More Nexus 5 Impression and Camera Comparison #nexus5

The boot animation.

I have been taking the Nexus 5 with me for the last couple of days, and here are my impression so far.

1. Build

Unlike the Nexus 4, the black Nexus 5 has a soft touch plastic on its back. This makes it feel less slippery than the Nexus 4 (the Nexus 4 can slide down from a desk on its own, that’s how slippery it is). People are saying the white one is more “plasticky” though. I like the soft touch back. It makes the phone feel more durable than the glass Nexus 4. Alas, the material that Google uses actually attracts dust fairly easily. The Nexus 4 does still feel a bit more premium thanks to the glass back. It has the iPhone 4 feel, while the Nexus 5 feels more like a Lumia, well built but not as premium.

Swiping my finger on the Nexus 4 is a joy thanks to its curved glass at the edge. Alas, the Nexus 5 has a sharper edge, making it feel less “luxurious” when swiping my finger over the edge. The buttons have been changed too. It feels more solid than the Nexus 4, but the sharp edges on the buttons, especially the power button, can be jarring on the fingers compared to the Nexus 4.

The Nexus 5 is as big as the HTC One, but it has a bigger screen (4.95″ vs 4.7″ on the HTC One). It is much lighter, even lighter than the Nexus 4. The soft touch back actually makes it feel smaller than the HTC One. It feels nice on the hand, while sometimes I feel the HTC One is too big.

One huge annoyance for me? The SIM slot. The Nexus 4 uses a non-standard pin hole for its SIM slot, requiring a tinier pin to open (vs the bigger hole on the iPhone and HTC One). Well, the Nexus 5 uses yet another different pin hole. The pin included with the Nexus 4 does not work anymore, as the Nexus 5 requires a longer pin. WTF LG? WTF Google? Seriously?

2. Screen

The Nexus 4 has a pretty conservative auto-brightness. The after effect is that people has poor impression of the screen. Coupled with the prevalence of AMOLED screens, the Nexus 4’s screen looks washed out. Google for some reason is aggressively pushing the brightness on the Nexus 5 to combat this first impression. However, we know that more brightness equals less battery life. The Nexus 5 screen is great. It’s sharp thanks to the 1080p resolution. I do still think the HTC One to be better, mainly due to more saturation in color that make images pop.

3. KitKat

The Nexus 5 is running the latest Android, version 4.4, dubbed KitKat. Main thing I notice is that the wallpaper takes over the whole screen, meaning that there is no more black bars on the status and navigation bars. The icons on the status bar are now white in color. In the past, the wifi and signal bar icon are grey in color when connected wirelessly, and blue when the phone is connected to Google services. A small indicator would also pop up whenever there are data transmissions occurring. Those are all gone in KitKat. The icons will be just white, and there are no indicators of data transmissions. You have to go to the control center (2 finger swipe down) to see those indicators (the wireless icons will be orange if the phone is connected wirelessly but not to Google, and there are small triangles indicating data transmissions). This makes it less intuitive to troubleshoot connectivity problems.

The home screens have been rearranged. The main home screen is not the “middle” screen anymore. It is the first screen instead. Swiping to the right will actually reveal Google Now screen on the left. It is similar to iOS 6 when swiping to the right will reveal spotlight search. By default, there are only two home screens. I don’t see a direct way to add more home screens, other than dragging a widget passing the last screen on the right, then KitKat will create a new home screen.

Google Now will now respond once you unlock your phone, meaning that you don’t have to have Google Now running. Unlock the phone, and you can say “Ok Google” right away. It is similar to Motorola’s touchless control, but with the Moto X, it can respond even when it’s locked. So the implementation on the Nexus 5 feels half-baked. Even Siri can be initiated right from the lock screen without unlocking the iPhone.

The lock screen has been redesigned too. In 4.2, there is no indication that you can swipe the lock screen to the left to run the camera app, other than a brief flash of outlines on the sides of the screen when you wake up the phone. In KitKat, Google followed iOS, by providing a camera icon on the lower right corner. Following the bottom of the screen, there is an arrow pointing up in the middle, This replaces the dotted circle on 4.2 to access Google Now. Thing is, at first that up arrow makes me think that I can swipe the lock screen up to start the camera, just like the iPhone. Well, to start the camera, you have to actually swipe to the left instead. I can see new users being confused at first.

Another change in KitKat UI is the icons. They are overly large. The App drawer now only contains 4 x 5 grid instead of 5 x 5 on the Nexus 4. The icon size is so large that it feels downright silly. This also makes folders in the home screen to cover up more space that it did before. Aesthetically annoying as it makes the screen feels cramped.

