Day one with the Nexus One: Mixed feelings.

A day has gone by since I got my Nexus One and I must admit that it has been a day with some disappointments. The Nexus One is a great device in terms of looks and performance, but there are some issues that are unacceptable on a device dubbed the “Super phone” by Google. I do not plan to write a lengthy review of the N1, instead I will write about how the device behaves as my main phone compared to my HTC Touch Pro2. Bear in mind that I had this phone for a day only; more mini-reviews will follow. Let’s get started.

Immediately after unboxing the phone and powering it up I went straight into the Settings to manually download the update that brings pinch to zoom functionality to the device. The downloading and installation of the update was fast.

Secondly I went to setup my Gmail and that, of course, requires that I use the on-screen keyboard. Those who have been following me know that I’m a great fan of hard keyboards. Until recently, I’ve been using the soft keyboard more often on my Touch Pro2. The keyboard was developed by HTC and has completely changed my perception since. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the N1 keyboard. It is awful; as simple as that. I have not been able to type a sentence without having to go backwards to correct mistakes. It is extremely difficult to use as it seems that the buttons are somehow misplaced. I find myself having to tap slightly at the top right of each buttons every time. So forget about fast typing. Again, the Nexus One keyboard is a pain.

The battery – It went down to 25% after a half day use. I won’t write much about this yet until I get all the settings right and download a decent power manager from Android Market. It’s currently 10:00am here and the phone is resting on my desk. Power has dropped to 50%. It was charged whole night and did not exert too much pressure on it this morning. Just downloaded my Gmails, visited some web sites; about half an hour use.

The built-in camera is good compared to 3.2MP of the TP2. However, I had an issue trying to send a picture as an attachment. Actually the Gallery gives me the option to share pictures I take with the phone. So I pick Gmail from the list of available options and doing that brings up the new mail window with the picture attached; enter the recipient’s name (my name; my work and personal address) and hit Send. The email reached the intended mailboxes without the picture. Thinking that I missed something, I started the whole operation again without success. Gmail does not want to send my attachments. Why is that? Ongoing investigation…

On the other hand, the device is very responsive; downloading applications from Market was very fast. What to say about the phone itself? It’s super thin, light, solid and beautiful. The screen is gorgeous.

That’s it for now.