The first thoroughbred pure Android “superphone”. Announced and released in January of 2010, nearly 4 years ago, the Nexus One represented a new class of smartphones that would continue to converge style, performance and feature sets with a great user interface into one amazing package. However, we are talking here about a phone that is nearly 4 years old! 4 years in today’s fast moving mobile industry is an eternity! Is the Nexus One still worthy of its Nexus badging? Find out more in the review!
DESIGN
Lust worthy objects are always “love at first sight” and the Nexus One doesn’t break away from tradition. It is genuinely a “love at first sight” phone. HTC has definitely put in a lot of effort into designing the Nexus One and the results do speak for themselves. Packing in sophisticated hardware into a beautifully extruded aluminium unibody, the Nexus One is definitely a handsome looking device. It certainly wouldn’t look out of place with today’s smartphones and still is one heck of a desirable phone in terms of appearance.
The unibody “wrap around” casing
Compared to other phones of the Nexus One’s era like the iPhone 3GS and the HTC HD2, the Nexus One does truly shine in looks. Whereas the 3GS looks basically what the original iPhone looked like which inevitably means tired and boring, the Nexus One looks refreshing with its curvy yet industrial looks and that brilliant unibody casing! In many ways it’s as if the steadfast HTC Herowas married to the metallic and curvacious original iPhone, spawning the Nexus One.
HARDWARE
2010’s de-facto smartphone hardware specification was kicked off with the Nexus One’s inclusion of the speedy 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 SoC. 1GHz, 512MB RAM, sharp screen, good GPU. This same recipe was replicated on the Samsung Galaxy S, the iPhone 4, the N1’s successor Nexus S and so on, so obviously the N1 is a reasonable performer as well. NEXUS ONE SPEC SHEET
- Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 @ 1GHz
- Qualcomm Adreno 200 GPU
- 512 MB RAM
- 512 MB ROM
- 3.7″ 800×480 AMOLED display
- 5MP camera, D1 video recording (hackable to 720P)
- Noise cancelling dual microphones
- MULTI COLOURED TRACKBALL!!!
- Android 2.1 Éclair (Officially upgradeable to 2.3.7 Gingerbread, unofficially 4.1.2 Jellybean)
Powered by a 1GHz processor, the Nexus One is fairly capable of running most apps like Facebook or WhatsApp without issue. The weak Adreno 200 GPU does bottleneck the speedy chip by inducing head-achingly choppy scrolling, spoiling the whole user experience. This choppiness is most evident in the app drawer and browsing through relatively resource intensive apps like Facebook. Also, don’t expect to be running very many of the latest games on this phone as once again, the Adreno 200 GPU handicaps the system. Popular 2D games like Fun Run and Bejeweled Blitz works fine without slowdown so if casual gaming is your thing, the N1 won’t let you down. Storage in the Nexus One is a bugging little problem as 512MB isn’t particularly spacious. And when you factor in the ROM and various other system resources, what you are left with is a minute 176MB of available space for apps. Now with a rooted phone and a custom ROM like CyanogenMod 7.2 or SlimBean CM10, it is possible to easily repartition the device for more space or implement SD-EXT which treats your SD card like built in storage allowing more apps to be installed. However, not many people are willing to go through such methods to bypass the storage conundrum. It is doable and pretty easy if you follow the various guides posted online. More links on Nexus One custom ROMs below.
DISPLAY
With Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) technology and a high resolution 252ppi 800×480 resolution, the Nexus One’s display does not let down in terms of image quality and colour vibrancy. Colours are well represented with the AMOLED display and not stupidly over saturated like Super-AMOLED type displays (eg; Samsung Galaxy S3, Nexus S). Individual pixels are difficult to make out unless you stick your eyes up close to the display. Text is sharp and easily readable. And contrary to many reviews saying that the Nexus One’s screen is unusable under direct sunlight, it isn’t. I used the Nexus One under direct sunlight in the bus for an hour browsing the web and I rarely had to ever cover the display because of the glare. One thing to note about the display of the Nexus One is that it is very susceptible to dust “infections”, pockets of dust appearing underneath the glass of the display, warranting a need to open up the Nexus One to clean it up. Isle of Droid top tip! Before buying a Nexus One used, look in the display for dust. Don’t buy it unless you dare to open up the N1 to clean it just like what I did. It is pretty easy if you follow the guide at iFixit.com so don’t worry!
CAMERA
Shooting with all 5 megapixels, the Nexus One produces relatively sharp and vibrant looking shots. Noise is minimal too! The N1’s camera is actually pretty decent. But of course, in low light, that’s another story. The low light performance of the N1’s camera is reasonable but quite mediocre. Images occasionally turn up blurry even though you held it straight and steady. The LED flash does help things so with the emergency party shot, you are covered with the N1.
Nexus One test shot – The school chapel
It is no Ultrapixel equipped HTC One or 13MP monster Sony Xperia Z but the Nexus One does take decent shots.
BATTERY LIFE
With medium usage (playing some Fun Run, browsing Facebook, tethering WiFi for 10mins, etc etc) the Nexus One and it’s 1400mAh battery holds up well. On a full charge, it’s only at the end of the day around 5pm when the first low battery alert spouts off.
FINAL WORDS
Owning and using the Nexus One everyday is a joy. This particular Nexus One has been serving me for the past 2 weeks as my backup phone due to my Xperia Z’s leave for the service centre. Since I started writing this review in my free time, i’ve tried various custom ROMs and since settled on VJ’s SlimBean CM10 ROM. I’ll post a separate short review on that soon. As a phone, the Nexus One is great. As an entertainment device, the Nexus One isn’t so good as its ageing processor and GPU handicap its ability to play HD videos or run the latest games. But really, you would only buy the Nexus One today to relive the joys of owning the very first Nexus phone, for you could buy a better used phone for the same price that the Nexus One goes for today. In that context then, buying a Nexus One today is like having your dream come true. Everyone lusted after the N1, not just me. Even back then in 2010 when I was a hardcore Apple fanboy, I looked at the N1 and said to myself “One day I am going to own that phone”.
Nexus Heritage
Links to various sites noted in post:
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