The regular messaging app is gone. Everything is handled under Hangouts. Like it or not, Google wants you to use Hangouts and join Google Plus. This consolidation of messaging apps is welcomed, but Google created another confusion. This is not exclusive to KitKat, but with the new push of Google Plus, now there are two apps to access your photos. The classic Gallery app, and the new Photos app that integrates the camera roll with Google Plus. Confusing? Yeah. I can see the classic Gallery app going away, although I really like it.

In terms of responsiveness, the Nexus 5 is fast. It is so fast that it actually make the Nexus 4 feels slow. Side by side, when opening apps and menus, there is a noticeable delay on the Nexus 4 compared to the Nexus 5. Now the Nexus 4 is by no means slow/laggy, but there is this noticeable hesitations on every screen transitions compared to the Nexus 5. Not sure if this is due to KitKat or just because of the beefier hardware of the Nexus 5, but hopefully KitKat can bring some smoothness to all Android devices.

4. Battery Life

Non-scientifically, it’s a meh. I took the Nexus 5 along with my iPhone 5 for a stroll. Both have everything on (wifi, cellular radio, GPS, etc), and same email accounts configured. I used both to take similar number of pictures. After a few hours, both are showing around 75% of battery life left. Thing is, I had the iPhone also running a location tracking app, while the Nexus 5 did not have this app running. Considering how the iPhone 5 battery is a lot smaller, this tells me that the Nexus 5 and/or Android is less efficient than the iPhone/iOS. Seems like Android does not behave well, especially when cellular signal is weak. I notice this also on the HTC One as the battery drains pretty quick when it is in low signal area. Heavy users might want to have an external battery pack handy just in case.

5. Camera

I did a comparison of the Nexus 5 camera with some other devices on the previous post. Here are some more pictures to enjoy. 🙂

Nexus 5

iPhone 5

HTC One

Nexus 5

iPhone 5

HTC One

The HTC One is showing a weakness here. The Nexus 5 fares okay, while the iPhone 5 continues to provide the best balance. Throughout this post, you will see inconsistent white balance from all devices. It is also interesting to see the different FOV of each devices (the HTC One having the widest FOV).

Nexus 5

iPhone 5

HTC One

Getting this image was an interesting experience. I actually had a hard time making the leaf in focus with the iPhone 5. I had to go very close before it focused properly. I’m guessing the iPhone has a minimum range where it initiates its macro mode focusing. The HTC One took the picture without much fuss. The Nexus 5 had trouble in its metering, resulting in a dark image although the leaf was in focus properly.

Nexus 5

Nexus 4

iPhone 5

HTC One

Wow, white balance all over the place. 😀 The HTC One doesn’t look good here. It seems that it had trouble in determining the white balance and overblowing the highlights. The Nexus 5 did an okay job though. I kinda like the warmer tones in this context. The Nexus 4 trailed behind, but you can probably do some post processing to make it look decent. The iPhone, again, gave the most balanced picture.

Nexus 5

Nexus 4

iPhone 5

HTC One

This was a tough picture to take. I wanted to focus on the lower right fruit. After numerous tries, I just couldn’t do it with the Nexus 5 and the stock camera app. Same thing with the Nexus 4, it was impossible. The iPhone also had a difficult time, but I finally got a focus, albeit resulting a dark picture due to the phone trying to compensate for the sky. The HTC One? Well, at first, I had trouble with it too. But a simple flip to macro mode, bam! It took the picture like a champ. 🙂

On the Nexus 5 and Nexus 4, I tried using a camera app called Camera360. This app has multiple options, including macro mode. Although it was still a difficult process with multiple tries, I finally got something. Not great, but it’s something. The HTC One definitely took the cake this round.

Nexus 5

Nexus 4

Nexus 5

Nexus 4

iPhone 5

HTC One

Nexus 5

Nexus 4

iPhone 5

HTC One

These were another difficult shot, with dark and bright areas. The Nexus 5 did okay. It dropped down its shutter speed to 1/9 to help with light while keeping the ISO low. Problem is, it is susceptible to blurring due to shake (despite having optical image stabilization). Not bad, but not as sharp as the iPhone 5. The Nexus 4 had to resort to high ISO, giving noisy picture. The HTC One suffered overblown highlights, its achilles heel.

Throughout this experiment, I was really annoyed with Android stock camera app. The camera start-up on the Nexus 5 is slow. When switching from portrait to landscape or vice versa, there is a significant lag. Yes, lag, on a  quad-core snapdragon 800 phone. There is really no excuse there. The focusing system is slow, and it wanted to keep focusing at the center. I observed it changing the focus to the center even while it was taking a picture, which can sometimes create out-of-focus picture. It’s ridiculous. The camera itself is capable on producing decent images. Google needs to really work on the software side.

