I think the Pre is old new now. After going to cnet and looking at the new google phone in action I want one. This new phone may make the Ipod blush and take a step back!
TD Fanatic
I think the Pre is old new now. After going to cnet and looking at the new google phone in action I want one. This new phone may make the Ipod blush and take a step back!
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
For sure, you can even get it engraved like an ipod
if you are out of contract now or up for a upgrade on tmob you can get it for 179 with contract on tmob or buy it unlocked outright for like 530 bux. works on a few carriers but only at edge speeds for att (no 3g, cause att sucks donkeys)
TD Fanatic
Yeah, right now it is only out in the GSM format but they said Verizon will have it in the spring. I am loving the voice command, the live background, the Picasa tie in, Voice enabled navigation and that thing is FAST!
I am free and clear in my phone contract and can switch anytime I feel like it but I don't think I will go with t-mobile. I will go to Verizon if they don't get to silly with their pricing for the phone and service.
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
i think verizon is actually cheaper with the plans, plus you get the network....verizon>all others.
TD Fanatic
You may be right. I guess I should not complain since right now I have the Sprint everything plan for $100. Most all others have the same thing.
I like what Google is doing. They are trying to sell their new phones unlocked so that the carriers don't have you locked in. That is the same way they do it in Asia. No ophone is locked. You buy your phone and pick your carrier and the phone rates are dirt cheap!
Verizon is saying they will not sell their Google phones unlocked. When asked about that, Google only said they have to first get in the game to shake things up! So I guess that means that they will find a way to have their CDMA phones as easy to switch carriers as unlocked GSM phones.
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
the nexus one uses tmobs gsm 3g bands and cdma i believe, it has both radios. so if you bought the unlocked now, you could use it on verizon just fine. the delay on google.com/phone that states verizon in spring i think is only because of the integration of googles chechout model with verizons plans and customer data.
you are right, in asia, europe, india, all phones are sold outright and all networks are gsm so it doesnt matter. google is certainly shaking things up and i feel att will be left behind. there is only so much innovation that can be built into the iphone as it is a closed platform, it is getting stale, and i think att is getting nervous.
when goog introduces pure sip/voip phones that will be a major game changer and the telecoms will be scrambling. although tmob already offers a ONLY data plan for phones now.
verizon will be rolling out LTE next year, a new phone technology, blazing fast speeds, but we will be waiting a while for that.
TD Fanatic
I will be so glad when the Technological revolution is in full sing! It is only a matter of time when I will be dropping comcast and getting all my video needs met through the internet and wireless connections.
I can imagine where magor networks will be competing on the net for viewers alongside home grown "Networks" and Entertainers...
I think this new Google phone along with their introduction of it... Is a handgranade into the storefront window of the tech industry!
I am sure that right now the folks at Apple are in talks to counter the damage that this new phone is going to do to their operating model as well as future sales.
Maybe I am seeing too much into this, but I think this phone is a game changer... Not only where they the new 800lb gorilla in the room with Microsoft but now the 800lb gorilla is about to enter the Apple store and I LOVE IT!
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
this one isn't exactly a game changer IMO, goog is dipping their toes into the game basically...seeing what happens. they have a lot of weight to throw around, they are basically THE biggest advertising company on the internet period, they know marketing, and i bet once they start adding more devices you WILL be seeing goog TV commercials on the super bowl, etc.
i see android in general gobbling up the other PHONE OS's and maybe even cutting into netbook, laptop, and computer OS sales. supposedly googs real PC OS will be chrome (like the browser) but that remains to be seen, there are netbooks out now shipping with android on them though.
they are certainly shaking things up, deviating from the norm, people are watching, corporations are watching, they are kind of a sleeping giant.... apparently they are in talks with other cell manuf's to make more google experience phones such as moto. and they have qwerty keyboard models in the works (hi blackberry) ill bet the execs at apple, rim, and many other companies are taking a sharp notice to that press conference yesterday.
this, just like any tech, will push the creators to go further, faster, which benefits us all.
TV providers are deathly afraid of this, and it is kind of inevitable really. remember the chick fighting for net neutrality? she saw this BACK THEN, and decided to take a stand before the networks and providers could strangle you for your internet privileges.I can imagine where magor networks will be competing on the net for viewers alongside home grown "Networks" and Entertainers...
that fight is far from over, the cable providers will be fighting tooth and nail to find a way to limit your internet and charge you premiums to get to certain websites. hopefully the fcc and law makers will see that is it BS and fend them off.
es muy LOCO
pulled this outta the pre thread and plopped it in the tech section.
TD Fanatic
I hope so but I think Cable, as we know it, is going to go the way of the wired phone in the home.
I was expecting big things from the electric companies delivering Internet through the electric wires....
But I still think that this phone could be a game changer. Take the new Google Phone and walk it over to Walmart with their $30 a month phone & text plan and you could have a winning combo!
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
TD Fanatic
State of the Art - Google Shakes but Doesn’t Upend the Cellphone Market - NYTimes.com
January 6, 2010
State of the Art
Google Shakes but Doesn’t Upend the Cellphone Market
By DAVID POGUE
Google sure does love shaking up the system.
