N900 or Nexus1

[bigbrovar]

Hi guys, I was a user of the Nokia N900 which is a great phone (and handheld computer) I really loved the device and the awesome community around it. I got my N900 from the USA via a friend because it wasn't released in my country. However when I started to hear news about some problems people where having with the microUSB port which kept falling off. I was scared that same thing might happen to me and I was faraway from warranty (would have to send it back to nokia should it happen to me and pay the cost of transportation and back) So when the phone was released in my country I decided to sell mine so that I could buy the phone locally and hence be covered by warranty.

However I have been hearing alot of positive review of the google Nexus one and was thinking instead of getting a phone (even though its cool) that I had used before, why not get something better. Like something with a different experience. I have never used an android device before. mainly because I never really liked java. or something that doesnt use native code. But most android users say the platform is great and am thinking maybe I should give it a go. If u are an android user I have the following Question

- How good is the multimedia support (OOTB/ or with 3rd party codecs) one thing I loved about the N900 is that it played just about everything I threw at it. avi, dvix, xvid, mp4 even .vob dvd files and I didnt have to encode them. there all just worked OOBT. is the Nexus one just as good?

- I heard that the nexus one screen is very bad in direct sunlight. Is this so bad that u cant even see the screen at all or is the phone still usable in direct sunlight. I wont be browsing the web or watching video under the sun but I hope I would be able to make calls, add contacts occasional emails

- How is the contact management? One the N900 I could merge my contacts email,phone,skype,IM into one single contact details. is this possible with the Nexus one?

- How well does it handle communications. One the N900 I had something called conversation which aggregates all my communications in a threaded view (sms,email,IM) does the Nexus do threaded sms or IM?

- Does the Nexus support sending and receiving vcf contact format?

- can I get things like ssh support on the Nexus (oobt or 3rd party)

- what about multitasking. The N900 does it really well .. how cool is the Nexus one at multitasking?

- how good is the virtual keyboard of the Nexus one? good? very good? fair? bad?

What is your killer app for the nexus?

Please I hope this thread dont degenerate into flame war between maemo and android so lets try and much as you can to be objective and to the point. :). I just need input from user of Nexus one. about their feelings about the device. cons especially (if any)

[bigbrovar]

sigh :s

[steev182]

Nexus one/Android does NOT support xvid. In fact, lets just leave it that it only supports mp4 video.

Android is good, but it's reliance on Google apps made me go for the N900. That and xvid support and Skype built in...

[descendent87]

I'd go for the N900, I own a HTC Magic which was the 2nd android phone but wish I'd waited a little longer and gone for the N900. Especially with meego coming out soon which combines Maemo & Moblin.
The biggest problem with android IMO is how many devices are coming out, mine was the top of the range "with google" device last year but as soon as the next device came out (HTC Hero about 2 weeks later) the Magic was forgotten about and I'm still waiting for confirmation if it will even get an upgrade to android 2.0+
Google have stopped pretty much all development for apps on 1.6 now and all the new apps require android 2.1 so I can't install any of them.
Same thing happened with the droid, it was supposed to be the best android phone and the first to have 2.0 then a few weeks later the nexus one comes out with 2.1 (European droid owners are still waiting for an upgrade to 2.1)

[ve4cib]

Unless you plan on constantly taking the MicroSD card in and out I don't think the problem you describe with the N900 would be much of an issue. You can transfer files on/off the MicroSD card by leaving it in the phone and using the USB cable, so I don't really see much need to ever remove it once it's in. But maybe I'm just weird like that.

Also, one other thing to note, the N900 does not officially support MMS (yet). There's a third-party beta that hooks MMS capabilities up to the SMS reciever, but it may or may not be usable right now.

[chappajar]

Vidoe codecs: don't know, haven't tried. Google it...

Screen: it's still visible in bright direct sunlight, you can make calls, just avoid large amounts of reading text or typing.

Contacts: stored online in the google cloud, so yes.

Threads: sms yes, email default is gmail, haven't tried IM but can't imagine anything but threaded IM...

vcf: apps for this

ssh: yes, apps for this

multitasking: fine, but get an automatic task killer app.

virtual keyboard: very good

Killer app?: voice to voice translation with trippo or google translate, layar, google goggles, Gameboid GBA emulator, quake, skype with fring/nimbuzz, google nav, google earth.

Great phone but I would prefer an N900 because of the hardware keyboard, and the even more open OS.