I have been using iPhone 3G for some time and then went for iPhone 3G S which was a wise decision. iPhone 3G S has a better hardware, camera with video recording and I was really happy using iPhone 3G S except some negligible issues like multi-tasking, etc. I always get interested in new products in the market and when Nexus One was launched I read a few reviews which were positive. Just thought of giving it a try and I am I am very much interested in writing some applications for Android Powered Phone.
I have been using Nexus One for a week now, got used to most of the features. Android 2.1 is the operating system which is an open source OS from Google. In this post I am trying to explain my experience with new Nexus one and compare it with my iPhone experience. Even though using a Gadget for one week may not be sufficient to address all the pros and cons of this Phone, I am just trying to explain some of the features that I have come across.
Look and Feel
You should not have any complaint on iPhone. Initially I had a bit of feeling that its bulky when I switched over from my HTC TyTN, but I got used to this very soon and was very much comfortable using iPhone. The screen is excellent and I really loved it. My only problem was I was one among the 50 million iPhone users which looked almost the same. I always had been using things which was not used by most of the people, anyway thats my personal thoughts, nothing to do with the looks of iPhone.
Nexus One – Its sleeker and light than iPhone, looks great and handy. The touch feature is great, almost like the iPhone and now it has the multi-touch feature. So I do not miss anything that I was having in iPhone.
Home Screen
Home Screen of iPhone is good, but it missed things like adding shortcuts to Widgets. Android Phones are more powerful and the SDK is more flexible when compared to iPhone. iPhone developers has lots of restrictions in connecting with other applications, multi-tasking, etc. Here on Nexus One, you can create different shortcuts to contacts, direct dials, widgets, applications, almost everything that you would want to.
Application Store
iPhone App store has more than 125K applications to add on new features to your iPhone. Some are free and some are paid applications. Same as the app store for iPhone, Android phones also has an application store which is called the Android Market, from where you can download applications to your Android phone and install it. In an Android phone, you get some more information on the applications installed from the settings->application->manage applications. You can also un-install any application which you do not need.
There will be tons of applications coming in future are the Android market as this OS get popular. When there is demand then there will be more production
Speed
Speed of iPhone 3G S is not bad, its more than enough, but Nexus one has a better hardware. Qualcomm QSD 8250 Snapdragon 1Ghz Processor, 512MB RAM while iPhone has ARM CortexA8 600Mhz, 256 MB RAM. I have not faced any problem with the speed in the Google Phone yet. Again it depends on the applications you use. I would suggest to make sure that the applications you are using does not drain down the memory and the battery.
Battery
Battery of iPhone is excellent and its not time for me to talk much about the Nexus One battery as its very common that we use more when we buy a new phone, but I still feel the Nexus One battery is also not bad. I am a power user, I get atleast 100+ phone calls a day and I do make a lot of phone calls. My Wifi is always on, my data connection will be always there, bluetooth always connected to my headset, so I do not expect to get more than a day usage. I am very much happy about the battery on this Google phone.
BlueTooth Headset
I have my bluetooth headset Nokia BH 804 (Excellent headset) series connected and I use it the whole day. iPhone works really well with this headset and its the same with the Nexus too, so I don’t have any issue on this and this was one of my biggest concern before I got this phone and used it. So bluetooth headset users, don’t worry, Nexus One is working well with bluetooth headsets, clear voice for both sides.
Emails
I use my phone to access my personal and company emails and its one of the most used feature. If you are a Gmail User, then you should always think about an Android powered phone. You can access any POP, IMAP or Exchange server using an Android powered phone. I have also connected my Google Apps account, its awesome.
Synchronization
One of the best feature, you can synchronize, Gmail contacts, Facebook contacts, Calendar and many applications are connected to different services. iPhone do have good synchronization, but I see Google Products synchronization work better on Android powered phones. One thing I have noticed that the synchronization is not as instant as it happens on an exchange server may be there is some time settings for this which I have still not found out. Picasa pictures are gets synchronized to your Gallery application in your Nexus phone and its also same with YouTube.
Nexus One or any phone powered with Android has the advantage of using your Google account to connect to all the Google Products. You can even synchronize GDocs in your Nexus One Phone.
Text Messaging
Text Message in iPhone and Android is good, I don’t have any complaints with both and I don’t see any of them doing anything more than each other.
VoIP Phone Calls
One of the feature that I used from my iPhone was Skype and TruPhone for International calls, both worked like a charm. I have a problem in this regard with Nexus. Truphone application is not stable, crashes very often and I could not get an official Skype application for Android. I heard that Skype has already released some beta version, but I could not find it in the Android market place. I use Fring for making international call (Skype account) and I should confirm that it works good for VoIP calls. I will have to wait to get a stable TruPhone Version.
Camera
Camera is much better, has a 5MP camera, good for video recording as well as pictures. iPhone has 3MP camera, works well, but I feel the camera in the Nexus One is better. Check out this Video, which I had taken on my Nexus Phone and Uploaded to YouTube from my Phone itself. You can connect your YouTube account and do the uploads very easily.
Social Networking
Most of the social networking sites work well on Nexus one as well as iPhone, but the flexibility in developing applications has given more advantages to an Android powered phone. iPhone developers has lots of restrictions as I have mentioned before. There are already a good number of applications developed for Social networking sites like FaceBook, Twitter, just try some of them.
Browser
Browser is much better in Nexus One for some reasons like sharing a page through email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook is very easy which is not possible on iPhone. You can open multiple windows, which is also possible with an iPhone. The Pinch also works with browsers in Nexus One.
Storage
iPhone has 16Gb and 32Gb models, here you have a 4Gb micro SD card coming with the phone, you can upgrade it to a 32Gb card, so no worries about the storage. I am still using the 4Gb card, may be soon I will be going for a bigger card.
OS Updates
Android is still very much in its inception stage, but is strong enough to go for it. Being a product from Google, we can be sure of a great future, so don’t worry much if you see some odd things happening. You will surely be getting new updates. If you are a Google Products Power user then you should surely go for an Android powered phone like the Google Phone “Nexus One”.
Some Tips for Nexus One / Google Phone
- Hold the settings button bit long, you get the keyboard displayed
- Hold the Home button bit long, you get the recent 6 applications used
- Hold the search button bit long, you get the voice search enabled
- To view the background applications / notifications, just swipe the top task bar towards downward direction
I am sure that as time passes, Android will be the future of mobile operating system for reasons being open source and again powered by Google. We will have more and more people getting into developing powerful applications resulting in better and useful applications.
Now to answer which one is better, I will need some more time to give perfect answer, but can suggest / recommend Nexus One if you are power user and you use most of the Google services like GDocs, Gmail, Picasa, YouTube.
If you know any Android Tips, just add it here so it would be useful for others.
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Kishore Asokan is the author of this blog and has been blogging since 1999.
He is a software professional from Carnegie Technology of Education, Pittsburgh, USA. He works on
.NET, PHP, AJAX, etc. He has been making money online for the past 10 years and is still learning
to monetize his skills. He has recently launched his 