Remember the original Google search page? It made news because your search results popped up fast and weren’t cluttered with ads. Remember when Google went public? It made news because the founders auctioned off shares to the public. Remember when Gmail came out? It made news because it offered 1,000 times the free storage space of competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo.
And now Google wants to shake up the way we buy cellphones — by letting you shop for the phone and the service independently, on a new Google Web site (Google.com/phone).
To introduce this phone store, on Tuesday, Google took the wraps off what may be the worst-kept secret on the Internet: a brand-new cellphone, designed by Google and made by HTC, called the Nexus One. It’s pretty sweet, it advances the state of the art, and it’s a welcome addition to the catalog of great app phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid.
You’ll pay $529 without a two-year contract for service with T-Mobile, or $179 with one.
But the truth is, the Google news this week isn’t quite as earthshaking as Google seems to think it is.
First, the new phone. It’s almost exactly the size and shape of the iPhone. Like most HTC phones, it’s bland-looking. But it’s so thin and rounded, it feels terrific in your hand.
It’s loaded with gleaming, attractive features. It’s hard to choose which is more gratifying: the speed — instant, smooth response when you’re opening programs and scrolling — or the huge, 3.7-inch touch screen, which has much finer resolution than the iPhone (480 by 800 pixels, versus 320 by 480).
There’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, like an iPhone, but also a removable one-day battery and a camera with an LED flash, autofocus and picture settings, although the photos themselves are roughly on par with the iPhone’s.
The Nexus has no physical keyboard — only an on-screen keyboard, with a handy suggestion feature that I actually prefer to the iPhone’s: as you start typing a word (“unfo”), the Nexus displays an entire row of likely candidates (“unfortunately,” “unfortunate,” “unfolding”), which you can tap, thus saving yourself more fiddly typing-on-glass.
Radically enough, you can also dictate anywhere you can type. The transcriptions aren’t what you’d call miraculous — accuracy is maybe 90 percent — but if you have simple messages, speak clearly and remember to pronounce your punctuation, this “experimental” feature is often much faster than typing. (The free Dragon Dictation app for iPhone does the same thing with better accuracy, but you have to copy and paste the results into your other programs.)
As you’d guess, the Nexus uses Google’s own Android operating system, so it’s very similar to, for example, the Motorola Droid phone.
You get an impressive, free, turn-by-turn GPS navigation program, and soon you’ll be able to buy a bedside dock that automatically turns the Nexus into a terrific alarm clock/weather/music station.
Google did make a few updates to the software especially for the Nexus, though. For example, 10 of the available screen backgrounds (wallpaper) are animated; one of them plasters the screen behind your icons with tall blowing grass against a blue sky that actually darkens as the day turns to night. It’s totally pointless and even distracting, but very cool indeed.
There’s better integration all around: you can upload pictures and videos straight to YouTube, Picasa, Facebook and so on, for example, and you can tap a person’s name and choose how you want to initiate contact (e-mail, phone, text message). And you have five “home screens” to fill with the icons of your apps (up from three on the Droid). All of these changes will soon come to other Android phones as a software update.
Despite these goodies, the Nexus is missing some important features that iPhone fans take for granted. For starters, the Google app store is much smaller, featuring 18,000 fun little games; there are well over 100,000 for the iPhone.
Worse, even if you find a lot of good ones, you might not have anywhere to install them. The Nexus can accommodate memory cards up to 32 gigabytes (a 4-gigabyte card comes with it) — and yet, inexplicably, the Nexus allots only a tiny 190 megabytes of storage for downloaded apps.
The Nexus doesn’t come with any iTunes-style companion software, either. Enterprising techies know about the free DoubleTwist program for Mac or Windows, which simulates iTunes for the purposes of loading up your phone with music, photos and videos. But even DoubleTwist doesn’t let you shop the Android app store from the comfort of your computer; you have to do it on the cramped little phone.
There’s no physical ringer on-off switch (you have to do it on the screen), and therefore no way to tell by touch if the ringer is off, as you can on the iPhone and Palm phones.
Sadly, the Nexus One also lacks a multitouch screen like the iPhone’s. So zooming into photos and Web pages is awkward and hard to control.
Finally, the Nexus just doesn’t attain the iPhone’s fit and finish. The buttons under the screen (Back, Menu, Home, Search) are balky, often ignoring your finger-presses completely. One of the animated wallpapers freezes the phone with a message that says: “Sorry! The application Android Live Wallpapers has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” (Note to Google: I did. The same thing happened.)
But maybe it doesn’t matter if the Nexus One isn’t nirvana. Google says it’s only the first Google phone of many, with one store to sell them all.
The idea of the Google phone store is pure, giddy idealism: You’ll buy the phone you want, then you’ll shop for the cell plan you want, from the carrier you want. No more “You want an iPhone? Then you get AT&T.”
Well, it’s about time! Rise up in the streets! Power to the people! Truth shall triumph!