The HTC One continues to be a joy to use. Startup is fast, focusing is fast, and it is the only one having a specific macro mode. Sometimes relying on auto everything is not necessarily the best way (e.g. the iPhone having issues with the leaf). Even better, its gorgeous screen makes you enjoy the pictures right away. Its weaknesses at this point are well known though, especially the overblown highlights.

In the end, the iPhone takes the best balanced pictures in most situations. Apple just know their stuff. Start up is fast, focusing is fast, and other than some issues in specific instances, it just works. However, during this experiment, I wish it had a larger screen. 😉

If you are going to take a lot of pictures, get the iPhone. You have to have a lot of patience with the Nexus 5.

6. Conclusion

Well, there you go. My quick impression of the Nexus 5. It is Google’s latest, and the only way to enjoy KitKat out of the box right now. It feels great on the hand, but I would still invest in a case. It has top notch spec, yet Google is still skimping on certain things, like the stock camera app. Despite all the drawbacks, one has to remember that this is a $350-$400 phone. It’s cheaper than even the iPhone 4S! 😀 It’s an excellent phone for the money. Hopefully my impression can help your decision, or at least make you feel better about your purchase. 😀

 

HTC One Photo Comparisons #HTCOne

Yes, I obtained myself the HTC One. It is my second HTC phone, the first being the Nexus One. I don’t usually like HTC as in the US, they don’t sell their phones unlocked (Nexus One being the exception, sold by Google). However, looks like HTC is changing their ways, by offering their latest flagship, the HTC One, unlocked, straight from their own website. And unlike Apple that delayed their unlocked iPhone availability in the US to push people buying from the carriers, HTC is making the One available pretty much at the same time as the carriers. This is quite unprecedented, as most phone OEMs are only selling their handsets locked with the carriers in the US. HTC finally joins Apple, Sony, and Google, in selling unlocked handsets.

Aside from being unlocked, one of the most talked about feature of the HTC One is its camera, namely that it’s just a paltry 4MP. Considering how other phones are pushing 8 to 13MP cameras, it’s actually refreshing seeing HTC taking a different path. Despite being 4MP, the One’s camera has a much larger sensor than most phones, 1/3″. That is nothing in the world of digital camera, but in phones, it’s quite “big.” Having a bigger sensor means more light exposure on each pixel, thus better low light sensitivity. Of course, lay consumers will balk at four megapixel, so HTC is branding it as “UltraPixel.” In most HTC One’s marketing material, you won’t see 4MP being mentioned anywhere.

Why the gear switch from the megapixel war? Consider the most common usage of smartphone cameras. Most of the time, they are used in low-light situations (indoor social events, parties, etc), the worst situation for a camera with such tiny sensor and cheap optics. Also, most of the pictures are posted online, in social networks, where they are resized to less than 4MP at best, with most are around or less than XGA resolution. Not many people are going to print the picture taken by their 13MP smartphone camera into a poster. HTC recognize this, thus the focus on low-light capability by sacrificing the resolution.

I’m going to do a completely unscientific comparison between the HTC One camera and carious other devices.

First contender is the iPhone 4. People now talk about 8 to 13MP camera and laugh at HTC One’s 4MP, yet just a few years back, everybody was praising Apple iPhone 4’s 5MP camera. The iPhone 4 is still available for sale from Apple. Second is the Nexus 4, the reference Android handset from Google. It didn’t receive good reviews for its 8MP camera, but for $349, you get a 16GB unlocked stock Android phone running the latest OS. Not too shabby for the price. I also include a cheap Samsung flip-style camcorder that I bought from Costco a while back for $100, the Samsung HMX-W200. It is designed to be a flip-style camcorder, but has picture taking mode at 5.5MP. And finally, I also use the Canon S90, a compact camera that propelled the enthusiast high-end compact category. It’s old, uses an old CCD sensor compared the latest CMOS ones in the S100/S110, but it’s still a good size sensor for a compact, 1/1.7″ at 10MP.

First test is indoor, with some natural light going in. All pictures are straight JPEG from the devices, resized with iPhoto. No other post processing done. Now, count up your sins! 😀

The iPhone 4 picture is not bad, but it’s fairly noisy as the camera is trying to compensate the low light condition.

The Nexus 4 picture is darker. Noise is okay, better than the iPhone 4.

The HTC One did pretty good. Noise is well controlled and the picture is pretty bright.

The cheap Samsung camcorder just cannot match the rest of the candidates.

The Canon S90 came out on top, as expected, although the picture is a bit soft.

Well, we can already see the advantage of the HTC One,

 

Picking Your Wireless Carrier part 03: T-Mobile MVNOs

All right, now we already see the savings you can get by switching to these MVNOs. IMO AT&T MVNOs are still a bit “pricey,” probably because of AT&T itself. How about T-Mobile? Being the fourth largest carrier (the bottom last), T-Mobile seems to offer more value, and with that, there are tons of T-Mobile MVNOs out there.

