The Google Nexus One Review

Google forces the Android issue with Nexus One. Hardware and software issues keep it from besting iPhone and even Palm Pre, but what about Droid?

Here at Tom’s Guide, we aren’t easily impressed. Lots of hardware, software and tech makes its way through our pearly gates, but most products prove dull, unoriginal, and occasionally, useless. Smart phones are no different, though through our constant demands for the perfect product, we’re faced with a repetitive problem: when will the iPhone be beaten?

There’s no denying the Android—Google’s open source operating system—is gaining steam, both in the number of available models and the number of units purchased. iPhone sales, iPhone OS and models from RIM (Blackberry) have also grown, but not at the rate that Google has managed to push through hardware makers, specifically HTC and Motorola. Now other phone manufacturers are seriously implementing the Android operating system into their latest models, with AT&T recently announcing its first steps into the Android market.

Google itself, however, has been plagued by phones which have continued to not meet the company’s own ease-of-use standards. In an unprecedented move, the company delivered the Nexus One, a joint initiative to provide hands-on work on a phone design, in conjunction with HTC. In the following pages, we review this device, though we imagine our readers will find stark similarities between the Nexus One and Motorola’s Droid, which we briefly looked at in November.

Unofficially dubbed the new “Google Phone” (a name that was passed down from the T-Mobile G1, then the MyTouch 3G), the Nexus One is available in the US only on T-Mobile (so far), and is sold through Google directly. HTC manufactures and provides support for the device, which costs $179 with a service contract from T-Mobile and $529 unlocked.