Google's Nexus One no iPhone killer
The Nexus One isn't revolutionary. Nor is it an iPhone killer - a phrase we should banish to the Tech Writers' Hall of Cliches.
It's a nice phone. OK, it's a very nice phone.
But nothing about the new Nexus One smartphone from Google comes close to warranting the mass hysteria that attended its unveiling last week.
The Nexus One isn't revolutionary. Nor is it an iPhone killer — a phrase we should banish to the Tech Writers' Hall of Cliches.
It is, instead, a sleek phone with some advancements in display and processor technology that will surely be matched and then overtaken by others in the months ahead.
True, the rapidly evolving competition among Google, Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion is fascinating to watch. And Google's plunge into e-tailing — the Nexus One can only be bought directly from the company over the web — has the potential to shake up how phones are sold.
Me, though, I find it hard to swoon over a business model.
Specifications
The Nexus One, manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp to Google's specifications, is similar in both size and shape to the iPhone — a smidge thinner and lighter, a trifle longer. It runs a new version of Google's Android operating system that makes modest tweaks to the software that debuted on Motorola's Droid two months ago.
If anyone ought to feel threatened by the Nexus One, it's Motorola, which committed to using Android for all its smartphones and now has powerful new competition from its own partner. Just to cite one area, the Droid's screen used to be my favourite: super-bright, with higher resolution than the iPhone.
But the Nexus One uses new technology that provides an even richer display, with deeper colours and blacker blacks. It's a thing of beauty.
Processor
Under the hood, the Nexus One uses a Qualcomm processor that's the most powerful ever put in a phone. It also has enhanced 3-D graphics, expanded speech-to-text features — you can now dictate your Facebook or Twitter updates rather than type them — a replaceable battery and a memory-card slot.
At the same time, the Nexus One shares the shortcomings of previous Android and HTC phones.
The number of Android apps trails far behind the iPhone. So does Android's ability to sync with Microsoft Outlook for email, calendars and contacts, though the Nexus One does come with a version of DataViz's Documents To Go software that lets you work with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
While all this is interesting, it's hardly earth-shattering. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it changed the entire way people thought about wireless devices.
The Nexus One? It's just a very nice phone.