Before we go further, let’s take a look at T-Mobile’s own prepaid plans, dubbed “monthly 4G.” Please note that the term 4G here is faux 4G, aka 3G or 3.5G, HSPA+. T-Mobile has not rolled out LTE yet. If you go to their site, T-Mobile is touting its $70 unlimited everything (minutes, text, and data). Doesn’t sound to bad. The catch is there’s no tethering/portable hotspot. T-Mobile actually advertise unlimited data on all of their plans, a common recurring theme amongst the MVNOs too. The differentiation is how much of that data is at 3G speed. The $60 plan gives you 2GB. $50 plan gives you 100MB. You still get unlimited minutes and text. What happens after you reach the specified quota? Your data is throttled to 2G/EDGE speed (more like ISDN speed, ~128kbps).

The most interesting part of T-Mobile’s offering is not those plans though. It’s the $30 a month plan that gives you 100 minutes, unlimited text, and 5GB of data at 3G speed. That is an unbeatable deal if you know you won’t talk that much on your phone. Really, if you know you don’t use that much minutes, stop looking and get this plan. You’ll find no better deal anywhere else. This is such a good deal that even T-Mobile doesn’t offer this at their own stores. You have to buy the SIM (mini and micro SIM are available) online or go to Walmart.

Okay, let’s assume that you will need a lot more than 100 minutes. Let’s take a look at Simple Mobile. Simple Mobile has been around for a while. You will find their kiosks in malls. Their plans selection is very simple. For smartphones, there are two choices, depending on how much data you need at 3G speed. $40 will give you 250MB data at 3G speed, $50 will bump that to “unlimited” (it ends up being about 2GB). Speed is throttled down to 2G/EDGE speed after you reach the quotas. Both plans offers unlimited minutes and text. Cheaper than T-Mobile’s own offerings. Another extra point for Simple Mobile is unlimited international text. Yes, you can text to most countries around the world, no extra charge. The list is pretty extensive. Consider that other carriers charge you up to 30 cents per international SMS, this is a great deal. Of course, if you have been utilizing alternative services like Whatsapp, twitter, Facebook, Line, etc, it’s a moot point.

I am using Simple Mobile now, the $40 plan (pincheap.com is selling the $40 PIN for $38.40. With careful use and wifi at home, I can get by with the 250MB 3G data. Even if I use more, it’s just going to be slower instead of me being charged overages or cut off data completely).

Next operator I would like to mention would be Straight Talk. I have mentioned Straight Talk on my AT&T MVNO post. Straight Talk seems to offer only T-Mobile SIM for right now. Their plan is simple, $45 ($50 with taxes) a month for unlimited minutes, unlimited text, and “unlimited” data. The “unlimited” data turns out to be about 100MB per day and 2GB per month usage. It’s a good deal if you want to have a plan with plenty of minutes and data.

I used to use Straight Talk (with the AT&T SIM). One warning, DO NOT sign up for auto-refills. Sure, the convenience of auto-refills is tempting, but do not sign up for it. Why? If you want to quit Straight Talk, there is no way to cancel your auto-refill/credit card info from their website. The only way to do it is to call their customer service. Well, guess what. I tried calling their customer service many times and I only got a message about how busy they are and to call back later. WTF? Yes, you cannot get a hold of them. You have been warned.

Ultra Mobile did a different approach on their plans, using speed as the differentiating factor. Their $40 per month plan gives you unlimited everything, data at 128kbps speed. For $50 a month, you get 1GB data at 3G speed. Just like Simple Mobile, Ultra gives you unlimited international text. If you think about it, their plans are actually not any different than Simple Mobile’s. With Simple Mobile, at $40 a month, at least you get 250MB data at 3G speed before bumped down to 2G. The upside of Ultra is that it gives you some international long distance credit ($20 for the $50 plan, $5 for the $40 plan), and you can actually pay extra to get some 3G data quota if you need it ($10 for 500MB). More choice, the better. Ultra sells a double-punch mini + micro SIM for $10.

Oh we are not done yet. There is another T-Mobile MVNO called Platinum Tel. Their plans parodied Simple Mobile’s. $40 for 250MB 3G data, $50 for 2GB. Unlimited everything, including international SMS. The special thing to note about Platinum Tel is their pay-as-you-go plan, where the rates are actually pretty reasonable. 5 cents per minute, 2 cents per SMS/international SMS/MMS, 10 cents per MB, and $10 denomination good for 60 days. They sell their mini SIM for $5.

There’s another T-Mobile MVNO called Solavei. I’m not going to talk about it as it’s more of a pyramid scheme, and you have to pay some sort of a membership fee.

