Ok, the horseshit has started "officially" now.

How about these sweet quotes:

The CEO of HTC says "it’s one of the best industrial designs from HTC"

Seriously? You're unveiling a phone and you say it's "one of?" This guy needs some PR lessons. You always say it's "THE BEST" when you're announcing something new. "The best phone we've ever produced" - "The most modern design we've ever launched" etc..

At 11.5mm thick and 130g they claim it's

"The thinness is thinner than a #2 pencil, and lighter than a Swiss Army keychain knife"

Bullshit. On both counts. A pencil is not even 10mm thick, let alone greater than 11.5. A "keychain" swiss army knife at 130g? No, not quite. They even showed a slide which clearly illustrates the phone is much thicker than a pencil. Someone was asleep here.

The specs sound nice, and this could finally be some decent Android hardware (everything else sucks completely, including all the "Droid" phones). Hopefully they don't burn it with their lack-lustre PR and marketing.

The only thing I'm not digging from a hardware POV is the track ball. Bad bad bad. WTF would you want a trackball on a multi-touch LCD phone? This is going to be an achilles heel in the long run. Well, that and the fact the phone isn't all black on the front side. I can't really tell whether it's brown or champagne, both of which would be somewhat lame. The shape also screams "HTC" and Google should really have made sure the phone wasn't going to use some old molds HTC had lying around.

If this thing was able to run iPhone apps it would probably do really well though.

You can buy yours here (if your'e in the US): http://www.google.com/phone

From the new images it looks like the colour is actually fake-titanium-like. Still too brown at least in the on-screen examples.

I've played with a Droid and it's quite nice. I like it better than the iPhone, not that I have a huge amount of experience with either. ("All the Droid phones"? How many do you know of?)

The fact that the screen has well over twice the resolution of an iPhone is really significant. It's really an incredible display. The hardware keyboard is mediocre, but I find its soft keyboard easier to type with than the iPhone's. As such, I'd prefer a thinner device without the hard keyboard, like the Nexus One.

The Nexus One's screen has the same specs as the Droid's. Its CPU is all but twice as fast. A 1GHz Snapdragon ARM? I've got computers I still use that are slower than that. And the Droid isn't poky by any means.

The trackball is a horrid idea, though. You're right about that. My PoS Blackberry has a trackball and it's awful. It gets jammed up with dust to the point of failure all the time, and it gets progressively harder to get it to register a click. Horrible physical UI. There is an advantage to having a relative motion UI, though, as the high-res screen can make it a little harder to click on small elements, which are usually web page links. A secondary capacitive touch sensor probably makes the most sense. Or multitouch gestures, maybe.

I was really hoping for the hinted-at cheap data-only service plan, which didn't materialize. I use my phone about five times a month. I use the data capabilities constantly. I don't want to pay $50 a month for a service that I basically don't use, just to get the ability to pay $20 a month for the service I do. I'd happily pay $20 a month for unlimited data service on top of a PAYGo plan.

I still don't care about your PR criticism, though, any more than I care about PR. Which is none.

As is typical, I agree with Bitt's comments.

I will argue on behalf of the trackball, though. I've had a G1 for about 13 months now, and I use the trackball all the time. It hasn't gotten gunked up even though I have no case on the phone and always keep it in my pants pocket. Frankly, I love that they put a trackball on there, as it gives me more control choices. Capacitive screens are great for fingertip control, but fingertip control is terrible at precision. The trackball helps with that immensely.

Bruno, I'm only guessing at why you don't like the trackball (since you didn't say), but is it a worry that developers with use it as a crutch? That's not the case at all, as I could use my G1 100% of the time without the trackball (I've never encountered a single app that requires it), but I find it very helpful when trying to do precision controlling.

Anyway, if I had the cash (it's just after Christmas, so that's not the case) I'd buy this phone in an instant. It's the best Android phone yet, and I feel it's finally a valid competitor to the iPhone. The App Market is getting better all the time, and finally the big-time developers are realizing that simultaneous development for iPhone and Android is important.

