The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


In this part I'm just going to touch some points which I thought should be good to mentioned

Address Book

I really like Nokia's Address book as I can put in hell a lot of information into the contact card. But the good thing about the Android Address book is that its synced with my Google contacts and Facebook. But Google contact have has another issue of not being connected to the contact's Google profile and the contact information published there. More on that later. Google and Android contacts also ignore nicknames while searching.


Camera

N900 has the best camera among the three

SMS

All three phones show SMS as conversation. I like how N900 shows the conversations and the the friendly language used. iPhone has a funny talk bubble and a confusing interface and Android has tech language used like "Delete Thread". What thread boss?

I would love to have an option from a contact card to see my text conversation and call history with him/her. I think its pretty easy and possible to do this on Android.

Notifications

I really like the Android notification screen which can be swiped down from the header which lists out all the notifications for me. Very nicely done.

Home screen widgets

iPhone doesn't allow home screen widgets which is a very bad thing. N900 has it but its Nexus which takes the cake here. There are lots of useful home screen widgets in the Android Market which ranges from just switches of many of the mostly used functionalities to snapshots of your Calendar/Facebook etc.

Modal Window

All three phones use modal windows to show contextual menu/keyboard but Nexus has the most unintuitive way of dismissing them. When iPhone and N900 closes modal windows if I tap on the background, Nexus makes me hit the back button to do this. This is bad interaction design.

One hand usage

N900 cant be used with one hand coz of its fixed landscape mode (Utter Fail). One hand usage is a challenge even on Nexus coz of its poor touch response. iPhone scores hands down here :)

iPhone scores on the smallest aspects which others tend to ignore. But I think if Android gives more importance to iron out the small issues it will win in the long run. Android has all the potential to be a Geek's favorite phone.

Phew I think I'm done :)

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

Note: I'm not a tech guy. I know what processors and memory are but as a normal user I have no clue what difference they make. GHz doesn't mean anything to me. I measure internet bandwidth not in Kbps but by the time YouTube takes to buffer video. So this review should be taken in that way. I can only talk about things I can see, touch and feel. Not about things inside the phone. I'm pretty dumb in that sense.

Search

iPhone has the Spotlight search which searches for anything in the phone but as we all know to reach there you need to close all the apps. Its also integrated as a part of the home screen. Of course every iPhone app has its own way of search integrated.

Android phones have a dedicated search button which can be called any time to do a search in the phone or on Google. It also acts like a contextual search when I'm inside an app. Something in the lines of Google desktop search. There is voice search too which is great but its not made to understand my English accent. I'm hoping this will be fixed soon. Ah now a days I've started using gesture search using which i can search by writing directly on to the screen. Its a good temp replacement to voice search.

N900 is not very search oriented.

Winner: iPhone for keeping it simple. Android will be the winner soon when they get the voice search right.

Keyboard

Steve Jobs had said to trust the iPhone keyboard and it would work well. Its so true. If we use the iPhone keyboard without being cautious of making mistakes, it will work well. I don't know what they have done to make it work like that. I can "type" faster on iPhone than on Nexus. However the predictive text on iPhone is not very usable. I wouldn't either care as I'm able to type faster.

Android has thinner keys and trusting the keys do work but not as good as iPhone. Most of the times I hit the wrong keys. But interestingly the text prediction on Android works better and is more usable. Even though I cant "type" well on Android most of the times I don't have to. It gives me enough word suggestions that I just tap on them. This works even when I have typed wrong spelling. This indeed makes up for my inability to hit the right keys on Android. However its safe for Indians to switch off the auto complete feature as the phone may suggest a English dictionary word when we type something in Hinglish or Manglish and you may be add it unknowingly by hitting the space button.

And yeah Nexus (Android 2.1) has voice input; ie I can just talk to the phone and get it typed and don't have to really "type" it. This is phenomenal and is something which I had predicted to happen long back. However as i mentioned earlier it doesn't understand my accent. I do us it to type long numbers though and it works.