Last but not least, Go Smart mobile. This is actually launched by T-Mobile themselves. Prices are pretty good. $45 will net you 5GB at 3G speed, while $35 gives you unlimited 2G speed. Unlimited minutes and text. Unlike the other MVNOs, international SMS cost extra, $5 for unlimited international SMS. Do note the fine print though, T-Mobile will prioritize packets for its regular post-paid customers first. Although this shouldn’t be an issue during normal use, people sometimes are getting busy signals during peak hours.

So, plenty of options. Again, remember how you would be paying at least $80 a month an up on those post paid plans with the big carriers? Now, the prices hover around $40-$50 a month.

I do need to point out that not everything is rosy on the MVNO sides. I already pointed a caveat on Go Smart, where it gets less priority compared to T-Mobile’s own post paid customers. Also, despite everybody claiming unlimited this and that, in reality, there is a limit. Although it shouldn’t hinder normal usage, if you really want unlimited minutes in a literal sense, getting into the expensive post paid plans with the big carriers might be a safer way than having your service interrupted. Also, certain services might not be available on MVNOs. For example, with Simple Mobile, I cannot accept short code SMS, which is used frequently for mobile banking. Something to consider if you rely on something like that.

Once you know what you are getting into, enjoy the savings. I might touch a little bit on CDMA MVNOs next.

 

Nexus One

I guess I haven’t updated my blog for quite some time. Too lazy as it’s easier to rant on twitter. LOL. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

I’m a Mac and iPhone user, mainly. Apple’s ecosystem has been great and working for me. However, I’m thinking, what if sometime in the future, the iPhone is no more? I mean Steve Jobs is not going to man the company forever. Although I’m sure the rest of Apple will do fine, keeping the same Apple philosophy, but what if? So here I am, thinking the what if scenario. I love my iPhone, and I think it’s the best phone. Looking outside Apple ecosystem, what are the alternatives? Let’s see:
-Symbian: Yeah, right.
-WebOS: It’s great, but obviously it’s on life support.
-Windows Phone 7: This would be a great alternative, but it’s not out yet.
So, that leaves Android. Android seems to be the next best thing in terms of smartphone OS/platform. It has the same idea and UI concept as iOS. The downside is, at least in the US, all Android phones are carrier-controlled. This is in contrast of iOS where Apple is the one in control, not AT&T nor any of the carrier partners all over the world. There was one pure unadulterated Android phone, the Nexus One (N1). Yeah, was, because Google doesn’t sell the Nexus One openly anymore. Now, it’s only available as part of the dev program, and only the T-Mobile model (no 850 3G support). Luckily, I managed to get the AT&T 3G supporting Nexus One before it was too late. I was hoping Google would drop the price, but then decided to just get it. Lucky me, as now this phone is extinct.

Let’s go straight to the experience. While the iPhone is obviously designed around Apple’s ecosystem, the Nexus One is obviously designed around Google’s ecosystem. The first thing it asked was a Google account. If you don’t have one, you have to create one. Now, if you already use Google services for your contacts, calendar, and email, once you put in your Google account credential, the Nexus One is ready to go with all your contacts, email, and calendar all setup. It’s awesome! No need to “activate” the phone first, unlike the iPhone which needs to be activated with iTunes. Now, there’s something that’s even more awesome. Google Voice. I’m a Google Voice user since before it was bought by Google (it was called GrandCentral). Using Google Voice on the iPhone is very clunky as there is not a native app. You pretty much rely on the Google Voice website to make phone calls. Not intuitive. On the Nexus One, Google Voice is fully integrated. All you need to do is tell it to use Google Voice, and everything is transparent. You still use the phone’s dialer and contacts, and it will automatically route your call via Voice. Pure awesomeness!

The beauty of iOS is the app ecosystem. Android is not too far off. Most apps that I use on the iPhone are available for my Nexus One. Facebook, Twitter, epocrates (albeit beta and not updateable), Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. Unless you’re into games, you won’t find much problems finding the apps you want on Android. The only problem I see is the market app itself. Apple has designed its App store fairly well in terms of layout. The market app on the Nexus One is very basic, and it feels very difficult browsing the store. A lot of the apps don’t have much useful descriptions. Even worse, many don’t even include any screenshots, leaving you guessing what the app can do. The reviews are not helping either. Apple’s app store seems to have more helpful reviews, while the Android market reviews seem to be mostly people complaining about the app FC. FC this, FC that, one star. Not really helpful. Oh, and what’s FC? Yeah, at first I was like WTF? FC is a short for force close. Meaning the OS have to quit the app forcefully (aka, the app crashes). And these 1 star FC “reviews” are all over the place. Trying to get the gist of how good the app is becomes futile. Why? Because who knows whether these people having issues are using which Android phone/custom ROM/rooted phone/task killers, etc. But at least if you stick with the well known apps, you should be fine. I myself never experience a force close on my Nexus One.

