On Tuesday 5th January 2010, Google announced its first 'smartphone'. The phone is manufactured by HTC, and uses Android 2.1 OS

I had been following all the leaked info and unofficial blogs over the last few weeks, and decided to get the credit card out of my pocket. Let the experience begin!

Buying the Phone

The phone was purchased directly from Google. I purchased the unlocked version as I was using it in the UK. After first logging into one of my existing Google accounts, registering for Google Checkout, I entered my shipping address, credit card details and well it was as simple as that. Email confirmation came through moments later. The phone was announced late afternoon [GMT] on the Tuesday 5th January 2010, I placed the order on Wednesday morning, The phone left the US distribution centre Wednesday afternoon, and it was delivered to my house in Aberdeen, Scotland on Friday lunchtime. All in all an excellent no hassle shopping experience. Well done to DHL for getting it here so quickly, despite the ongoing 'Big Freeze' in the UK.

First Experiences

The first thing I did was to test the wireless functionality (before I put a sim card into to it).  Switching on the phone, I entered the settings pages, added my wireless key for my Wireless N WPA2 network, and it worked first time no issues. Internet browsing, connecting up my google accounts and using maps etc. were all a painless experience.

After first backing up my contact details on my old phone (just in case I fried the sim card), I popped the sim into the Nexus One, and switched on the phone again. O2-UK came up on the screen as the carrier name, and all was in order. Imported all my contacts from the sim card and sync'd these with my online google accounts went without a hitch. To test SMS settings, I sent messages to Twitter and Facebook, and these appeared on the net within seconds. So all working there.  Quick check of making and receiving calls and again no problems.

Now, with my old phone (Nokia N95), I had never managed to get internet connectivity to work except with WiFi. So, I was a bit nervous as to whether the Nexus One would work with my current Tarrif, or I was going to have initial problems setting things up. On the Add Access Point screen of the Nexus One, there are a host of settings, none of which I had any idea what was meant to be in them. A quick search on google, and I came across this page, entered the relevant settings for my provider onto the Nexus One, switched off the WiFi, and then tried to access the internet. It Failed........I thought here we go, its not going to work. I could see the phone icon trying to poll, but not receiving any data back. I tried again after a couple of minutes, and this time success. It has been no problem ever since. It must have just been an initial failure as the phone bedded itself down onto the network.

The Phone

The phone is very comfortable to use, the screen quality is excellent, bright and crisp. The applications are fast and the touch screen is very responsive. All in all I am very impressed with this phone.

USB Connectivity + Windows 7

When I first plugged the phone into my laptop, the laptop gave me a 'device not recognised' error. Another quick search on Google, is to download the R3 USB drivers from Android website. However, at the time of writing this article, the only drivers visible are R2. The R3 drivers are in the Android SDK. So I downloaded this, and then did an update to access the R3 USB package and installed that. After this the phone appears as removal storage on the Laptop. When you plug the phone into the laptop, you must mount the phones storage to allow the laptop to access the card. A prompt appears on the Nexus One to do this. [UPDATE: You do not need to download the USB drivers for standard removable storage mode, you must just remember to go to the notifications area and mount the sd card after plugging in the USB cable)]

After that, I dragged and dropped some MP3 files onto the phones microSD card (4GB included with phone) and this work perfectly in the audio player. There are some MP3s included with the phone already, some of these are not bad, others are not to my liking, depends on your own taste of music I suppose.

Wallpapers / Ringtones / Notifications

There are lots of different  ones available with the phone, and you can even use your own MP3's as ringtones.

Market Place + Apps

Google's app store has plenty to offer, I downloaded a sveral free utilities to test this experience and again had no problems. (Downloaded a compass, a stock ticker app, spirit level, GPS app, log viewer). The phone also has Facebook Mobile and YouTube pre-installed, these work as expected. The web browser also seems to be working fine.

Links

Google Nexus One Site

Nexus One Specifications

Android Site for SDK + USB Drivers

Provider Settings

Overall, I am more than happy with the phone, and couldn't ask for any more.

Now, I think I need to start developing some apps or widgets for the phone! Where did I install the SDK again?