N900's predictive text can get onto your nerves. I put it off.

Winner: iPhone & Android. Android will be the only winner the day they get the voice input right.

Multi Tasking

iPhone has no multi tasking

Android applications are encouraged to multi task so that they can refer to other apps for specific functionalities, which is actually the real essence of multi tasking. The back button allows you to navigate back smoothly. Android keeps the last 6 apps always open in the memory and doesn't allow me to close it; may be to facilitate seamless navigation. For some reason I feel little uncomfortable of this funda. Why is it only 6? And why is it not allowing me to close? Also you have to long press the home button to see the open apps; not intuitive.

I really like how N900 handle the UX of multi tasking. There is an open apps view on N900 which shows all the open apps as thumbnails and tapping on them will open the apps. I dont think there is a restrcition in the number of apps which can be kept open. There is a close button on all the thumnails which will close them. However I didn't find any app referring to another app or anything like that. I can just browse when i listen to music. Computer ishtyle.

Winner: Android & N900 for the user experience of switching and closing apps; for making me comfortable.

To be continued

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 2

Part 1

Hardware Buttons

iPhone has the least number of hardware buttons which makes it the most easiest to use. Barring the power button and the adjust volume buttons, there is just ONE home button on the main screen which has just one function. It also makes sure that all the app navigation/options be a part of the app UI which makes it more intuitive for a rookie user.

N900 has the maximum number of hardware buttons considering it has a physical QWERTY keyboard. It also has a lock/unlock slider, power button, and an adjust volume button. As I mentioned earlier I found the keyboard unusable. I was not able to hit the keys on the top row of the board. The lock/unlock and power buttons are misplaced and hence unusable too.

Nexus has the 4 Android hardware buttons which I found as an irritant in the beginning but slowly I got used to it. The Back button makes it easy to navigate between multitasking apps. The Options button allows the apps to tuck in some options and nav elements under it so that the UI can be cleaner but the user may take some time to get used to this kind of navigation. Home button of course to go Home at any point of time; long pressing it will also give the last 6 apps I used. Search button is to search Google or do contextual search. I've got used to them now and it works well for me. Of course on Nexus these buttons' touch areas little out of place. I also found that the sequence of placing these buttons on Android phones are not consistent which is bad. Nexus also has a roller ball navigation like Blackberry which is useful only when I'm fine editing text. But I'm a fan of how iPhone handles this; magnifies the cursor position when I long press on text.

Winner: iPhone

Sound/Voice Quality

The speaker of Nexus is not great to listen to music. But it has noise reduction features to make your voice quality better. I did an telephonic interview amidst a lot of noise and when I apologized the candidate said she could barely hear any noise. But of course I was not able to hear her properly coz of the noise.

iPhone of course has an iPod about which I need not talk about here. But again the speaker is just fine. Voice quality on iPhone is also just decent.

N900 wins hands down here. The stereo speakers are superb. It is indeed a multimedia phone. Voice quality is also good.

Winner: N900

Apps/Store

The iPhone app store as everyone knows has all kinds of interesting apps. Again I don't have to talk about it here.

If you are an iPhone fan you will be disappointed by the kind of apps available in the Android market. Android apps are not necessarily like iPhone apps. Android market does have "iPhone type" apps (which are not as good) to "just services" which run in the background to do specific tasks. If you want to change or add some functionality on to your phone, just search in the market and i'm sure you are going to find it. I've downloaded quite a lot of utilities which are useful. Like the flip and shake service - it runs in the background and allows my phone to go to silent mode when flip it when it rings, shake to make the phone screen change to a flash light. I have another small service called "car mode" when activated will switch on the speaker phone whenever I get a call. Android apps also talk to other apps and share tasks which is a great relief for developers as they can focus on the app's core features. The back button makes sure that you navigate to and back from one app to another smoothly.