It's certainly possible that the trackball on my Blackberry is substandard. Everything else about it is.

That's possible, and I put my phone trackball-first into my pocket Though I was under the impression that they were using the same...balls.

No, I dislike the trackball because it's a mechanical interface prone to failure as bit mentioned. There are no physical "keys" so having a physical trackball just seems rather dumb-ass. I've never heard of a trackball that has not caused problems for the device it was used in. Recently, that includes the Blackberry and the Apple Mighty Mouse. Previously you've had larger scale full-size trackballs with few exceptions and of course balled mice. I have two balls already that provide tactile feedback, I don't need one on a phone.

How many Droids do I know of? Three. The US Moto Droid, the European Moto Milo (that's the name right?) and the HTC Droid Eris. The G1 is frankly a pile of hurt with its crooked design. Sorry Matt.

The new Nexus One is the best so far. And again, my amazement that HTC didn't just come out and say that - "It's the best."

Google still need to do a lot of work to maximize on the resolution and quality of the display. Some of the Android UI is really hurting. I'd also like to see them tighten up the reigns a little with regards to the platform to make sure that experience between phone models is more cohesive. One of the things that has always hindered Microsoft in the mobile marketplace is product segmentation. Good on Google for launching their own phone, but they need to do more than sell it from their own web page to really promote Android. None of the other (Android) handset makers have any hope in hell of ever coming close to Apple on their own. And the platform won't flourish unless it continues to get and maintain developer, and of course consumer, interest. The current way of selling the Nexus One seems acceptable for developers, but won't make a significant impact on the consumer space.

Oh, I don't think I've ever defended the G1's design. It's a bulky, pretty ugly phone.

The Moto Droid and the Moto Milestone are the same phone, just one is GSM and one is CDMA. So there are only two Droid phones, really.

I hate ball mice, but like I said, I've never seen a trackball on a phone that got messed up, so I think that's one of those YMMV things like "I never use X brand hard drives because I've had 10 that all failed." I've had experience with 4 trackball phones and they've all been fine over a total of 5 years. Maybe if I had one of those phones for more than 2 years I'd start seeing them get messed up.


As for the whole "why don't they call it the best" thing, well, the answer is pretty damn simple. HTC makes a lot of phones. They can't call it their best Android phone because it would piss off Sprint, and AT&T. If they call it their best phone period, well that pisses off the same companies plus Microsoft.

Of course you're right. HTC is just a commodity producer and they're not helping that position any with their recent actions. This despite wanting to become a preeminent mobile brand. This is something you'd think Google would have been able to control.

But then you get a gem like this from Andy Rubin (Google mobile chief):


They may not be taking the hardware that seriously as a commercial vehicle after all. Maybe just somewhat of a reference platform that people can actually use themselves.

Okay, I didn't realize that Verizon was marketing the Hero as the Droid Eris. As Matt already pointed out, the Milestone (not Milo) is just the GSM version of the Droid.

I guess "Droid" is going to be Verizon's marketing term for its Android-based phones. Seems an odd choice.

Had a good play for a couple of weeks with the leading phones before Christmas (excluding the Nexus obviously) and the Motorola Droid absolutely whupped the iPhone. But more importantly, the Nokia N900 was streets ahead of them both for everything!

I will be looking at the Nexus, but it still has the same problem:

Touchscreen!

What is it with people and touchscreens? Am I the only one who doesn't get it? Sure, there are some fun games which use it, but really... I even prefer my crappy Blackberry to the iPhone, as it has buttons and a nice trackball (just joking about the nice)

Why am I feeling so ranty? Stuck here, snowed in, working from home, snow every day for 2 weeks now. Bah!

It's ironic that your lambasting of the Nexus One is what has exposed me to the Nexus One. I don't keep up on these things, but I do read these forums every so often and when I see you complaining about a product or service, I know it must be the next big thing and my curiosity is piqued.