Okay, most of the apps I would use are available. Great. I also use my iPhone as a calendar. The Nexus One sync its calendar with Google calendar. Pretty neat, but the calendar app itself doesn’t look great. It feels like a Winmo app for whatever reason. I do like the agenda view. One thing I was looking for on my Nexus One main screen and failed to find was anything that shows the day’s date. I was baffled at first. Why? Well, iOS made it simple, by making the calendar’s app icon to show the day’s date, just like in OS X 10.5 onward. Sounds simple, but it’s intuitive. Not the case on my Nexus One. The calendar icon is only a generic non-interactive icon. Well, that’s useless. On the bright side, there are widgets.

Ah, widgets. The Nexus One already come with various widgets, like weather, music playback shortcut, etc. Going through the Android market, and you’ll find even more widgets. So many that it’s ridiculously confusing. Just search for a weather widgets and you’ll find gajillions of them, although most of them are the same widget with different skins. I finally found a simple date widget that simply shows the day’s date.

One extremely under-rated feature on the iPhone is the silent hardware slider. Sliding this switch automatically silences the iPhone. There’s no such switch on the Nexus One. On the bright side, there are widgets that provide shortcut on the home screen to quickly toggle between silent/vibrate/normal mode. The downside is, since this is a software solution, you have to do it with the screen is accessible. Meaning if the phone is on stand-by, you have to push the power button, unlocked the screen, find the widget, and toggle it. On the iPhone, I simply switch the hardware slider. Much simpler huh, especially if you have your phone inside your pocket.

Another annoyance on the N1 is that the only way to activate the phone out of stand-by is with the thin power button at the top. This is annoying. The trackball button does nothing. The 4 “buttons” on the face of the phone are touch buttons, not physical buttons, thus won’t bring the phone out from stand-by. On the iPhone, I can simply press the home screen to activate the phone from stand-by, which usually is where my thumb is. Tiny details like this is what makes me appreciate Apple products.

One the the apps I use often on my iPhone is maps. The Nexus One obviously has Google maps built-in. One thing I immediately noticed is that even though the maps app on the N1 supports multi-touch, instead of being able to zoom-in/out smoothly, it seems that there are only several pre-set zoom levels. Although the zooming effect is smooth during pinching, after I lift my finger, the map snaps to the nearest pre-set zoom level. I find this very annoying as I’m used to the maps app in iOS where it simply stays to whatever zoom level I did after pinching. On the bright side, the navigation mode is better than iOS. The N1’s maps app allows showing directions as a list of text, something that sometimes is easier to read than tiny letters on a map screen. To top it off, the N1 has a its own navigation app, which providers GPS navigation, for free! There are nav apps for iOS too, but it’s hard to beat free. The nav app on the N1 pretty much turn the phone’s UI into a “car mode.” It replaces the home screen with several big icons, typical of a GPS navigation device. Also, using this mode is one way to quickly keep the phone’s screen from turning off without specifically changing the settings.

Android has a slightly different paradigm on showing apps on the home screen. In iOS, all the apps you have is on the home screen. That’s it. Pre iOS4, you can kinda pre-set specific home screens to contain specific apps for a bit of organization. iOS4 introduces folders to make organization more manageable, but the idea is straight forward, all you apps are all directly accessible from the home screen. Android took a more traditional desktop OS paradigm. The home screen is your desktop. You can put shortcuts, widgets, etc on it. Your apps are accessible through the program drawer, which will infinitely scroll through however many apps you have. Not that easy if you have a ton of apps, so most people would end up putting the apps’ shortcuts on the desktop to mimic iOS. You can also create folders on the Android’s desktop. However, it’s amazingly flawed, which made folders in iOS4, albeit late, is a ton more intuitive in terms of implementation. Why? Well, in Android, once you put a shortcut into a folder, you cannot rearrange the icons. Yeah, sounds stupid isn’t it, but that’s the case. The icons will simply be sorted based on the order you put the shortcuts into the folder. In contrast with iOS4, you can simply tap and hold, and you can freely re-arrange the icons in any order you want. Another drawback is due to Android using the paradigm of a desktop OS. Inside a folder, you have a bar at the top representing the folder’s name, and an X button at the right corner to close the folder. In iOS4, once inside a folder, you can simply close it by touching anywhere outside the folder. Easy. Not the case with Android. You have to touch that X button to close the folder, and the button is fairly small for my finger that sometimes I need to press it several time to close a folder. Not intuitive especially when you’re on the go and you want to do things quickly using one hand. Just another situation that makes you appreciate the tiny details in Apple products.

