One thing I really hate about society is ‘others’ telling me what I should do. This applies for everything; I hate others forcing their ideas on me about what I should do with my life or ‘expecting’ me to do stuff in the way they think is the only option, or telling me to ‘follow the crowd’. This is precisely the reason why I hate Apple and its products and that’s why I chose to go with Google Nexus One over Apple iPhone.
I totally agree that iPhone is a trend-setter and it set the standards for the smart phone market. But that doesn’t give them the right to tell people what they should do with their phone. I used to follow iPhone and its evolution closely. Every time I look at one, I wish I had one, but I couldn’t cope up with the idea of enjoying a ‘walled garden’. More than that, I would prefer suicide to being tied up with one carrier for 2 years. I was ready to pay the premium to get an unlocked device, but that won’t free me from Apple telling me how I should use my phone. So I decided to wait for the right device to come by.
Then came Android mobile OS from Google and I was very happy to see something promising coming up. For one of my (masters) subjects last semester, I worked on an android based project. We used HTC Dream and Hero for our projects and needless to say, I was really amazed with HTC Hero. But I didn’t feel it was better than iPhone.
Manufactured by HTC and software & marketing by Google, Nexus one has its brand value, to start with. Even though I did know about Nexus One’s existence for quite some time, I never really focussed my attention towards it. One reason is that its Google’s first ‘physical’ device. They’ve only been to the software before and no matter how good they are at what they do, I believe in thinking twice before investing in technology.
It took me around 2-3 days to finish reading almost all the articles out there about nexus one. By the time I finished, I knew that this is the phone for me. Some of the features of Nexus One which did the trick are,
Business Model – Simple and elegant. Only one place to buy – Google store and one price around the world. I know people will disagree with me on this as Google themselves declared this is not a good model as customers like to see and feel the device before buying. But I love this model, I really do.
Not tied with any carrier - As I pointed out early, I hate going to a carrier’s shop (especially Singtel) and waiting in the long queue. Once you get to the sales person, they treat you like pathetic losers. Also you have to sign in for a 2 year contract and you are adding 2 miserable years to your life. I strongly believe that phones shouldn’t be tied to any carriers and it’s a strong violation of customer rights. Telecom industry in Singapore (and US?) has much to learn from their Indian counterparts.
Device is ‘Open’ - You can do whatever the hell you want with it, literally. You can manage the storage device in your own way. I do manual syncing of songs and my data and Nexus One actually allows that.
Integrated Apps - Since Nexus One comes straight from Google, all of its services like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sky, Gtalk, Google Calendar etc are fully integrated and we can expect full and free lifelong support.
And some of the other ‘much-talked-about’ features (as compared to iPhone) are multi-tasking, bigger & higher resolution (800 x 480) AMOLED display (which is stunning), light-weight, faster processor (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 512MB RAM & flash), 5 megapixel camera, upcoming flash support etc
I got the phone around one week back and I have to admit, it’s changing the way I used to do certain things and I love the experience. It’s really powerful and extremely user friendly. Besides the contact syncing problem I faced (yeah, it’s all in the cloud), it took me zero time to get fully ‘Nexus-ed’.
Even though it is one awesome device, there are many things I would like to see in the future software upgrades. I will be posting a review blog soon about my comments and experience with Nexus One.
Now I believe iPhone has met its match. It happened around 6 months before and a lot of new android based devices are coming out, all of which are one step ahead of iPhone. In China, android devices already outnumber iPhones. All these remind me of the old Apple vs. Microsoft war in the PC market which Apple lost miserably. Let’s wait and see whether history repeats, which is something I am betting on.
More links on Google vs. Apple
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-vs-apple/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/the-dogs-of-war-apple-vs-google-vs-microsoft/
I totally agree that iPhone is a trend-setter and it set the standards for the smart phone market. But that doesn’t give them the right to tell people what they should do with their phone. I used to follow iPhone and its evolution closely. Every time I look at one, I wish I had one, but I couldn’t cope up with the idea of enjoying a ‘walled garden’. More than that, I would prefer suicide to being tied up with one carrier for 2 years. I was ready to pay the premium to get an unlocked device, but that won’t free me from Apple telling me how I should use my phone. So I decided to wait for the right device to come by.
Then came Android mobile OS from Google and I was very happy to see something promising coming up. For one of my (masters) subjects last semester, I worked on an android based project. We used HTC Dream and Hero for our projects and needless to say, I was really amazed with HTC Hero. But I didn’t feel it was better than iPhone.
Manufactured by HTC and software & marketing by Google, Nexus one has its brand value, to start with. Even though I did know about Nexus One’s existence for quite some time, I never really focussed my attention towards it. One reason is that its Google’s first ‘physical’ device. They’ve only been to the software before and no matter how good they are at what they do, I believe in thinking twice before investing in technology.It took me around 2-3 days to finish reading almost all the articles out there about nexus one. By the time I finished, I knew that this is the phone for me. Some of the features of Nexus One which did the trick are,
Business Model – Simple and elegant. Only one place to buy – Google store and one price around the world. I know people will disagree with me on this as Google themselves declared this is not a good model as customers like to see and feel the device before buying. But I love this model, I really do.
Not tied with any carrier - As I pointed out early, I hate going to a carrier’s shop (especially Singtel) and waiting in the long queue. Once you get to the sales person, they treat you like pathetic losers. Also you have to sign in for a 2 year contract and you are adding 2 miserable years to your life. I strongly believe that phones shouldn’t be tied to any carriers and it’s a strong violation of customer rights. Telecom industry in Singapore (and US?) has much to learn from their Indian counterparts.
Device is ‘Open’ - You can do whatever the hell you want with it, literally. You can manage the storage device in your own way. I do manual syncing of songs and my data and Nexus One actually allows that.
Integrated Apps - Since Nexus One comes straight from Google, all of its services like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sky, Gtalk, Google Calendar etc are fully integrated and we can expect full and free lifelong support.
And some of the other ‘much-talked-about’ features (as compared to iPhone) are multi-tasking, bigger & higher resolution (800 x 480) AMOLED display (which is stunning), light-weight, faster processor (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 512MB RAM & flash), 5 megapixel camera, upcoming flash support etc
I got the phone around one week back and I have to admit, it’s changing the way I used to do certain things and I love the experience. It’s really powerful and extremely user friendly. Besides the contact syncing problem I faced (yeah, it’s all in the cloud), it took me zero time to get fully ‘Nexus-ed’.
Even though it is one awesome device, there are many things I would like to see in the future software upgrades. I will be posting a review blog soon about my comments and experience with Nexus One.
Now I believe iPhone has met its match. It happened around 6 months before and a lot of new android based devices are coming out, all of which are one step ahead of iPhone. In China, android devices already outnumber iPhones. All these remind me of the old Apple vs. Microsoft war in the PC market which Apple lost miserably. Let’s wait and see whether history repeats, which is something I am betting on.
More links on Google vs. Apple
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-vs-apple/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/the-dogs-of-war-apple-vs-google-vs-microsoft/
3 comments:
I can see you are completely besotted with your new toy :) but its a great buy!!
Yeah aishu I love this gadget, it has really brought web to the phone :)
I agree with you on the business model.
This carrier-phone tie up is not beautiful. That is what I hate about iPhone
Post a Comment