The Google’s own Nexus One was one of the most anticipated devices along with Apple iPad this year. We finally got time to review the so called “superphone” as mentioned by the Google Employees. After using it for several days, I was about as disappointed as I was after using Nokia E72. I am not trying to tell you that Nexus One is bad. It was the prelaunch hype which set huge expectations – Alias’s like the iPhoneKiller – which it failed to match. Is Nexus One a cool phone? It definitely is a cool phone. Is it an iPhone killer? I don’t think so.

This phone is Google only by name; it’s really an HTC phone at heart. The phone looks great and feels great as well. The body is made out of a metal frame that wraps around the plastic back-cover. It’s soft but offers adequate grip so that you don’t drop your 530$ toy. The Nexus One actually fits quiet properly in your hand even if it is a little big but what’s more interesting is its thickness that hits 11.5mm, which is incredibly good when you consider all the powerful hardware that is packed inside.

On top you’ve got your 3.5mm headphone jack, and the power button. On the bottom side you have a USB port and on the right you have a volume rocker. On the front panel the 3.7” AMOLED screen sits comfortably, you have 4 haptic feedback buttons under the screen – back, menu, home and search. You also have a trackball but I don’t know why they put that really, you’re not going to use it anywhere but it acts as a notification light for missed calls and new messages…etc.

The screen is AMOLED, as previously mentioned, and is quiet large. But just like all AMOLED screens, it has disgraceful sunlight discernibility. Although this thing is a superstar indoors, it represents a fat hooker outdoors.

The back side of the phone looks great. You have a huge Google logo just to make sure you know you’ve bought their phone. The curvy design of the metal bezel with the plastic back-cover looks great. You have two important features on the back, the camera and the loudspeaker. Both are pretty good and do their job. The snapper has a 5 megapixel resolution and an LED flash next to it for low light situations. The pictures produces are actually quite good, I have no complaints, since I expected much less from this HTC snapper.

The Nexus One has a modest specs sheet if you overlook the Snapdragon processor, which is one of the strongest cell phone processors out there. Other than the processor the phone doesn’t blow you away with anything else. It has 512mb of RAM which is on par with other competitive smartphones. You get a 4 GB microSD card, which is less than I expected. Still, it’s expandable up to 32 GB, so there you go.

The battery is a Li-Ion 1400 mAh and offers on par performance at best. You’ll find yourself recharging this thing almost every day if you use it frequently.

One last thing about its hardware I have to mention is its microphone, or microphones in this case. The device has two microphones, one for noise cancellation and the other for your own voice. This offers very clear sound for the other caller, so you don’t need to shout when you’re at a train station for example. It’s a nice addition that I quiet liked.

After several 3G related issues filed by Nexus One users, Google have acknowleged the fact that there are several unfixed issues. Google informed its users that they are currently working on developing a patch that should take care of the issue temporarily. They have also added that this is not going to fix some other 3G related issues on the same phone. From what we understand, Google will be concentrating on improving the network problems that were reported before attending to the other issues in the same department.

“Our engineers have uncovered specific cases for which a software fix should improve connectivity to 3G for some users,” said a Google employee named Ivan in a Google Nexus One help forum. “We are testing this fix now, initial results are positive, and if everything progresses as planned, we will provide an over-the-air software update to your phone in the next week or so.”

However, he cautioned, the fix won’t address all 3G issues.

“It may be, however, that users are experiencing problems as a result of being on the edge or outside of 3G coverage, which a product fix cannot address,” he said.

The $529 Nexus One, which uses the Android operating system, is the first phone that Google is selling directly to customers. It’s unlocked so it can be used on many GSM networks, but it’s also available at a discounted price of $179 for those in the United States who sign up for a service contract with T-Mobile. That contract lowers the phone price through a subsidy T-Mobile pays Google that effectively shifts some of the customer costs from up-front payments to monthly fees.

Nexus One

Recently, we had written a post on the so called Google Phone which would have given you an  idea about the rumored “Google Phone”. Recently, a ROM hacker broke into the network to reveal to the world the technical specifications of this phone .
The clever folks at These Are The Droids have analyzed the Android 2.1 ROM for the Nexus One and discovered specs for the Nexus One, including a proximity and ambient light sensor, an accelerometer, a magnetic compass, WiFi, a stereo FM speaker, a noise-cancellation chipset, OpenGL ES 2.0-capable graphics, and references to an auto-focus camera with LED flash. These are Droids also notes that the ROM 2.1 hints at a Snapdragon processor inside.

The Snapdragon is capable of clock speeds that top 1GHz–nearly double the processor speed of Motorola’s DROID. The OpenGL ES 2.0 support should also satisfy gamers, and put the Nexus One on par with the iPhone in terms of graphical power.

Another interesting feature is the purported FM tuner which was also to be included in the Motorola Sholes Tablet specs that leaked out earlier this month (here’s hoping we get some iPod Nano-style live radio control!). These Are Droids also reports that the Nexus One will have an 802.11n chipset (most smart phones currently support 802.11g); WiFi N may be overkill for this little machine, but at least it will be able to fit nicely into a dedicated Wireless-N environment.