Okay, so what else do I usually use my iPhone for. Pictures. Putting pictures on the iPhone is actually a hassle, more than it supposed to. Unless you use 3rd party apps, you have to use iTunes to sync pictures to the iPhone. That may sound okay, but today, I have pictures all over the place. My computer, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, etc. There’s no integration in iOS. You have to pretty much use one or more 3rd party apps outside the built-in photo app. This is true even for Apple’s own MobileME service. This going in-and-out apps just to view your pictures is not intuitive. On my N1, when I put in my Google account, its gallery app automatically pulls and sync pictures from the Picasa account associated with the Google account. Very nice! You can add more than one Google account too if you have more than one Picasa account. Also, this means the pictures are not stored internally, only downloaded on demand, saving storage space. The gallery app on the N1 is very nice, uses the accelerometer to simulate tilting the “photo album.” Of course, it’s not all perfect. The app only syncs picture with Picasa. You have to rely on 3rd party apps if you use other online services outside Picasa. One app that I like is called justpictures, an aggregator app for your pictures from various online services, including Facebook. Oh, and it’s free. This is something that Apple needs to re-think on their approach in iOS. Windows Phone 7 supposedly will offer even more integration as its default picture hub can aggregate pictures from various online services outside the box.

I use my iPhone heavily as an iPod. iTunes is just an amazing jukebox software, especially for podcast, and the integration of syncing music and podcast with the iPhone is just beautiful. So, how do I do this on the N1? Well, it’s a journey of frustration. The N1 doesn’t have any desktop client app. So, my first though is to download podcasts directly on the phone. Google has an app called Google listen. It’s a simple and straight forward app, allowing you to subscribe, download, and listen to podcasts. However, there’s quite a bit of downsides. Downloading podcasts straight to my phone is slow, even on wifi. To me, the iTunes approach is faster as the heavy duty lifting is done on the desktop, and iTunes simply copies the files to my iPhone. Also, Google listen is not integrated with the default music app, and doesn’t have its own widget for playback control. This means I have to go to the app for controls. Not intuitive. I rather have a solution that integrates with the default music app, which has a playback control widget. So my next idea is to simply have a desktop software solution. The first one that comes up to mind is doubletwist, an iTunes clone. But then apparently the Mac version doesn’t have podcast syncing. BOO! Next alternative is Songbird, but I find that its podcast support is fairly bare, not even supporting some feeds. I finally found a more straight forward syncing solution, Salling Media Sync, which is just a simple syncing program that syncs contents directly from iTunes to the portable device of your choice. Looks great, but you have to pay $22 for a fully syncing feature. Oh well, at least I can try it for free. It works okay. Since the N1’s music app doesn’t have a built-in podcast support, Media Sync simply creates a podcast playlist, and dumps all the podcasts you wanted to sync in that playlist. Not ideal, but I guess it works. At least this way I’m using the default music app.

As for using my N1 as an iPod, well, it’s like having a basic MP3 player. Luckily, my Apple earbud works with the N1. The microphone and play/pause button work fine. Only the volume buttons don’t work, and I have to use the volume button on the N1 itself.

But the journey of frustration didn’t stop there. My next step is to find a solution for listening to those podcasts in my car. My car is old, it doesn’t have an AUX input, let alone USB or iPod support. So the only way to listen to contents from an external device is via an FM transmitter. Sad isn’t it. So my first step is to find a universal FM transmitter, ideally the one that also providers USB charging so I can charge my N1 at the same time. Well, looking around, I realize that everything now is “Made for iPod/iPhone.” The proliferation of iDevices have been so significant that every company is focusing on accessorizing the iDevices, nothing else. What a bummer. 😦 Finally I found a solution from Griffin, a universal FM transmitter (out of dozens of models they make for iDevices). It’s a simple FM transmitter with a 3.5mm audio plug and a USB jack for charging. As for mounting, I got a generic mounting harness that attaches to the air vent in my car. Attaching my N1 to this setup, it’s cables galore since I have 2 cables hanging from my N1, the 3.5mm audio cable and the USB cable. This is also when I found out about the “car mode” of my N1, forcing the screen to remain on. The solution is not pretty, and it’s quite a hassle, especially compared to my previous solution for my iPhone, using this FM transmitter from Belkin. It’s a cleaner solution as it also acts as a holder for my iPhone with a built-in dock connector.

Okay, after all these, I took a step back and realized, why am I doing this. I mean why went through all these hassle just so I can listen to podcasts in my car? I already missed the ease of iTunes syncing with my iPhone. I miss the smoothness and polished feel of iOS. Also, I have to remember that epocrates on Android is not updateable. Finally, I gave up, pulled out the SIM card from my N1, and put it back in on my iPhone 3GS. After waiting for the Apple logo to finish booting iOS, I felt a huge relief. LOL. Yeah, it’s true. Using my iPhone again feels like a blessing. I felt like a lost lamb, going back to the comfort of Apple’s bubble after being lost in the woods of Android. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of things on my N1. Google Voice integration is a huge one. Another thing I like is the notification system. Let’s face it, notification on the iPhone is at the level of a dumbphone. However, there is this level of comfort when using iOS. I cannot describe it, but I know I feel this surge of relief when I returned to using my iPhone after a mere ~3 days using my N1 full time. It made me laugh.

