Google has made plenty of noise with their first all touch-screen smartphone and we’ve put it through the regulars of everyday use. I'm Brian Tong from CNET.com and we’ve got the Product Spotlight fixed and focused on Google’s HTC Nexus One
The Nexus One has been out for a while, with new software updates and improvements since we first saw it so we’re here to showcase its excellent features and some of its flaws. It has a sleek design and its 3.7 inch touchscreen AMOLED display is —. Its silver and metallic accents make this a classy looking phone. There’s a row of four touch buttons with haptic feedback and a scroll ball to navigate that some might prefer over the touch screen.
At the moment, its one of the fastest handhelds on the market featuring a 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor, multitouch across several applications and all the customization you could imagine for apps, widgets and bookmarks on your home screen.This phone is currently available to purchase online, as an unlocked phone or with a T-Mobile contract and it will be coming to Verizon this Spring.
It’s loaded with the hardware you’d expect like 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. Some of its killer features, include its Google Maps with Turn-by-turn directions that’s more than capable to replace your standalone GPS device. It’s integrated voice search and commands are really unmatched by any other phone we’ve seen so far.
If you live in the Google world the integration with your mail, calendars and contacts is seamless. It’s also is a multitasking machine and its notifications pull down is one swipe away. Throw in an SD card for expanded storage space and a removable battery. This thing is feature packed. Multimedia-wise it’s loaded with a 5 megapixel camera with flash, that shoots stills and movies. And a welcome 3-point-5 millimeter headphone jack.
It’s web browser is an excellent one, featuring multitouch, bookmarks with icon previews and support for multiple windows. Flash support is on its way but its not here yet. There’s e-mail support for Gmail, POP and IMAP accounts, and landscape keyboard throughout all functions. Throw in the Amazon MP3 store and the Android Marketplace for Apps and this guy is ready to fill up with content.
The Nexus One does so many great things but there are also some shortcomings and flaws. We mentioned the row of haptic feedback buttons, but they are not always entirely accurate, and that’s annoying when you have to press a couple times or more to register a response. Plus the scroll ball is a little curious when you can just directly touch the screen where you want to go.
It’s running the Android 2-point1 operating system, but its biggest drawback is that you can only store apps on the phone’s 512 Megabytes of internal memory. The Micro SD card slot comes with 4Gigs and can hold up to 32 Gigs for media, but for apps, you’re limited to JUST 512 Megs. That’s something that really needs to be fixed. Even though it has a capable media player for music, its nothing special, it looks a little archaic and it really needs to get with the times with its interface and features.
Another big letdown is that there’s no hands-free Bluetooth dialing and you’d think that a phone with this many voice commands would include something like this, but it doesn’t.
Although Google calendar syncing works, there’s no support for Outlook Calendar and notes, it’s said to be coming soon, but at the moment, you’re left with nothing if you’re a more business geared user. Every phone has some warts, but at the end of the day this is a fantastic phone that has really pushed what smartphones can do going forward. On the performance side, Call quality on this phone is excellent, and its noise cancellation technology makes a difference.
In our tests we were able to squeeze out over 5 hours of talk time using 3G and close to 20 hours of audio playback. I’m Brian Tong for CNET-com and it may be missing some features but, Google’s Nexus One snappy processor, solid call quality and voice control features make this a phone that is one of the top in its class.
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