Many of you might know I struggle to avail internet connection in Dhaka. However here mobile internet is pretty cheap and easily available. I pay 13 USD per month for unlimited usage on EDGE connectivity. So very often I am kind of forced to do a lot of things on mobile. Using mobile devises till its edge is not just a hobby or experiment to me, often it's a mere necessity. The E71 was my half-life :-p I realized how much it was to me after loosing it!
Now the new mate is the Nexus One. Its a device with amazing power but with full of silly problems. I'm sure many of you have already been through these problems of Nexus One:1. You have to treat it like a laptop regarding battery backup. It will not last more than 4-6 hours of continuous browsing. If you use GPS and navigation in daylight with high brightness on 3G you have to worry about its life within a 3 hour long bike ride. (Google could concentrate more on battery than adding biking direction on map).
2. You CAN NOT upload anything from it's browser. In every case it says 'Upload Disabled' (I have no idea how could Google do something like this!)
3. It has NO Native File Manager! You have to use third party application to brows folders of your phone/SD Card.
4. (Natively) You can not send any attachment with emails. Again you have to install third party apps to do it. Sad and silly.
5. Google Maps on Nexus is worse than Google Maps on Nokia or iPhone! Well it might have all those street views, 3D etc. But the silliest thing is Google Maps on Nexus can not cache any data on SDCard or phone. Everytime you visit the map it starts with a blank screen and starts downloading everything from zero. Its a real pain when you are on a hurry and on a slow connection.
6. I couldn't find any option to install applications in SDCard. Each new application goes to kill the valuable phone memory. So after installing some apps you will have to start counting the free space of phone memory. Aweful.
7. No FM Radio. Sad :(
8. No native voice recording app. I need it so frequently!
9. No native GPS Data application! I was used to measure my architectural sites using E71's GPS App before my surveyors do. Now I may have to look for an application to do that on Nexus.
10. You can not keep the phone 'Discoverable' for more than 2 minutes on Bluetooth. After every 2 minutes you will need to turn the 'Discoverable' option On again to receive a new file.
11. You will struggle to find out some frequently used symbols in the onscreen keyboard. (It took long effort to find out 'underscore_' on the keyboard).
12. There is no good option to turn the internet off. (I have made a APN profile with wrong APN information, when I need to turn off internet I turn on that wrong APN :-p)
Few very obvious expectations from Nexus One those are sadly missing:
1. There could be a native application for Office stuffs that fully integrates with Google Docs. It could be an offline Google Docs application with sync facility.
2. The browser could be capable of syncing Google Bookmarks.
3. It could be capable of playing .avi video files.
4. The connectivity option with WiMax could be a big leap.
5. (I couldn't find any trace!) Does Nexus One have any camera on the front side for video chatting? If not then its bad.
1. The whole system of placing widgets on home screens is really cool.
2. Nexus One is very fast. And it can take huge load on memory. You may open several applications at a time, and several pages in browser it won't slow you down.
3. The integration of phone contacts with Facebook and Google is amazing! Often I receive calls from people who are not added to my phonebook but Nexus One automatically detects the number and shows name and photo snatching information from Facebook.
4. The camera is a good one. Video playing quality and control on screen is also great.Make it greater :-D
1. Turn your Nexus One into an FTP Server!:
Install the free application called Swiftp from Android Market. It will let you share any folder or the whole of your SDCard over the internet. Swiftp provides FTP proxy too for free. So you will have an URL, by which anyone on the internet can access your phone's files and download them using any browser (of course whoever is accessing will have to have the password you set to get inside your phone's files).
If someone accesses your phone using a standard FTP Client software (ex: FireFTP, is a good FTP client runs inside Firefox as a plugin, it's free) they will be able to download, upload, delete, rename your phone's folders and files from anywhere.
So this thing can reduce a lot of hassles of sending or receiving files via email etc. Amazing! Isn't it!2. Turn your Nexus One into an FTP Client:
If you are a owner/admin of websites FTP client is a frequent necessity. There are few FTP client applications for Android! I use AndFTP (search in Android Market). It will let you access all the files stored in your servers, upload, download, edit anything from your phone. 3. Tweet: I found Seesmic (search in Market) is the best tweeter application for Android.4. Chat (text and voice for free): Fring recently has released their Nexus One compatible updated version. (I think many of you know) Using Fring you can remain online in Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Skype and few others simultaneously, you can text-chat and receive voice-chat requests as phone calls, can call anyone online. If you have Skype credit you can make Skype calls to any number from Fring.
(Fring for Nokia E71, E72 now also has video-chat option!).5. Transmit Live video: Install the application called 'Qik' (they have recently updated their Nexus One version). Register an account, log in, then turn on your camera using Qik application. Press the green button and the video will be live at qik.com/yourname! All the transmitted videos are also stored almost realtime at your qik.com account.
I often use my phone to transmit live video of ArchSociety events.Nexus One is great for its power, speed and stability.
However I still miss my Nokia E71 :-p I'm sure the thief has sold that phone to someone in Dhaka who doesn't do anything other than calling by it, such a waste of power of a great device! Sigh...