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Christine

I'm a geek with a love for all things tech. I'm also an online business consultant with expertise in SEO, SMM, and digital marketing strategies.

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37 Comments

  1. 1

    ickthegeek

    Gina –

    Are you using it on AT&T with the unlocked version, or did you get it on T-Mobile. Curious to know if you’re seeing faster speeds on T-Mobile, given their announcement yesterday.

  2. 2

    Gina Trapani

    I went T-Mobile, since my contract is up soon, and using my AT&T SIM I would have only gotten on EDGE.

  3. 3

    James Anderson

    Excellent stuff Gina. I am still rolling with a G1 in the UK. Looking forward to the arrival of the N1 on these shores. I’m due an upgrade in a few months and will probably be choosing the N1 (assuming T-Mobile UK will offer it).

  4. 4

    Anthony Barletta

    you should try out drocap2 for screenshots on the device, makes it super easy.

    also, id suggest replacing the keyboard with swype, waaaaaay better. swypes not in the market yet i think but its around the interwebs.

  5. 5

    Gina Trapani

    Ah, I have to root for dropcap2, huh… Ok, that’s my next Android project. 🙂

  6. 6

    google.com/accounts/o8…

    “First, you still can’t take screenshots on the device itself. WTF.”

    True, it’s not built-in, but there are 2 very good apps for that on the Market, ShootMe – shake to take a screenshot, and PicMe – access your device from the network with a browser and take a screenshot or control it remotely.

    http://www.androlib.com/android.developer.johan-cloetens-zqE.aspx

  7. 7

    AdamBronte

    I just ordered mine yesterday and cant wait to get it!

    Hows the battery life? That is the only downside I have heard about this phone and with the giant display and 1ghz processor I’m not too surprised.

  8. 8

    Gina Trapani

    Looks like Shootme only supports rooted phones, so my complaint still stands–there should be an easy way to take screencaps out of the box with no apps or rooting.

  9. 9

    giri

    The gallery application is new. It can pull in your picasa web albums if you are signed in. Also the iphone headphone controller works for play/pause/forwarding music on the nexus. I’m not sure if this new.

  10. 10

    David Snedeger

    I charged my Nexus One all night, unplugged it at 0600 and turned everything on(BT, WiFi, 3g, bunch of background processes, animated background)turned the screen brightness all the way up and i used it pretty much all day showing it off at work. It lasted 11 hours before it died a little bit ago. So better than my G1 for sure.

  11. 11

    Gina Trapani

    @giri: How do you import your Picasa web albums into the Gallery? I don’t see that option.

    Also, the iPhone headphone controller working is crazy. I have a 1st gen iPhone headphone controller, so it doesn’t plug in all the way and I couldn’t test.

  12. 12

    giri

    You just need to sign in with your google id. The gallery app automatically should pull in all your web albums.

    I tried it with my 3GS headphones and was surprised to find that the controller works.

  13. 13

    JD

    Seeing Evernote on that home screen brought a tear to my eyes. Evernote, Mint, and Pandora, and I’m set. I need this phone! Spring can’t get here fast enough.

    What’s the word on tethering? Turned off by default right? The company I work for blocks just about everything, and I would love to possibly tether a netbook to this thing.

    Did I mention my company blocks Evernote? How lame is that?

  14. 14

    Josh Centers

    Could you test something for me Gina? Can you copy something from the Gmail app that IS NOT in a text input box? In 2.0.1, I have to hold shift on the Droid’s keyboard to copy something from an email.

  15. 15

    tmoatsjr

    Can the Nexus One be tethered for web access?

  16. 16

    Sean

    @Gina: If you install the Android SDK it comes with a screen capture tool. To use it you:

    1. Install the Android SDK
    2. Enable USB Debugging by going to Settings -> Applications -> Development on your phone
    3. Connect your phone to your computer with its USB cable
    4. Start DDMS which is located in [path_to_sdk]\Tools
    5. Select your phone
    6. Device -> Screen Capture

  17. 17

    Gina Trapani

    @Josh: I don’t think so… do you mean like an email address? or the body of a message?

    @Sean: Yup, that’s what I did to take the screen caps you see in the post.

    @tmoatsir: I think it has to be rooted for that, and I haven’t gotten that far yet.

    @AdamBronte: Not sure about battery life yet, but all early indicators are very good.

    All: I just added screenshots of the Gallery application to the post, which I finally got syncing to Picasa Web Albums. Thanks to giri for the reminder about that!

  18. 18

    Siira

    Excellent tour, thanks for the quick and detailed information. Over here in the netherlands it will not be for sale anytime soon, but my contract isn’t up anyway 🙂

  19. 19

    RajS

    Hey Gina Thanks for sharing your review.I was waiting for the reviews as we dont see the phone in UK yet. I am an iphone user. My personal take is no feature is so compelling to switch from iphone.

