Nexus S good, Nexus 1 also good
Shortly after New Year matrushkaka mailed me a new Nexus S. I've been using it for a few weeks, and as with the Nexus One here's my thoughts.
For starters it's got a bigger screen, but the device itself isn't much bigger. There's more usable screen space and the bezel is narrower. It's a little more smooth and slippery, which will either be good if you slip it in and out of your pocket or bad if you have trouble keeping things in your hand. The screen is slightly curved from top to bottom, enough that you notice in reflections but not so much that it feels wrong.
Biggest improvement: on the N1 a push of the power button would either wake it from sleep or turn it on, making it something of a Heisenberg Uncertainty Phone. If you push the button it either wakes from sleep (it was already on) or turns on (it wasn't on, but now it is). This one requires a long press of the power button. It's off if it stays dark when you tap the power key. Not rocket science, but it eliminates one of my few frustrations with the previous hardware. The NS also speaks HSPA natively, whereas the N1 speaks HSPA only after you flash it with the Korean baseband. There's also an NFC chip which nobody seems to be doing anything with just yet. Battery life seems more or less the same, the bigger battery on the NS being cancelled out by its bigger screen. Both the N1 and the NS ship unlocked with quad band support, which makes things very easy for moving around. In the last month I've moved between Germany, France, and the UK and everything works without a hitch.
So the NS is somewhat better than the N1, but it's also missing a few important things. There's no trackball anymore, which was handy on the N1 for doing small adjustments and extra control. It also has no SD slot. There's 16GB of internal memory, but you can't add bigger cards like you could with the G1 and N1. And of course neither of them has a physical keyboard, which I still miss dearly even after a year of Swype and SwiftKey.
The big deal is that the NS runs Android 2.3, which updates to 2.3.1 as soon as you start it up. 2.3 has improvements which include a better map, better navigation, and better thread handling but it's also a bit less stable - I've had a couple of reboots during phone calls - and although it makes sense for developers to target the latest release many apps are still written for 2.2 and many users are still on 2.1 or earlier. The new apps aren't a big deal either, since anyone can update to the latest apps for free via the regular Android Market. You don't need 2.3 to use the heads up navigation, map caching, improved gmail integration, or any of the other standard apps.
Basically the NS is to the N1 as the iPhone 3Gs was to the 3G. It's a bit better but not that much better, and unless you're a compulsive upgrader you might as well stick with the N1.
For starters it's got a bigger screen, but the device itself isn't much bigger. There's more usable screen space and the bezel is narrower. It's a little more smooth and slippery, which will either be good if you slip it in and out of your pocket or bad if you have trouble keeping things in your hand. The screen is slightly curved from top to bottom, enough that you notice in reflections but not so much that it feels wrong.
Biggest improvement: on the N1 a push of the power button would either wake it from sleep or turn it on, making it something of a Heisenberg Uncertainty Phone. If you push the button it either wakes from sleep (it was already on) or turns on (it wasn't on, but now it is). This one requires a long press of the power button. It's off if it stays dark when you tap the power key. Not rocket science, but it eliminates one of my few frustrations with the previous hardware. The NS also speaks HSPA natively, whereas the N1 speaks HSPA only after you flash it with the Korean baseband. There's also an NFC chip which nobody seems to be doing anything with just yet. Battery life seems more or less the same, the bigger battery on the NS being cancelled out by its bigger screen. Both the N1 and the NS ship unlocked with quad band support, which makes things very easy for moving around. In the last month I've moved between Germany, France, and the UK and everything works without a hitch.
So the NS is somewhat better than the N1, but it's also missing a few important things. There's no trackball anymore, which was handy on the N1 for doing small adjustments and extra control. It also has no SD slot. There's 16GB of internal memory, but you can't add bigger cards like you could with the G1 and N1. And of course neither of them has a physical keyboard, which I still miss dearly even after a year of Swype and SwiftKey.
The big deal is that the NS runs Android 2.3, which updates to 2.3.1 as soon as you start it up. 2.3 has improvements which include a better map, better navigation, and better thread handling but it's also a bit less stable - I've had a couple of reboots during phone calls - and although it makes sense for developers to target the latest release many apps are still written for 2.2 and many users are still on 2.1 or earlier. The new apps aren't a big deal either, since anyone can update to the latest apps for free via the regular Android Market. You don't need 2.3 to use the heads up navigation, map caching, improved gmail integration, or any of the other standard apps.
Basically the NS is to the N1 as the iPhone 3Gs was to the 3G. It's a bit better but not that much better, and unless you're a compulsive upgrader you might as well stick with the N1.