[jassi]

I have been a long term fan of smartphones - all in one devices which let you do everything out of the palm of your hand, for some reason I don't want to be seen with a phone, a camera, a camcorder, an ipod.mp3 device, blah blah!!
My non-smartphone foray started with sony t310 and ended with t610. Having worked for Nokia (security division), I was frequently told by HR that they were willing to give me the Nokia 9000 brick or any other nokia phone I desired. But no I was a rebel and went for my first smartphone, an O2 XDA2s (for 45k!!) and that was it, never looked back.

Its been a long journey since then, and along the way I have experienced smartphones from palm (treo), samsumg (blackjack), LG (viewty) and recently blackberry (bold 9000). I used to see all the apple fanboys around me running their cool macs and iphones and ipads as well as the windows fanboys with their win7 laptops and windows mobiles phones. But I was always an open source person and stuck to using linux as my primary OS on office laptop as well as home laptop. The only anomaly in my open source world was my smartphone, always closed source, always proprietary and always controlled by the service provider or hardware manufacturer.

I looked at Liinux Mobile (LiMo) and realized it just wasn't there and then came Android from Google. I knew this was going to be big but waited to jump in till I got bored of blackberries and winmo phones and finally made the jump in June and ordered my first open source based smartphone the Nexus One directly from the Google store. Got it with the car kit and custom engraving and all (for 600usd)
The long wait ended when I visited US on June 14th and got united with my nexus one. There has been no looking back with this most excellent piece of hardware since then. The best part is the phone is unlocked and has no SP or vendor branding and will for a long time be the first phone to get every new release of Android from google (provided minimum hardware specs are met)

I upgraded to an interim Android 2.2 release (manual update from leaked google build frf83) and then got the OTA (over the air) update yesterday and am now on the final Android 2.2 (froyo frf91) build.

Pros so far
1) Excellent Amoled screen with vivid colors and excellent sharpness
2) Working exchange email with contacts and calendar syncing. gmail/gtalk/facebook/twitter apps are great and fully functional.
3) fantastic bundled apps and the android market has apps for practically everything you want
4) shows a consolidated view of contacts on outlook and in google contacts with direct integration into all modes of reach including phones, email, facebook, gtalk, twitter, et al!
5) Excellent car kit - google turn by turn voice navigation (get brut maps to make it work outside US) which works really well with the car kit. I can now play music/video on car speakers, get directions and take calls from the car kit seamlessly without ever having to touch the phone
6) google voice search/typing and google goggles are really great to have. the onscreen keyboard is great and takes care of your mistakes while typing. 270 degrees screen rotation makes life great!
7) really fast with android 2.2, full flash support (watch online videos on natgeo, etc or play any flash game - eat this is apple) and pinch to zoom in browsing and images.
8) no proprietary BS, no special connectors or wires - all standards based mini usb, bluetooth and so any accessory just works!
9) great camera and video recording with flash/led light for pics/video

Cons
1) not a con but did get a clarivue ultraclear screen protector (10usd free shipping) as everyone i know wants to play around with the touchscreen!
2) built-in corporate email client is presently text only (no html) and signatures are appended only in new emails not forwards/replies.
3) only outlook/google contacts are available, but cannot browse the corp global address list (gal) for phone numbers of office people. GAL is available to complete email addys in the email app though.

Overall I am very happy with this device and I would whole heartedly recommend anyone to go with this over the winmo or iphone or blackbery.
Ofcourse if you are one of those apple fanboys by all means go for the iphone 4g.
For my open source brethren this linkie is fun
The Right and Wrong Ways To Hold an iPhone and so is this video

YouTube - iPhone4 vs HTC Evo

[barcode]

Its a brilliant phone. And you can hold it any way you'd want to, unlike the iphone4

My friends at Google got a free nexus one.. and have been seeing them start to use social networking etc far more voraciously!

[redrage]

@Jassi: Nice review. How did you procure it? I guess its not available for sale in India...
How much did you pay for it?

[frankmehta]

I have the 2nd cousin of the Nexus, the Samsung Spica upgraded to 2.1 and I am SO in love with it! I got mine for 12k which makes this the CHEAPEST Android phone in India with a capacitive (read: better) touchscreen. The screen quality is super and this has MUCH more functionality than the iPhone 3G I purchased last year (for 3 times more than this!) and social networking, push email and the fabulous app market are all reasons enough for me to stick to Android for my next phone (when I do intend to get one)
Mind you, before this, I changed my cell phone every month. It has been 6 WHOLE months since I got the Spica and there's STILL no turning back. I am yet to get sick of the superior functionality of the phone and I am still in love with it's solid build and ABSOLUTELY YUMMY Operating System from Android!

[jassi]

Originally Posted by barcode

Its a brilliant phone. And you can hold it any way you'd want to, unlike the iphone4

My friends at Google got a free nexus one.. and have been seeing them start to use social networking etc far more voraciously!

Agreed same here I am always on fb, twitter, gtalk, et al!

Originally Posted by redrage

@Jassi: Nice review. How did you procure it? I guess its not available for sale in India...
How much did you pay for it?

I bought it from the google store directly Nexus One Phone - Web meets phone. and got it shipped directly to a friends place in US. Picked it up from him after 2 weeks of wait as I had a trip to US. Paid 524usd for the phone and around 60usd for the car kit.

Originally Posted by frankmehta

I have the 2nd cousin of the Nexus, the Samsung Spica
...ABSOLUTELY YUMMY Operating System from Android!

agreed its a yummy OS and i hear the galaxy spica (i5700) is a great phone!