  20. 20

    Jonathan Salkoff

    It’s still a PHONE, right? Why isn’t there a little green phone key on the front? This is my biggest gripe with the Droid — I get that this is a Google phone and all, but with 4 buttons on the front, I’d like ONE of them mapped to pull up the phone app (which I would then map to GV), instead of the search key, maybe?

    Other than that, I think it looks great and I’m looking forward to 2.1 on the Droid…

  21. 21

    tenley

    One thing that I think hasn’t been mentioned (though it should be obvious) is that Cooliris must have had a hand in developing the Gallery application because the gallery application is called “com.cooliris.media”. Also, it has the 3D wall browsing that is common in Cooliris’ firefox plugin and website.

  22. 22

    ShadyPghGuy

    Thanks for the screen shot tour, Gina. Excellent as always. I can’t wait to get the 2.1 update on my Droid.

  23. 23

    Patrick707

    Thanks for the great review, Gina. I want this phone bad, but the one thing pulling hard on me towards an iPhone (besides my AT&T contract) is how well the iPhone integrates with my macs at home. For instance, the iPhone Remote app is ridiculously good. I’ve seen that this app has been reverse-engineered and made available for Android, but I’m curious how well this actually works on an N1. Has anyone run this on the N1 and can you compare to how well it runs on the iPhone? Are there other similar apps that integrate well with a mac (or PC) to provide similar functionality on a more general level?

  24. 24

    birdbrains

    As always: thanks for posting this wrap-up, Gina.

    I’m really wanting one, but I have one question: when browsing a page on mobile Safari for iPhone I can double-tap on a column of text in a page and the browser automatically sizes to fit that column of text (and nothing else), for really easy reading.

    Does the N1 browser work that way? I can give up multi-touch if I can just get that. I hate resizing a window on a blackberry just to have to scroll left and right to read every line of text in an article, or leave the zoom too wide and squint at tiny text with ads all around it.

    If you have a moment to answer, thanks!

  25. 25

    tenley

    Birdbrains, yes it does.

  26. 26

    Josh Parmely

    @tmoatsjr – Last I heard, at least from the xda dev board, it works in concept, but it’s broken right now. I’m not sure if this is limited to Cyanogen’s “bacon one” build or all rooted N1s.

    Cyanogen is also playing with a newer kernel build, but it has some bugs with the notification light right now. He says it adds some nice speed, which will be a nice rooting project for those with spare time.

    The only reason I didn’t drop the $530 for the unlocked version the first moment I could is the lack of a hardware keyboard. Any geeks (especially those who like working in shells) out there think the features added is worth having to use the touch keyboard?

  27. 27

    birdbrains

    @tenley Many thanks!

    Now to just find out if this whole 3G mess is actually a widespread problem:

    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=0bd8ccd4799040c2&hl=en&fid=0bd8ccd4799040c200047c99c44ddfe6

  28. 28

    Kent Smith

    @Gina: do you know if there is some sort of CPU scaling going on with the Nexus One? The reported battery life is substantially better than the stock Droid that I’m using.

    Definitely would love to see that become part of Android very soon instead of requiring a rooting of the device.

  29. 29

    Linda

    I’m in Solana Beach and wondering how your 3G is in San Diego.

    My T-Mobile plan has one more year so I can’t get any break on the price. Don’t want to spend the $500 unless I know 3G will actually work.

  30. 30

    Josh Centers

    Gina, I meant can you copy something out of the body of a message in GMail?

  31. 31

    blog.3dbloke.com/

    Gina. Excellent overview of 2.1. Clear and easy to get thru. Thanks.

    Just waiting for Google to release 2.1 to open source so I can have it on my Hero. Just hope it’s processor can cope 🙂

  32. 32

    cylenol

    I see that the new gmail app accesses multiple gmail accounts. But does it have multiple push gmail accounts or is it one push and the others fetch?

  33. 33

    Justin Phillips

    Not to be critical, but a few of those features are not new to 2.1, but were also in 2.0 (Gmail dots, Facebook Integration, Visual Bookmarks) 🙂

  34. 34

    Michael Mercure

    Does anyone know where I can find more details regarding facebook sync? I would like to sync but dont want all of my fb contacts in my phone.

    Does it have options to just sync the ones that are already in my Google address book?

  35. 35

    Justin Phillips

    @Michael
    Yes, there is an option to only sync to the contacts that you already have.

  36. 36

    Joel

    Hey Gina, great review, I love my N1.
    One thing I would like to point out, you said you’re not a “widget gal” and I feel just like you do. But you don’t have to use the search widget. You have the dedicated search button which pulls up a search box and if you push and hold the search button, it will let you do a voice search. Now you can ditch the widget without losing any functionality!
    Love listening to you on TWiG.

  37. 37

    ontheFritz

    Thanks for the awesome rundown Gina! Can’t wait to get my Nexus One!

    Anyone on T-Mo in South Florida know how 3G is down here? All of my friends have iPhones haha.

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