My N1 will be a backup phone from now on. Android is marching on, getting more polish with each version. My only worry is that we will never see a pure Android experience anymore, with all Android devices are pretty much OEM customized (HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc) and/or carrier controlled. The next excitement will be Windows Phone 7, and maybe it will be the better alternative. In the meantime, I’m back at the comfort of the church of Apple. LOL. 😀

 

Asus eeePC vs Dell Inspiron mini

When Dell released their netbook called Inspiron mini, a lot of review sites and blogs online quickly favor it over the previous heartthrob Asus eeePC. I have the eeePC 1000H model, a 10″ eeePC with regular hard-drive (not SSD) and XP. It’s okay, but I find it still a bit large for on-the-go use, plus it has a fragile hard-drive. I managed to score a refurbished Dell inspiron mini 9 for cheap ($300) with 16GB SSD and XP. Let’s compare them.

Obviously the Dell is smaller and a bit lighter. Build quality wise, both are made from cheap plastic. However, the Asus feels to be higher quality plastic than the Dell. The hinges on the Asus feels solid, while there’s an obvious large gap between the plastics on the Dell. First obvious downside on the Dell, no LED on the AC adapter. The Asus’ AC adapter has a blue LED to show that it has current. On the unit itself, the Dell has no indication if it’s being charged or not, while the Asus has an LED indicating charging just like a traditional laptop. There is an LED with a battery icon on the Dell, which logically should light up when the device is charging. It doesn’t. I though my Dell is faulty, but looking at the manual, the LED will only light up to indicate low battery. That’s not intuitive. Also, the Asus has a blue LED that lights up if wifi is on while the Dell has no such indicator. Asus +1. The Asus also has an LED indicator for hard-drive activity. The Dell uses an SSD, so I guess that doesn’t matter. 1 annoying thing on the Asus though, once the battery reaches 70% or so, the battery LED light starts blinking. Can be annoying since 70% still has plenty of juice.

Ports wise, both seems to do a mirror image of each other. Ethernet, 1 USB port, headphone + mic port are found on the right side of the Dell, and on the left side of the Asus. 2 USB port, AC adapter port, and the SD card slot are on the left side of the Dell, and on the right side of the Asus. Both have the VGA port on the right side. The SD slot on the Dell seems to have poorer built quality. I find it pretty hard to push an SD card in, while the Asus’ is pretty smooth.

Both screens have the same resolution, 1024×600. This is an issue with netbooks in general since the general UI on operating systems are designed for resolution of at least 1025×768. I find many programs have their dialog boxes being cut off. This can even make some programs or some programs’ settings screens unusable. At least on the Asus, there is an option to set the screen res to 1024×768, and you can “scroll” the screen up/down. No such option on the Dell.

I find overall speed on the Asus to be pretty slow, especially when loading programs, presumably due to the slow hard-drive. I had high expectations on the Dell since it uses SSD. Boot time is definitely faster on the Dell, but the SSD on it is dog slow. Installing updates from Windows update took forever, significantly much longer than any hard-drive based PCs I’ve used. The same thing can be said to installing programs. On the other hand, it’s solid state, meaning there’s no moving part, so I can move the Dell around, even turning it upside down without having to worry that I might damange something. I even spin the Dell upside down while it is installing Windows update without any ill effects. Amazing. Another upside with SSD is no hard-drive clicking noise. With the Asus, sometimes I’m not even comfortable using it on my lap since I’m afraid I would make a sudden movement and killed the hard-drive. If I would buy a notebook, I would definitely get a solid state drive. It has a price premium, but it makes portable computing much more enjoyable without having to worry about a moving hard-drive.

As for keyboard, the Asus is a definite winner. The Dell’s keyboard keys feel very tough to push while the Asus’ keyboard feels just like a regular laptop keyboard. The Dell also doesn’t have a separate function keys, obviously due to size restriction, while the Asus has the full complement of them.

Overall, I think Asus eeePC has better design and build quality. Price wise, they’re quite comparable for the same configurations, although I think the eeePC can be usually found cheaper. Due to the fact that the Dell has SSD, I would probably use it more often, just because it’s worry-free. I have not tested the webcam and audio. I do know that the Asus’ speaker is quite low in volume.

Netbooks bring a new class of affordable portable computers to the market. My wishes for future models are to use higher performance SSDs and definitely better battery life. It will be more interesting when Windows 7 comes out.

Now I just have to find a case/sleeve for the Dell. Asus included a sleeve with the eeePC.