I'd like to tell everyone my experience switching to the ATT version of the N1 (which I still have). I'd like to preface this saying I'm not anti-Apple or an Apple fanboy. I have no irrational allegiance or hatred for the company. They're just a company and throughout my life I've constantly switched between devices to find the best one for me. I posted my experiences after a couple days in an N1 forum, here are some excerpts:
Badandy said:
Hey, everyone. I thought I’d type up a post about my experiences switching from the iPhone 3GS to the new ATT version of the Nexus One. I’ve had my phone for about two and a half days so keep that in mind; I might find out more things I like/don’t like in the future but these are just my initial impressions.
Facebook has a nice feature that integrates with your contacts. It adds the ability to view their profile right from the contacts. If a contact’s picture isn’t showing up even though you know you’re their facebook friend, all you need to do is go to the contact, touch menu, then “join”.
What I like about the Nexus One over the iPhone
The obvious answer is the screen. It’s incredible and you can’t believe the resolution improvement until you see it. It’s like going from a standard definition tv to an HD one.
Customizability. This is really great. The iPhone is such a closed OS that it’s refreshing to get to an OS you can cutom-tailor to your needs. I have my homescreen set up the way I want and the way that works best for me, not the way that works best for Apple.
Notications. The notifications bar is excellent. I love the way text messages are previewed on the top and don’t interrupt whatever you’re doing. The drawer is a great idea that I really like. This is light years ahead of the iPhone though I suspect the next version of the iPhone OS will fix this problem.
Speech to text. Google’s voice recognition being built in to everywhere that has a text box is really cool and actually makes typing things faster for me.
Integration with everything Google. This is great. Gmail works amazingly well, everything syncs up nicely.
What Google/HTC need to fix…now
Email app: The non-gmail app is absolute crap. It’s buggy and it won’t let you forward emails with attachments. It won’t let you attach anything other than something in your gallery. It's not opening a .doc file right now for some reason. A .docx file is opening perfectly though.
Some lag/scrolling issues: There’s no excuse with a 1ghz processor. Things should be smoother than the iPhone. The overall speed of the N1 is great, I just wish it was more apparent.
Browser: It needs better window management. I know you can get this in dolphin browser, but it should be in the default one. It takes far too many screen presses to manage your windows and close them. Even in the open windows screen, you don't know which one you're currently viewing so I often have to go back and check which one not to close. Terribly designed. I do love the thumbnail view for bookmarks, though.
Apps page: When you’re home and you press the button that takes you to your apps. I appreciate the fact that they tried to add some eye-candy with the 3D effect, but the notchiness is bugging the hell out of me. It should be smooth scrolling. It’s notchy now. The lines of apps want to fit into virtual grooves instead of just naturally stopping. This is really annoying.
Calendar: The calendar application is terrible, point blank. The month view is horrendous and the fact that the calendar is not searchable is unbelievable. This is google, the world leader in search, and I can't search for something that I could on my literally 9 year old Palm device?
Quick search: This is not nearly as fast as the iPhone. It takes multiple seconds for results to pop up. On the iPhone, the search results are there as you type, instantly. Again, this has a 1ghz processor, searches should be far faster and more efficient.
Music player: Looks like it’s 10 years old. It works, but it’s way outdated
“Hardware” buttons: These need to be more consistent. Sometimes they’re sensitive, other times it takes me 5 presses to get them to work. I do like the haptic feedback though, that’s really important and useful.
Since that post, many of these things have stayed the same. I still think the screen on the N1 blows the iPhone out of the water, but there are several things on the N1 that make me want to go back to iPhone, now. I'll summarize them:
-The iPhone scrolls far smoother. It stutters less and webpages are more easily manipulated before the page has fully loaded than on the N1.
-Spotlight murders any type of search google has on the N1. Spotlight is super fast and very efficient. Google search on the N1 is slow (letter by letter is embarassingly slow), it doesn't search through a whole lot of stuff (they do have web suggestions though as you type) such as calendar, etc.
-There is no way to search calendar.
-The calendar app is horrendous. It is literally the worst program I've ever seen, and I downloaded the "do not push the button" app for the iPhone.
-Even though everything syncs with google, I miss iTunes integration pretty badly. Apple has me snared in that regard.
-I added someone to contacts, but when I went to send them a text message later that day, their name didn't pop up when I started typing it in the recipient section.
-The keyboard is really bad. I've tried to get used to it, I've given it time. It is aggravating. It tries to autocorrect things for no reason, and is buggy. I could type 45-50 wpm on my iPhone but I am terrible on the N1. This ruins the device for me. Apple got the keyboard right.
-Things are slow! Programs don't open immediately, the phone kind of lags when programs are opening/downloading/installing. The animations aren't as smooth and fluid. It shouldn't be this way!
-Copy/Paste is terribly implemented. After all our complaining about Apple not including it, they at least got it right. It sucks on Android.
-The worst negative, though, has to be the touch screen. It isn't sensitive. It causes me to miss keystrokes typing, bad scrolling, inaccuracy for selecting links, etc. Your finger almost needs to be warm and soft for it to work. My fingertips are usually dry on account of the fact that I play basketball so much, and it just doesn't work for tapping the screen. I was using the calculator yesterday and you just can't count on it picking up the right number of presses.
Overall, the N1 is a good phone. It really has some great features but I'm buying the iPhone when the new one comes out this summer (with iPhone OS 4.0 of course)...the day it comes out. I'm excited to get back to integration with all my Apple stuff, and I'm excited to get back to a sensitive touchscreen with a great keyboard. Android has a lot of potential, but it's not there yet. It's strange; some parts of the OS seem so advanced while other parts are mind-bogglingly primitive.
I know, this was a super long post but I hope it informed at least someone. If anyone has any questions don't hesitate to ask them. I'll still have my N1 until the new iPhone comes out so I'll still be able to know what I'm talking about.
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