My Nexus one-review after day 1

" I got my Nexus one"
" It's finally here"
"Love my Nexus one"
" Thank you Google"....
" XYZ downloaded android for facebook application..."

If you've been reading any/some of these status updates lately, You have a Googler in your friends list or are one yourself !Before you go ahead label us all as showoffs, lemme tell you a fact that's gonna make you a little jealous. When 400+ people, get one of the most awesome products on the market after a looong wait, in a single day , compliments of the company that you work at, you know there's bound to be madness!
From Plain Euphoria to hallowed awe, the reaction on receiving the N1s has been nothing short of an Olympian hype! I have a feeling we all look like a bunch of Indian kids with an imported toy in the 90's. !
and Now comes the 2nd part, Of figuring out the Phone. Or wait, figuring out that it's not just a phone. For people like me, who get a high on tech and everything geeky, probably this is the easy part...But for someone new to touchscreen and smart phones, the 'acclimatization' might take a while . So here's a review that'll hopefully help the fellow N1 owners while using the phone and for people who're looking to buy it, to reassure themselves why ;)


Disclaimer : I'm not a geek or tech-expert...Being somewhat tech savvy and a tech-freak, I have just attempted to put together some points , I've observed while exploring the phone so far .Also, Having been a long-time user of the iphone 3g and nokia 97, some comparisons are inevitable. I might have some facts wrong or naive about certain things so don't quote me on it. So this post is basically my experience with the phone so far. Do your own research and have fun playing being thrilled!

The basics:
Phone manufacturer- HTC of Taiwan
OS-Android mobile platform 2.1 by Google
Memory 4gb in a sd card that can be expandable upto 32gb
Approx cost in US - $530


What I like so far!

* The phone's thin as as a bar of chocolate and looks ultra smooth and compact....
* The million of cool Android apps that are up for grabs ! My favourite - Jokes -Lol ( this has some brilliant one liners and smartcracks!!), Useless facts, the Dictionary, the NYtimes, facebook for android , Calvin and Hobbes comic strips among others....Get them from "market". Most are free.
* Bluetooth! Now this is where the phone really scores over the arch-rival Iphone ! Who wants to get loopy in the head trying to figure out itunes and sync options when u can transfer all your contacts, pics and music b/w the pc and phone via good ol' bluetooth?
* The voice text app! All you need to do is speak into your phone and it types as you speak.....However a thick regional accent might not help here. So you wanna be clear and probably neautrally-accented
* Great 5mp camera with in-built flash with the option of turning it off and a whole lot of other shooting modes. Plus you have video recording option. Also the navigation option for the saved photos is really cool. Look up my photo album "Nexus one" to see some pics clicked from the phone.
* You get to sync your phone with gmail and Fb and whatever other social app you decide to be on in - real time. And they're really easy to use. You don't feel the need to be on a system to access your mail.
* The message , email and chat alerts are unobstrusive and let you do other things on the phone while they quitely appear in the status bar.
* a great array of live wallpapers and themes , my favorite being the live aquarium that can be downloaded for free ( Go to "market" in the main menu. There're more than a thousand apps to be downloaded.
* The back button! Oh thank god for this! So unlike the iPhone, you don't have to keep hitting the "home' button to go back to whatever you were doing previously.
* Scroller- Slippery fingers? No problem. The N1 has a cool scrollbutton like in the blackberry that makes scrolling up and down a charm.
* You get a smiley in the status bar every time you get a message! even if it's spam :p


Some not so flattering things

* The touch screen feature isnt really as smooth as i'd like. Receiving a call would require you to slide a bar which is a bit of a twitch. Also to delete individual msgs you need to slide the msg multiple times which may be a pain. The keypad may take a while to get used to as the key-icons are too small and you may end up mixing words.
* contacts! Syncing your contacts with gmail and fb contacts is fine and all but it's kinda confusing as there can be redundancy in the names but you have an option to decide what contacts are displayed ( all contacts/ Gmail contacs/Fb contacts etc )
* The music at full volume isn't high enough .
* I still haven't figured out a way to log out of my gmail a/c . If you do, let me know.

To have an optimum experience with the phone you gotta have wifi or GPRS activated!
if not , at least download some cool apps when you do have access to wifi , that can be used offline.....


These are some of the comments I've heard about the nexus one from , mind you, Non-Googlers
" So what's the iPhone deal was all about..?"
" Now here is a product , that truly reflects the brand where it comes from. (.i.e. Google)"
"Wonder why it is such an underplayed phone"

MY final verdict- Awesomely cool phone. Good looking. Multi-functional. Has a lot of future potential being on the powerful Android platform. Can be a bit clumsy ( if you ain't very good with touchscreen ) at times but still makes up for whatever the iPhone falls short of. Total value for money at $530.


Go/ogle at it.