[samy3660]

Nexus one is indeed a great phone and i am planning to get one soon.

[sammyboy]

AAh so finally Jassi has his much awaited GPS,Phone,music player etc. etc. in one
Congrats dude, the phone really seems to be everything the world was waiting for.
Would love to get my hands on it sometime.

[greenh0rn]

Frank did you buy your phone from India? I'm also itching to go the Android way, and Galaxy S at 30,000 appears a little too expensive :(

[jassi]

Originally Posted by sammyboy

AAh so finally Jassi has his much awaited GPS,Phone,music player etc. etc. in one
Congrats dude, the phone really seems to be everything the world was waiting for.
Would love to get my hands on it sometime.

hehe yeah man - got rid of the blackberry and htc diamond (for car) combo. Now its just one unified device which does it all at work and at play

[vcash]

Hello Phandroids,
Quick question - does anyone know when the HTC EVO 4G (Supersonic) or the Moto Droid X (Xtreme) will make it's presence felt in a GSM avatar?

I am contemplating switching from my E71 to a touch phone and here are my requirements:
1) Large screen: 3.7" to 4.3"
2) Capacitive Touch
3) Vivid Screen (AMOLED / Retina etc.)
4) A Good Camera (Don't care about MP's or photons or zoom - Should take good pictures)
5) 1 GHz processor (Snapdragon or ARM)
6) 2.2 Froyo (Hopefuly 3.0 in a few months)
7) A good solid App store that has easily accesible paid and free content
8) Push Email client
9) Decent battery life - 1 Day minimum
10) AGPS
11) PDF Viewer

Don't care about a media player as I have a dedicated 80GB iPod classic for my music needs and I dislike watching videos on small screens.

So am I looking at the right models? Also I don't want to break the bank - 20 to 25K Budget so I don't mind waiting for a few months if prices come down.

Cheers,
V

[jassi]

^^ you could look motorola milestone, samsumg galaxy and ofcourse nexus one. Xperia x10 is out the window as its lagging behind on android releases and may eventually stop being supported by sony (matter of new model). I see the same fate with the motorola, samsungs and LGs. HTC is your best bet for something which can be easily upgraded to latest builds irrespective of manufacturer support.

At the moment I would suggest nexus one if you can get one from US - easily upgradeable to gingerbread 3.0 release whenever that comes this year (hardware will support it). Also all your features are baseline android features, so you are in the good. As far as watching videos, is the ipod screen bigger than the 4" on most android phones? (excuse my noobness as I am not an apple user)

good luck with your choice!

[patron]

Originally Posted by jassi

2) built-in corporate email client is presently text only (no html) and signatures are appended only in new emails not forwards/replies.

Use K-9 Mail, comes with a built-in push mail. Supports Yahoo, Hotmail, GMail and corp mails. Note that the yahoo and hotmail get configured with the free version which is good.

Originally Posted by jassi

3) only outlook/google contacts are available, but cannot browse the corp global address list (gal) for phone numbers of office people. GAL is available to complete email addys in the email app though.

There are a lot of addons which can help you add/browse global contact list. Touchdown is one of the best app that I use.

All in all, a great choice of a phone. I moved from an IPhone to an N1. Been using it for more than 6 months now and no complaints whatsoever. I find it way too better than the IPhone. Try the cyanogen mod if you are adventurous enough.

[jassi]

^^ yeah i know touchdown is great - but I am at the moment quite happy with Froyo's exchange integration and html email is not a priority for me. The contacts piece is and I see swift contacts as the only gal capable app. Nonetheless have opened an enhancement request on google code and things should get fixed soon :-)

I am not ready for the cyanogen mod yet but will get there soon :-)

[vcash]

Originally Posted by jassi

^^ you could look motorola milestone, samsumg galaxy and ofcourse nexus one. Xperia x10 is out the window as its lagging behind on android releases and may eventually stop being supported by sony (matter of new model). I see the same fate with the motorola, samsungs and LGs. HTC is your best bet for something which can be easily upgraded to latest builds irrespective of manufacturer support.

[quote=jassi;1970202]Yup - No Sony / LG or Samsung for me but I feel Motorola may last. Moto made great hardware but they were terrible at software. Hopefully Android cures this. And it's good to hear Sanjay Jha announce that Moto will launch upto 20 Android devices by the end of the year!

Originally Posted by jassi

At the moment I would suggest nexus one if you can get one from US - easily upgradeable to gingerbread 3.0 release whenever that comes this year (hardware will support it). Also all your features are baseline android features, so you are in the good.

I could have picked up a Nexus one last month when I was in the US and I can still get one if I want to but I feel like better phones will be coming out around August / Sep (Back to School time in the US). So I would like to wait for a month or so if it means that I can get my hands on some neat technology.

Originally Posted by jassi

As far as watching videos, is the ipod screen bigger than the 4" on most android phones? (excuse my noobness as I am not an apple user)

Sorry - I should have been more clear. The classic has a 2" screen so watching anything on it is torture. For dedicated audio, it is possibly the best thing out there. What I meant was that I don't like watching anything on less than a 32" LCD! Maybe this tablet phenomn about to happen will change my mind

[SunnyBoi]

Nice Choice! I ordered mine on the day it was released and got it in 5 days.

Have you tried Android 2.2? I upgraded mine and speed difference is of light and day when you use a heavy live wallpaper. Everything loads quicker too.

BTW I got bored of it, using a Micromax X360 since 6 weeks now. sigh.