Google’s Nexus One

Nexus One which is considered to be a true iPhone killer is a smartphone by HTC powered by Google Android. The device is sold unlocked therefore there is no  restriction on the use of a single network provider. Some of its cool features are mentioned below.

• It has a 3.7 inch AMOLED screen with PenTile matrix pixel arrangement.
• The capacitive touch screen is capable of handling limited multi-touch gestures similar to iPhone.
• It has an illuminated trackball which emits different colors of light based on the type of notification being received.
• It has a voice processor which is developed by Audience that uses a second microphone on the back to reduce background noise during phone conversations.
• It contains a 3.5mm stereo headset jack (4-conductor TRRS style).
• The phone features a 5.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and digital zoom, a GPS receiver, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and 802.11b/g WiFi capabilities.
• It has a very powerful Snapdragon processor which allows many advanced capabilities including 720p video playback.
• Nexus comes with a built in hardware decoding for H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 video, and is capable of playing MP3, AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and MIDI audio, and displaying the JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image formats.
• It uses a micro USB port which conforms to the GSMA Universal Charging Solution instead of the common mini-USB port, or HTC’s mini-USB compatible format (ExtUSB).
• It is packed with a microSD card slot that allows expansion up to 32 gigabytes of card storage.
• One of the limitation of Nexus is that the applications can only be installed in the 512 MB internal flash memory, of which 190 MB are available for that purpose which is similar to the RIM limitation.
• The Nexus One runs the new Google Android 2.1 operating system and therefore supports “Live Wallpapers”, which are animated in the background and react to different user inputs.
• It has a single button which can be pressed to access the list of applications installed on the phone.
• The thumbnail listing of applications can be scrolled up and down and, as it’s scrolled, the applications roll up into a 3D cube instead of disappearing from the screen. Once the bottom of the application thumbnail list is hit, the screen bounces off similar to the iPhone functionality.
• Cooliris has developed its integrated Media Gallery that provides several new features allowing the user to browse, edit, and share photos and videos on the phone. The Media Gallery and webbrowser display with 16-bit colour rather than 24-bit.
• The Nexus One can play Flash content with Adobe Systems Flash Player release 10.1.
• It has access to more than 34,000 applications through the Android Market.
• Nexus One doesn’t support push email, calendar, and contact sync when working with a variety of Microsoft Exchange Servers. However such limitations are overcome by using third party applications such as TouchDown, K-9 Mail and Moxier Mail that are available from the Android Market.
• Also the Nexus One initially had problems with 3G connectivity and touchscreen.

Nexus One though still far from being an iPhone killer, have come pretty close in reducing the gap between the iPhone competitors. If google keeps on enhancing the Android OS, it won’t be far when it surpasses even the dominance of the famous windows mobile.