Why NexusOne is not an iPhone killer
Now that we have all had a detailed look at the features and specifications of the new Nexus One phone from Google, all the hype has settled down. The Nexus one is the new android mobile OS based phone which was built by HTC in collaboration with Google. Nexus one boasts of many technical advancements both with respect to hardware and software when compared to its predecessors. The phone was also dubbed as the iphone killer but lets us see why it is not.
The Mobile OS
Nexus one runs on the Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair) operating system which is undoubtedly one of the feature rich ones in the current market but the iPhone OS is way better in several different ways. The most primitive of all is that the usability factor of the iPhone OS. The reason why most of the iPhone users find it really hard to switch to other phones is the really awesome iPhone OS.
User Interface/Multitouch
One big selling point for most of the Apple products is the rich user interface and the iPhone is no doubt a forerunner in that arena. Multitouch on the iPhone allows the user to do wonders with fingers but this is one of the main features which is missing in the first release of the Nexus one. This is surprising since the Android OS 2.0 provides support for multitouch and guess we can expect this feature to be included in the next release of Nexus one.
The Cost
One other comparison metric which many are using to prove the superiority of Nexus One over iPhone is the cost of ownership. The comparison chart from BillShrink made its way to a good number of technology blogs. With the unlimited minutes + data+texting, the iphone does look a lot costlier but i wonder how many people go for that plan. For instance, i pay $66/month for my iPhone 3GS and it comes with unlimited data and 400 day time minutes a month. I have hell lot of rolled over day minutes which i am sure i am not going to use since most of the people who i call are on AT&T and the calls are free. I pay $780 an year or $1560 for the 24 month contract period. I assume most of the Iphone users pay around the same amount, may be a couple of hundreds more.
The App Store
In my opinion the best part of owning an iPhone is the appstore but many will disagree and give brownie points for the other important features. With over a 100,000 apps on the app store, you can find innumerable apps both free and paid. Be it productivity apps or motion sensor games or fun apps which have no particular utility, the app store is one huge repository. The Android market has also got a sizable number of apps but it is way behind the app store in this aspect.
The Music
The iPhone also doubles up as a 32 GB/16GB iPod which can be synced with your computer and also your itunes account. Finding podcasts, videos and other multimedia is really easy with itunes in comparison with any other phone.
Final Verdict
There is no doubt that the Nexus One is one wonderful and innovative piece of hardware and kicks the iPhone’s ass in several areas with better hardware, better battery life, bigger screen size, better camera etc but there is very little for it to be an iPhone killer. The next generation of iPhone is expected by the middle of this year and there will definitely be many enhancements on the hardware front. It is totally agreeable that the iPhone has its own flaws and restrictions but we should also remember that there are several other smart phones which boast of better hardware than the iPhone but they are no where in the picture. The Nexus One is definitely one of the best phones right now but there is a good chance that it might fade away in a few months like all the other HTC phones.
Like Lord Alfred Tennyson says
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Likewise
For droids may come and phones may go,
But the Iphone will go on for ever(at least for sometime!)
5 Responses 
Leave a Reply 
Good post Ram. I feel that Nexus is far behind in terms of the feature set and even Google has agreed that this is not the iPhone Killer. All these buzzes about iPhone killers from Nokia (5800, N97), Google (Nexus) are just a hype, a part of marketing strategy.
IMO, it will take a long time to pulverize this ‘king of phones’, before which Jobs will come with a future phone to revolutionize the idea of mobiles completely – again. :)
Like your honest review, many reviewers or either inclined on Apple or on Google.
Not many have written reviews from a customer stand point
Your post reads as ‘iPhone is better than Nexus One because iPhone has awesome features’. Obviously, you have made no side-by-side comparison of the 2 phones by yourself. You are only making vague, inconcrete statements about the Nexus One here. I get it that you love the iPhone – but that, per se, is insufficient to make the Nexus One bad. At least, not in an objective sense. The only useful part of your post is the side-by-side feature comparison, and alas, that is someone else’s work.
@Venkat
As you said Nexus One is a better a android phone with some awesome features. True that Apple might come up with a better version which will raise the stakes even higher.
@Prabhakar
Thanks for the compliment
@Roy
Thanks for your comment but i doubt if you got the essence of the post. I never mentioned “‘iPhone is better than Nexus One because iPhone has awesome features” OR i never meant to say that. For instance i have emphasized in many places that the Nexus One has better features than the iphone.
In the first place this wasn’t meant to be a comparison post putting Iphone in one column and the Nexus one in the other. There are hundreds of such technical and feature comparison posts by now and this was not meant to be another one on the pile and sorry if you were here looking for something like that.
I used the cost comparison chart from BillShrink just to say that it was over exaggerated. I used it as a reference point to put forward my cost of ownership statistics. If you found that useful go ahead and pat the shoulder of the BillShrink guys.