I did find a lot of "iPhone style apps" (mostly games) on Ovi store for N900, but they neither are as good as the iPhone apps nor there are Android kind of "services". Of course usual suspects like Facebook and Qik are there everywhere. I did download Firefox for N900 but found the native browser faster.

Winner: iPhone of course but Android is not behind with a completely different set of capabilities.

To be continued

The iPhone, Nexus One, N900 Shootout. Part 1

Again lemme play safe here - I think these phones are not supposed to be compared with each other. They are made for different people. iPhone as you know is iPHONE. A Nokia should be compared to another Nokia or an LG/Samsung with similar capabilities. An Android phone should only be compared with another Android. Said that; recently I had the privilege of using an N900 (Thanks to the nice guys at Nokia Womworld) and the Nexus One (We got it for the design team at work). I have already used an iPhone before so I thought it would be nice to jot down a quick list of points that came to my mind when I used them. Also Nexus is the first Android phone I'm using (I've looked at the Droid and Motorola Cliq previously) so most of the features I'm talking about might be an Android feature and not necessarily a Nexus feature.



WOW Factor

N900 lacks in this dept. There is nothing in the phone which will make you swoon for this phone. The phone looks like a brick and the UI is just a combination of a computer with Nokia's icons with some touch goodness.

iPhone had generated enough wow factor when it was released but later on they just added features into it, not wows.

Whereas Nexus One does have enough scope to make you go WOW. The beautiful hardware, a display that pops, voice input, live wallpaper, the notification panel, Google Skymap and other apps which add on to the oohs and aahs.

Winner: Nexus One

Hardware

N900 loses out completely. Its heavy and clunky. I found it's physical QWERTY keyboard unusable. It has a wrongly placed lock/unlock screen 'hardware slider' and another button when pressed will give a slide to unlock on the screen.... Aaaargh. It has a TV out and a FM transmitter though.

iPhone is the best in this category. Looks hot. It has just one home button. Makes it simple.

Nexus One looks cool and feels good to hold but has no grip. It may easily slip out of your hands. Be careful when you point out your phone to the sky using Google Sky Map. Four hardware buttons and a roller ball makes it look complex. The four hardware buttons have a purpose and it helps a lot once you get used to them, but on Nexus they are not placed well. The touch areas are out of place and they get accidental pressed when I use the phone with one hand.

Winner: iPhone

Screen

All three phones have screens I don't have a crib about. N900 has a resistive touch screen which is very responsive and smooth unlike N97. Has kinetic scrolling, but no flick. Graphics are high end; I really like the way the home screen and menu transitions. Large touch friendly graphics so I dont make mistakes. Only bummer is that the phone is supposed to be used only on landscape mode. It becomes portrait mode only when the phone app opens. Can get really confused.

iPhone has the best responsive screen I've ever used.

However Nexus One has a Mmmuah screen display coz of its high resolution (480 x 800 pixels) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. You have to see it to understand what I mean by the Mmmuah display. Its that good. But responsiveness is only next to iPhone. Flick scrolling is smoother and better than iPhone. Nexus has multi touch too. Also has long press which simulates the "right click menu" option.

Winner: Again Nexus One. It needs to work on the responsiveness part.

Activation

N900 doesn't need an Activation as such as its not tied in to any online service. But they have Settings all over the place. I got lost at times trying to search for some settings.

iPhone asked me to download iTunes first on my comp and then connect and activate. I dont use iTunes and forcing me to do all that made me really pissed. Think about it, you bought a phone but you need to wait till you download iTunes and then connect to see your phone working. iPhone has the simplest Settings though.

Nexus asked me to login with my google id and tada my contacts, calendar, gmail and everything got synced. Setting up work email was easier with a simple wizard. However work calendar didn't come in which was a bummer. I can get it if I sync my Outlook calendar with Google Calendar; but didnt do it. Nexus has an elaborate Settings screen but quite nicely grouped.

Winner: As a Google fan I will vote for Nexus for making my transition smooth.

To be continued...