Buying the Google Nexus One: Important Facts

On the 5^th of January 2010, Google unveiled the much talked-about Nexus One smartphone with great ceremony. The device is manufactured by Taiwan’s HTC Corporation and uses the Android open source mobile operating system.

Specifications and Features

Power and battery

Removable 1400 mAH battery

Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger

Talk time

Up to 10 hours on 2G
Up to 7 hours on 3G

Standby time

Up to 290 hours on 2G
Up to 250 hours on 3G

Internet use

Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback

Up to 7 hours

Audio playback

Up to 20 hours

Processor

Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz

Operating system

Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)

Capacity

512MB Flash

512MB RAM

4GB Micro SD Card (Expandable to 32 GB)

Location

Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver

Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning

Digital compass

Accelerometer

Size and weight

Height

119mm

Width

59.8mm

Depth

11.5mm

Weight

130 grams w/battery
100g w/o battery

Display

3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen

800 x 480 pixels

100,000:1 typical contrast ratio

1ms typical response rate

Camera & Flash

5 megapixels

Autofocus from 6cm to infinity

2X digital zoom

LED flash

User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver

Video captured at 720x480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions

Cellular & Wireless

UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)

HSDPA 7.2Mbps

HSUPA 2Mbps

GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Important Details

The phone is not locked to any mobile operator and is on sale from the Google website at a cost of $529, or a subsidized $179 when purchased from T-Mobile on a 2-year contract. Plans are underway to manufacture the CDMA(Verizon) version by the second quarter of this year. In the meantime, the Google Nexus One is only on offer in the US, with plans still being made to launch the product into the UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong markets. Shipping to these areas is still at a relatively significant cost. The Nexus One will not be shipped outside of these countries for now.

Reactions

Public excitement over the Nexus One has been ambiguous, with many thrilled by the phone’s elegance and full features but a number still have noising their disappointment with the Nexus One for a number of reasons:

1 “the display is not viewable in direct sunlight.”

2 “the Nexus One has screen calibration issues”

3 “Camera images have a pinkish hue”

4 “Cannot sync with Microsoft (Mail, Contacts, tasks, Calendar)

5 “Poor customer support”

Though many users have made it clear that their Nexus Ones don’t have these issues, these dissatisfied users still maintain that theirs’ have these problems, and except there are individual phone differences (unlikely though they are), it may be probable that these disgruntled reviewers are merely being used to promote competitor products.