How can you possibly hate GMail's user interface?

The advantage to the touchscreen is that the screen becomes the input device, which means that the screen size can be maximized and/or the device can be ensmallened. Also, fewer moving parts means that there's less to break.

For some reason after seeing the ads, my first reaction was...

"This phone is aimed at Facebook users."

No no no, that's the Motorola CLIQ. There's nothing about the Nexus that's any more oriented to Facebook than the iPhone. They both have Facebook apps and that's all. Perhaps the marketing is trying to attract Facebook users, which you have to admit is a very large market.

Rory, I somewhat agree with you. I've long hated virtual keyboards. The larger screens on the Droid and the Nexus are changing that opinion for me. But ONLY when it comes to landscape virtual keyboards. Nobody can convince me that typing on a portrait virtual keyboard works. At least, not for people with thumbs like mine

I even don't mind the iPhone landscape virtual keyboard, but sadly, in my experience with the device, you seem to be rarely presented with the option, or you have to close the keyboard, then rotate, then get back into it. But in too many cases, it just looks like they don't let you have the landscape version.

I've grown to like the iPhone portrait keyboard and hate the landscape one, mainly because the landscape keyboard is too big, so it slows me down. The portrait keyboard works, totally with my thumb, at a reasonable speed. The trick, as always, is to "use the Force" and go back and correct errors later.

In my brief playing with a Googlephone, though, my now-hardwired finger motion of going back and correcting myself is not really optimal on Android. You really need to pay attention to the suggestion list and make your picks from the list if at all possible.

Everybody online is grumbling about the lack of multitouch. The thing that first snagged me is the lack of the loupe for fine cursor positioning. Presumably, given the open-source-ness of Android, there will eventually be patches to fix all of this. Patent infringement issues would get tricky, but that's a separate problem.

Actually, I lambasted the press event and what was being said about the product. The hardware itself sounds very nice, with the exceptions noted.

My personal punditry track record is actually pretty good, even though I sometimes "hope" against my own predictions. Some products just come before their time and you know they're going to get killed off and the concept put on a shelf for a few years before the next step is taken. Case in point, the Newton, the grand-daddy of the products we're discussing now.

After owning an iPhone for a year I can't understand why anyone wants a physical keyboard or pointing device on a phone/small mobile device.

I can type quicker on the iPhone keyboard than I ever have on any tiny phone sized keyboard. Tapping the screen is far faster than messing about with a track ball style device. I can tap on even the smallest links in zoomed out web pages (you just have to have faith that the iPhone will know what you wanted to tap on and 99% of the time it gets it right even when you are convinced it can't).

Add to that that not needing a keyboard and pointing device makes the device smaller and more reliable.

The only case that I can think were a trackball style device (or a stylus) would be better is when doing something like VNC/Remote desktop where the software can't be smart and know what you are clicking on.

Whenever I see a device with a pointing device I see it as a failure of the software, if they got the software as right as Apple have then they wouldn't need the pointing device.

I will admit though that some people really struggle when first using the iPhone. They just don't believe that gently stroking the screen is the way to go. They press too hard, hold the tap too long and just don't get on with it. I have a friend who was unable to get it to do anything and I really don't understand how he was getting it to behave so badly, I tried emulating how he was heavy handedly tapping, but every time I did it responded perfectly. All very odd.

I must have a play with a Droid or Nexus though, I haven't compared the iPhone to its recent competitors.

It really doesn't matter how large your thumbs/fingers are when you "get" how to type on the iPhone keyboard. With even the largest thumbs when typing using the edge of a thumb the actual contact patch (when taping with a gentle stroke) is still smaller than the keys on the iPhone portrait mode keyboard.

