Hail Google but what have you given us?

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Anthony

So here it is the Nexus! Conceptually a brilliant phone integrating multiple information sources in one congruent and coherent platform… but wops hang on… there are a few things that don’t work…. Ho hang on again those useful features I had on my NOKIA N97 don’t appear to exist on the Nexus…

Well yes indeed there are a few bugs… actually quite a few and yes there are a few features missing… like really essential ones, such as the ability to backup your content or having multiple backups of your contact taken at different points in time. While the contacts, notes and calendar get synchronized online to your Gmail account (when this feature works which is not too often) this it does mean that if you delete a contact by mistake on your phone it will also be deleted from your Gmail account and there is no apparent way to recover! Moreover if you happen not to be online then you simply cannot delete a contact at all from your phone!!

As for missing features… Why does the Nexus Blue tooth only enable me to connect up to my Blue Tooth headset set? Which BTW is not provided with the kit. How about browsing the phone’s memory or using it as a 3G modem link to use my phone to connect up my lap-top to the Internet?

Well I guess it gives all those budding programmers a chance to develop code and features to put on the Android Market site!

So far not so good…. The 3G connection doesn’t work the synching stopped working twice and the only apparent resolution is to reset the phone to factory setting… the phone lacks the Thai character set and also several others which means if you hit a web page not in the English language then you’ll get a load of unattractive squares in place of characters. There is a solution to this but it requires hacking into the phone, gaining root access and pushing in a few font files but this then voids you guarantee… but hey why couldn’t Google do this before they shipped out the phones? Hum this is not good all in all I’m glad I kept my not so sleek Nokia N97… and its older brother the 6230… that really was a proper phone! It made calls and allowed you to send SMSes in a flash!

So what’s the verdict for the Nexus One? Well this is just my opinion so take it with a pinch of salt. I like the phone, its sleek, looks really cool but doesn’t really work properly yet and I’m not using it as my main phone because it lacks some fundamental features and has some unwanted features (bugs) which are too big to ignore. This phone right now is very much a techno person’s fun toy. Its good fun to play with it and gives you an idea of what’s coming in the future but right now in my mind it’s more of an expensive toy then a work tool. Never the less it’s a great platform with which to try out the multitude of applications available for Android and it’s really cool for hooking up to your stereo and listening to streaming radio geee Shoutcast’s Smooth Jazz, love it!! As for trusting it with my contacts and daily meeting schedule… hum not yet thanks!!

Clearly the pressure to get to market has had the better here but this will be a great phone in the future… it just needs a few updates!!