iPhone4 vs Nexus One: More thoughts on hardware
I have a penchant for reading my posts several days later, and I realize that there is an aspect of day-to-day use that I haven’t addressed so far.
First off, this is really a comparison between the Nexus One and iPhone 4.
The N1 is rooted and runs a cooked ROM known as the TheOfficial, it’s Froyo based (android 2.2).
The iPhone 4 is a jailbroken 4.0.1 handset.
I gave rave reviews of on the iPhone’s physical ID. Some thoughts on ergonomics:
- I like the feel of the Nexus 1 better. The soft-touch back makes it feel great. The iPhone 4’s hard edges look great, but the glass back and front make it feel a bit too dainty.
- The iPhone 4 looks and feels more like a luxury device (I’ve mentioned this before).
- The volume and power button on the iPhone 4 are more prominent and just feel better. Functionally, the Nexus One works, but they are flushed with the case and provide very little tactile feedback and response.
- I finally pulled the BSE vinyl covering off the Nexus One and I found that the sensitivity of the capacitance screen improved. The iPhone is better—the hardware can handle 11 simultaneous touch points, whereas the Nexus One can barely handle 2 simultaneous touch points (of which it can flip the axis).
- 1 home button vs Back + Home + Menu + Search + Trackball. I like having the additional buttons. The trackball on the Nexus One (and HTC Magic) is useless; I only use it as an LED notifier.
- The LED notifier is a huge bonus, but you can only access the different settings when you root your device.
- I feel that Apple has overloaded the number of things that the home button can do—it’s not easy to use anymore. That said, the Nexus One’s software calibrates the touch sensitive buttons about 2 mm higher than where I would expect them to be. It is a common problem and hasn’t been fixed.
- ASIDE: I have no doubt that HTC provided real hardware buttons on the Desire and dumped the physical trackball in favour of using the optical trackpad because of the feedback on the Nexus One.
- Both devices are grease magnets. Fortunately, they both feature that oleophobic glass surface so cleaning is a cinch.
Both devices are great. They feel like phones—some of the larger 4-inch devices are approaching PDA size—they just look stupid put against your face (trust me, I know how stupid it looks; I use to own a Windows Mobile PDA phone).
UPDATE (09/21/2010): I’ve been comparing the sound quality of music between the phones across several headphones—the iPhone wins. Neither has an equalizer, but I find I like the sound better on the iPhone. I perceive it to be fuller than the Nexus One. I would characterize the Nexus One sound as being very “accurate”.
I’m not even sure that makes sense.
Tai