Back in February, I breathlessly blogged about my first 24 hours with my Google Nexus One.

Now I’ve had it for four months, and now that the iPhone has just been updated to iOS 4.0, I thought I’d quickly write some more considered thoughts.

Yay: it’s unlocked! Yay: it’s not an ‘Orange’ edition!
This is more of a benefit than I at first thought. The fact that the phone was unlocked meant that on a trip to Ghana, I could pull out the O2 SIM from it and throw in a Vodafone one; and (once I’d set the APN information) it was just fine. When you change the SIM card over, incidentally, it cleverly forgets your Google login details: a clever bit of security.

But the fact that my mobile phone operator hasn’t messed about with the phone is good news too. A friend of mine got an HTC Desire (pretty well the same phone) from Orange: yet Orange had somehow disabled Google Talk and other bits of the operating system. It could be worse: AT&T have released an Android phone and removed every single piece of integration to Google – it even searches Yahoo instead. The Nexus isn’t operator-hobbled: indeed, running Android 2.2, I appear to have a tether option on my phone (which I’m sure wouldn’t exist there if the operator could turn it off).

HTC phones have their own UI slapped on top of Android, in the form of ‘Sense’: this is lovely, but it does mean more complication in terms of OS updates, since they need to update both the main OS, but also their UI: inevitably delaying releases. The Nexus has no such additional stuff, so updates come quickly.

Yay: The Android Market
Publishing an app on the Android Market appears to be instantaneous. For the user, this means more updates, since these are fairly painless for a developer; so we get more features faster than iPhone users. The fact that there were over twelve vuvuzela apps on the Android phone within the first week of the World Cup shows how much more nimble this approach is. If you think this sounds like you’re forever updating apps: well, you are – at least until Android 2.2 is properly rolled out, which offers an automated update option for apps you trust.

Boo: The Android Market
My issues with the Android Market remain the same, though: in that there’s far too much dross. Nobody’s checking these apps as they’re published; there are too many crappy ad-encumbered apps here. The Market has had a tweak in 2.2, but not enough of one: it’s still difficult to find decent apps – searching for ‘Twitter’, for example, still returns apps in a vague order rather than obviously putting Twitter’s own (and leading) app at the top. I’ve resorted to AppAware, which monitors the apps that thousands of people are installing and uninstalling. There’s also a depressingly large amount of ‘sexy girls’ apps in here: I’d actually prefer these to be behind a ‘mature’ filter which is switched off by default. The reality is that these apps are rubbish, rather than erotic; and they don’t help sell Android to the masses.

Boo: The keyboard
The keyboard’s got better in 2.2, but even so, it’s not as good as the iPhone’s. It has good auto-correct, but that’s no substitute for sensible input in the first place. This being Android, you can change it to any number of other keyboards, including a rather clever one from Swype; I’d just like a decent one, please.

Yay: The screen
After using my laptop for a while, picking up the Nexus One is an almost amazing experience. The screen brightness is always the perfect brightness for the room (again, improved in v2.2). But the secret is the 252 pixels-per-sq-inch resolution of the device – not the iPhone 4′s 326 pixels-per-sq-inch, but a significantly smoother experience. The original iPhone, for comparison, is 160 pixels-per-sq-inch; my MacBook Pro is 113 pixels-per-sq-inch. It is a significantly better screen that I’ve ever had; and I doubt that I’ll spot the extra 30% on an iPhone 4, though I certainly spot the 220% increase from my own computer. It makes a massive, massive difference.

Yay: the satnav
The phone has an inbuilt satnav (again, improved in v2.2). It’s not perfect: I miss my TomTom’s “shortest route” which was perfect for a bicycle or a serendipitous lazy drive back from a meeting, and I miss the display telling me when I’d get there – 10.02am is much better than “31 minutes” – but it’s a really, really good satnav, complete with live traffic details. I’ve unplugged and retired the TomTom as a result, when its traffic subscription ended; and bought a cheap car holder.

Boo: The battery life
BIG BOO: THE BATTERY LIFE! BOOOOO! BOOO! BOOOO!
After all of the above: my goodness, the battery life is dreadful. If the day starts at 8.00am, the phone will be in amber, or red, by five. I carry a Philips rechargeable PowerPack which allows me some emergency extra power (I’d recommend one for recharging any USB device incidentally); but my, the battery life is awful: worse, even, than the iPhone.
In particular, the drain on the battery when using the satnav is so great that it isn’t possible, using most car chargers, to keep the phone charged. It loses battery even if it’s plugged in! This is unfortunate, to say the least. Apparently, the way round it is to use a charger rated at 1000mA. I bought one, but it seemingly doesn’t work at all in my car; a replacement from the company I bought it from also doesn’t work, so I’m still using a lower-rated one instead.
The poor battery management significantly hampers the usefulness of this phone.
There are some apps, like JuiceDefender, which offer significant battery savings by fiddling with the data connections on the phone – the battery drain appears to be related to the use of the mobile phone network, rather than anything else – and the OS does include a nice screen telling you what’s been using the battery, too; but even so, the battery is the worst bit of this phone.

Yay: the camera
The camera (which is given zoom in 2.2) is surprisingly decent: coping with macro and landscape photos quite well. (It even coped when it went to visit its maker). It’s good enough to leave the proper camera at home. For a bit.

Boo: Still no FM radio
The rumours about Froyo enabling an FM tuner in the Nexus One are apparently false, which is a shame. The HTC Desire does have one, apparently.

So, in total: mostly great phone. Shame about the battery. I’d like to tell you a little more about the battery, but it looks as if it’s just about to ru-

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