Google Nexus Oneis the second edition of Android cell phone from Google. The phone manufacture, HTC still embraces Google in the process of making this phone.
Design
Google Nexus One has a similar body design with iPhone, with a wide screen that dominates the most area on the front side of device. The difference with the iPhone is the body of Google Nexus One, which is a lot thinner, although the weight is still heavy.
The touch screen becomes the main part to operate the menu or screen. The trackball button and 4 touchpad buttons have also been provided below the screen (Back, Option, Home and Search). With the exception of glossy plastic material screen, the whole area of Google Nexus One’s body is wrapped up in stiff plastic material.
- Type: Google Nexus One
- Release Date: 2010, January
- Price Purchased: Check Price
- Manufacturer: HTC and Google
Readers' Score
NextPhones4u Score
Phone Specs: AMOLED screen, 800 x 480 pixels, 3.7-inch super LCD touch, Wi-Fi, Android OS 2.1, 5 MP camera, Accelerometer sensor of auto-rotate, See Full specs.
- Pros
- It has faster processor, Qualcom SnapDragon 1 GHz | 5 MP camera | Wide touch screen | The supports of HSDPA and WiFi | Many awesome Google features
- Cons
- The features for the camera is too standard | No support of Office Viewer Editor | No Video Player and radio | The auto-rotate doesn’t work in Homescreen and main menu | Manual internet setting
- Bottomline
- Bottom line, bringing high quality hardware and specifications, Google Nexus One is among the best Android devices to date.
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| Google Nexus One |
Interface and Functionality
The touch screen has a really wide size that looks really sharp. That’s because the screen has adopted an AMOLED technology screen. The screen itself is capacitive, which is really responsive and sensitive by the finger touch, without a stylus.
The screen has also been supported with attractive user interface that is brought by the Android OS 2.1. For example, there is a HomeScreen (beginning screen display), which can be added with new shortcuts, widgets, or folders. In order to change between HomeScreen, you only need to just swap the screen to the left or right.
The screen has already been injected with Accelerometer sensor of auto-rotate. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on the HomeScreen or Main menu screen. The menu interface of this phone is an attractive animated display. The touch screen of this device is pretty clever, it can recognize the finger touch whether to explore the menu or activate the menu, so mistyping on the screen rarely happens in daily uses. The capability of multitasking is of course provided on this phone as well.
For data input method, the virtual keypad is provided, or if the cell phone is positioned horizontally, the virtual QWERTY buttons will be automatically displayed on the screen. The great thing of the screen of this phone is when typing the touch screen, it only needs to be touched gently.
Slide to Unlock or Turn Sound Off/On
When the screen is in the stand-by mode, there are 2 virtual slide buttons will appear on the screen, Lock/Unlock and Sound On/Off. To use them, you just need to slide on those buttons. When there is a phone call, you can also receive it by sliding the slide buttons to the other side.
Multimedia and Entertainment
One of the entertainment features that has been provided on this phone is a 5 MP camera, which has been equipped with standard facilities (Flash, White Balance, Color Effect, Quality and Auto Focus). The picture result looks sharp, and can be uploaded directly to your Facebook or Picasa.
The location where the picture’s taken can also be identified via the feature called Show on Map. Another entertainment feature is a Music Player that is supported with the speaker on the back side of device that can produce such a loud and clear sound. Not to mention the Video Player has also been injected on this smart phone.
Connectivity
The convenient of browsing internet becomes one of the most prominent features on this Android phone, especially on the built-in browser. The browser also supports the multitasking, that allows you to open many web pages or windows at the same time.
The feature called Fit to Screen is also great thing you can get from Google Nexus One, so every side of the web pages can be displayed in one screen. The interesting part from this feature is that when doing Zoom in or Zoom out, it can be done with multitouch mode, which is by doing fast tap, 2 times, on the site screen, or can also be done with pinching mode. The browser itself has also been supported with Auto-rotate sensor.
The display of web page contains Flash animated file, which can also be opened. Moreover, the process of opening the sites (loading) can be considered fast.
Google Pre-installed Applications
It’s really obvious that the actual Google’s features are provided on Google Nexus One, such as: Google Maps, Google Market, Google Voice, Google Search, Google Mail, Google Talk and Google Calendar. There is also one feature called Goggles which allows users to look for information around the internet by only using picture that is taken by the camera of this phone.
Uniquely, there are some features from Google that are integrated one to another, so you will only need to sign in to your Google account one time in order to use some of other Google features. And when you’re already signed in to your account, then many of those Google services will be automatically synchronized with Google server.
Car Home
This is a feature that will make it easier for users when driving on the road. To use it, you need to firstly plug in this phone to the Dock device. Some menus are provided in this feature, such as: Voice Search, Navigation, View Maps, Contract and Search. All of these menus are utilized with voice commands.
Google Goggles
With this feature, you can search for information on internet via Google Search based on the picture that is taken by the viewfinder camera.
Live Wallpaper
Google Nexus One offers Live Wallpaper, where pictures or wallpapers on this phone feel alive like. For an instance, there is a wallpaper of water that can be used on this phone, which can move just like real water when being touched with our fingers. There is also a wallpaper of grass with a sky background on the back, which will automatically turn to dark at night and turn back to bright in the morning.
Push Email
Google Nexus One also provides Google Push Email service. The setting of this feature is also easy thing to do, you just only need to enter your username and password, while Google will automatically manage it to you. And if you have the other email accounts that you want to set on this phone, they can be set as Push Email mode for certain times.
Performance
The performance of this phone can be considered fast. That’s because this phone has been powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that has a 1 GHz speed. Qualcomm Snapdragon is actually the fastest processor to date. It’s even faster compared to the other processors on some smart phones around the market, such as: Nokia Maemo, iPhone 3GS and Blackberry Onyx that has a speed processor of 600 MHz, or Motorola Milestone that has a speed processor of 550 MHz.
The support of RAM 512 MB is also equipped on this phone. And for the battery, when in the condition of full charging, this phone can last around 2 days, with hardcore usage of internet and other entertainment features.
Android market
This is an online application store developed by Google that contains more than ten thousand Android-based applications and games for FREE or PAID.
Google Maps
GPS on this phone is supported with digital maps from Google Maps. Unfortunately, for the navigation facility called “turn by turn” is still not really satisfying and doesn’t support Indonesia Maps yet. However, there is a feature called Directions that has a function to give advice for the best route to one exact location with more accurate and detailed information.
Conclusion
Google Nexus One will be the tough contender for other smart phones at the same price range, such as: iPhone, Blackberry Storm, Nokia N900, Motorola Milestone and Sony Xperia X2. That’s because Google Nexus One has already been supported with the fastest processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon) compared to other smart phones around the market. And moreover, the features on this phone are not that different with the other competitors.