Or not.
I mean, it’s a great idea and all. It’s just that, well, apart from the iPhone, who really cares which carrier has a certain phone? In the list of complaints about American cellphone carriers sent to me by readers, that one is waaaaaay down the list.
Besides, the Google phone store doesn’t really do much to solve the problem. In this country, there are two competing network formats. There’s C.D.M.A. (used by Verizon and Sprint) and there’s G.S.M. (favored by AT&T and T-Mobile and most other countries).
The current Nexus One is a G.S.M. phone. So when you buy it online, you get the following vast menu of carriers: T-Mobile. (Or you can use AT&T, but you have to supply your own subscriber card, and you won’t get 3G Internet speed.)
Wow, that changes everything, doesn’t it?
Google says that a Verizon version of the Nexus is coming in the spring. And you could theoretically buy the $529 version and insert an AT&T service card, although you’ll get only super-slow (pre-3G) Internet speeds.
But still, how is this any different from the way current phones (BlackBerry, Palm Treo, etc.) are offered by different carriers?
Google offers the Nexus either with a contract (if you’re lucky enough to live where T-Mobile has a signal) or without one.
If you buy the no-contract phone ($529), you can get T-Mobile service for $20 a month less than someone who opts for the two-year contract. Which makes sense, since the whole point of the two-year contract is for you to reimburse the carrier for the full price of that phone over time.
But that’s T-Mobile’s brave policy, not Google’s. There’s no word yet on whether the Verizon version will offer the same no-contract discount, but I’m not holding my breath. (Furthermore, you can buy any T-Mobile phone at full price, with a lower monthly service plan. This, too, is not a Google exclusive.)
This is all supposed to be a huge break from the current way of doing cellphone business, but plenty of phones (from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, for example) are already sold this way: over the Web, unlocked, to be outfitted with cell service later. Google’s system makes this much easier — you do all of the choosing on one Web site, and your phone comes in the mail already activated — but it’s really not such a new idea.
Google hopes to expand its online phone store, to really shake things up, to put some fear into the entrenched industry players. It plans to sell more phones, from Google and other companies, each with a choice of carriers. It’s a noble ambition.
But at the start, at least, the results are a pair of head-scratchers. The Nexus One is an excellent app phone, fast and powerful but marred by some glitches and missing features — a worthy competitor to the Droid, if not the iPhone. The Google phone store is a neat, centralized place to buy phones, but so far, it offers zero advantages over buying a T-Mobile phone any other way.
Even so, you should root for the Google Store’s success, because the obnoxious policies and fees of the American cellphone companies have gotten out of control. Anything with even a fighting chance of putting power and choice back in your hands is cause for celebration.
E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
ugh, i almost got sick reading that drivel they call writing, can you say iphone fanboy much? there are many innaccuracys or at least misleading statements in that article....
the nexus one isnt the GOAT, the iphone on AT&T isn't either though.
TD Fanatic
Yeah, as I was reading that I did get the impression that the writer had an Iphone sitting next to him or in his pocket.
I will have to see the cnet prize fight that they will soon do between the Iphone and the new google phone.
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
TD Fanatic
This may be helpfull also
Nexus One REVIEW (PHOTOS, VIDEO, UPDATED): The "Best Android Phone To Date"
" When you fight a clown, someone will end up with a pie in the face. "
es muy LOCO
there are 2 big downers and a few hidden things on that chart.
the nexus comes shipped with a 4 gig sd card true, but is expandable to 32 gig, the iphone is not expandable whatsoever (this is also true for the droid)
the nexus and droid have a flash on the camera, big plus
the nexus and droid have a removable/replaceable battery
the android market is getting there, but remember the app store is filled with a lot of useless junk too (as will the android market once it hits those numbers.)
they all have turn by turn directions but droid and nexus have it WITH voice.
also the voice recognition on nexus can be used in every single text field throughout the whole phone and is extremely accurate IMO, my eris which is a baby nexus is on the money with the voice recognition.
nexus also has dual microphones for noise cancellation in calls...major plus.
TD Fanatic
The nexus supports multi touch. Apps pick up where the native software drops.
Posted via Mobile Device
es muy LOCO
yes, this is true. many think apple is holding a patent over the head of other manufactures with incorporating multi-touch natively in the US. many phones in the UK have multi-touch built in.
for instance dolphin browser (popular browser for android) does multi-touch.
if your wondering just how much of a phone geek i am, i got my eris on 11-10-09 and signed up on androidforums.com, i have since racked up almost 800 posts there...
TD Fanatic
Androidforums is nice if you are still skeptical of the android os
Posted via Mobile Device
es muy LOCO
lmao
android forums is down so im reading some of their blog and i came across this post
Nexus Mother ####ing One Censors Naughty Words | Android Phone Fans
i knew that info and have already discussed it in the forum, but then i scroll down to the comments, first one had me rolling
Sounds good to me. Last thing I need is to text my girlfriend bring home potatoes tonight, and it ends up saying fuck your mother. Thanks for looking out for me Google…
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