it in a work environment, therefore calendaring support is essential.
2. Music playback and iTunes integration - One of the main reasons I switched to an iPhone in the first place was I was tired of carrying a phone and an iPod around, consolidating into one device was amazing. After a week of using the Nexus One I had the feeling that I would be moving back to two devices as the music player was so poor and the iTunes integration was non-exisistant.  
3. Apps - As mentioned above the app options were too limited and the apps available seemed to lack polish.

Comments

[nexus one spare battery]

Like other Android phones, the Nexus One forces you to store apps on the internal memory. The media player remains average, and it's missing some wanted features like hands-free Bluetooth dialing. Currently, Outlook Calendar syncing is not available. I hope the future updates will help it to improve current features.