It helps when first using the iPhone keyboard to know about the rocking you can do to correct errors before they even occur. Most people assume that when the letter pops up that is the one selected and release the key even if they got the wrong letter. It makes it much easier to get the hang of if someone points out that if the wrong letter pops up you just hold the tap and rock your finger slightly in the direction of the right key (or slide) and then release when the popped up letter is correct.

I far prefer the portrait keyboard to the landscape one. The landscape one just takes up too much space and I understand completely why most app writers don't go to the trouble of supporting it.

One thing the iPhone really needs is a switch to disable screen rotation. It is a total pain when laying in bed reading/typing and the rotation keys kicking in.

I'll agree with that last point. I'm surprised that nobody has thought of a solution to that one yet. When I'm lying on the couch watching TV and want to check a new email, it's very annoying to turn on the phone and have it rotate.

But I can only meet you halfway on the previous point and concede that it's a matter of personal preference. To me, your description of how to get used to the portrait iPhone keyboard sounds maddening. Personally, I want to minimize the chances I'll hit the wrong key, and that's why I prefer the landscape keyboard on EITHER phone platform.

And by the way, I'm trying to compare apples to apples here. I'm a tad surprised at all the people who in one paragraph say "oh, you get used to the iPhone portrait keyboard," and in the next say "I only used the Android keyboard for a minute, but I really didn't like it." You can't get a good impression of either phone in a couple minutes or even a couple hours of use.

I'll admit that the Android method can seem a tad herky jerky. The idea is that instead of typing continuously and your mistakes are corrected (or you have to go back later and correct them), you're presented with suggestions. Granted, this does take one of your fingers off the keyboard, but I'd estimate that for about half of the words it really does a better job at speeding things along (and lets you use some longer words that you might not use otherwise ).

Are there any 'typing tutor' style apps for any of the smartphones?

(I could go looking myself, of course. Sorry)

m4715 834c0n 733t Typing Tutor?

Well, some quick googling for 'iphone typing tutor' and 'droid typing tutor' does yield some results.
Question answered.

AT&T has announced three Android phones, a Motorola, an HTC, and a Dell, with two more to come.

Personally, while I like Android, I was hoping for more change in service stemming from the OHA. I don't have a personal smartphone because I don't want that large a monthly fee. I'd really like to see more à la carte service pricing and trivial carrier changes.

I love my Droid so far. I rarely use the physical keyboard unless I'm sending a long text message or something. One thing I'd really like to see on it is multi-touch.

I think there's some multi-touch functionality in the browser.
http://phandroid.com/2010/01/04/motorola-droid-gets-multitouch-browser-from-milestone/

Here's a nice and quick little write-up (I can't call it a review really) by David Pogue at the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/technology/personaltech/06pogue.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Choice quotes:





This next one is a little worrying... And it might just be the software apps tested didn't support the features.

It doesn't lack a multi-touch screen. It's a capacitive screen that does support multi-touch, Google just appears to be playing nicely with Apple and not competing directly on that front, for whatever reason. The hardware supports it, the software doesn't. Even the G1 had multi-touch capability (however, you couldn't cross axes from multiple fingers on it).

I have one and I'm very amazed at how fast it is. I have never extensively used an iPhone, so I can't compare to that. However, it blows the G1 out of the water. Very very snappy.

AMA

Thanks for making that correction. I have a rooted G1, and I can do pinch-to-zoom. But you know what? I don't care! I really don't care about multi-touch. Not on my phone, not on a trackpad (I despise trackpads anyway), and certainly not on a mouse.

you've clearly never used two-finger scrolling on a macbook. It's like going back to the days of the wheel-less mouse when I use a PC.

When I'm using any PC, even one with a track-pad, it's like I'm using a 1980's joystick to control the cursor. The MacBook and MacBook Pro trackpads are just so much better than anything on your typical Dell that it's beyond night and day.

While I don't use pinch to zoom nor two-finger rotation, the two finger scroll, both vertical and horizontal, plus the two-finger right-click make multi-touch invaluable.