EXCLUSIVE: Hands On Impressions Of Nexus One

The other night, I received a text from my friend that he had some device he wanted me to see . A friend of a friend (of his) stopped by in my city on the way to the slopes for some skiing over the holiday weekend. Since they were both going together, he had indicated to his buddy that I was a cell phone blogger and that I would be surely interested in a device he had with him. So later in the day, I get this call to meet up at the coffee shop. Low and behold I see my friend and his buddy reaches into his pocket and pulls out Google’s Nexus One.

Although I was not allowed to take photos or video (and yes I showed up with my HD Video and 12 MP camera too), I got to play with the handset for about 15 minutes (and it cost me a couple of fancy foo-foo coffee drinks but well worth it). In return, I got some alone time with the Nexus One.

My Impressions:

1. Feel: Very solid. Built like a titanium brick. Holds well in hand. Much nicer in person than the photos floating around on the interwebs [like the one above]. Good quality with fine craftsmanship.
2. Size: Nexus One is considerably thinner than iPhone. I was astonished when I put it next to the Droid and iPhone 3GS. Pretty amazing feat for such a powerful phone. For those of you that like touch screens only, this is the phone for you.
3. Weight: I would say that the weight is roughly the same as the iPhone, but I didn’t have a scale handy to give you the exact specs on weights.
4. Speed: WOW! Much faster than the Droid. Kinetic scrolling was off the hook. Switching between apps has virtually no lag whatsoever.
5. OS: Nice little trick that looks like it took a page from the webOS book were the cards, but they were positioned at the bottom. You can scroll through the cards and select and the program/app you want to use. Not sure if these were live apps running in the background but I would venture to say yes.
6. Multi-touch: Noticed this with the Dolphin browser and a couple of other apps but didn’t notice it all the way throughout the phone (remember I only had 15 minutes to check it out). So I can say that yes, Nexus does support Multi-touch, but not sure exactly to what extent.
7. Carrier: As tnkgrl stated on her blog Tnkgrl Mobile, I too can confirm that: There is no 3G on AT&T (EGDE only). The device was unlocked too.
8. Connection: Micro USB connection for power and data.
9. Keyboard: Onscreen keyboard only but it was pretty similar to the Droid. Easy to type on and very responsive.
10. Screen orientation/rotation: Damn near instant. Having a faster processor really helps get the Nexus one from one tilt to the other.
11. Display: A capacitive high-resolution OLED display. Clear and Bright. No problem seeing in bright lights or night time for that matter.
12. Camera: Has flash with a similar interface as the Droid. Decent photos but you won’t be taking pics of any models, that I can tell you.
13. Storage: Comes with 4gb standard but can be extended up to? 32 perhaps? Not sure on that one (and neither was the owner).
14. Nav: Comes with Google Navigation. Same as the Droid.

So there you have it. I must say that I think that this is going to be the next phone I purchase as soon as it comes out. The Nexus One is clearly the ‘standard’ now set for Android OS built phones from this point forward. With faster processors and shorter development times, the iteration of the Android platform is light years ahead of any other OS out there at this time.

Apple and Palm both have a serious challenger in Android to deal with on multiple carriers and multiple manufactures. If Google can have enough influence to push out these types of handsets 2 to 3 times a year, everyone else will be left in the dust of Android’s wake.