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Google Nexus One Hands-On, Video, and Impressions
wkurzius writes "Engadget has gotten their hands on a Nexus One and have put their first impressions up for the world to see, including whether or not they think it's the 'be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone eviscerator.' Their opinion? 'Not really.'"
It's feature-locked. It only has the hardware to work fully on T-Mobile. Like the article says, take it to AT&T and you can't reach the frequencies they do 3G data on. It's not a bad design trade-off... why give the T-Mobile users hardware they don't need, when a majority of customers with an unlocked device would take it to T-Mobile because of their "unsubsidized hardware, cheaper service" pricing?
If you want a commercially sold phone that is hacker-friendly, I'd advise the Nokia N900. Have you considered that?
Get a Nokia N900 if you want that killer feature.
Debian ... check ... check ... check
root access
ssh + screen
apt-get install damn near anything ... CHECK!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Nokia took a big turn a few years ago, dropping the "free after service provider subsidy" models in favor of going very geek. I had one of their recent phones earlier this year while I was waiting for my subsidy to get an iPhone to come available.
The initial failures of the Ovi App Store were annoying, and with only the built in apps available to me it needed some work. They're racing in the same division as much bigger fish called Apple and Google, but they seem to have a neat device in the Booklet 3G... just a plain Windows netbook with a $300 provider discount making it $299.99, and Best Buy was kicking in another $100 to make it $199.99 over the holidays. The killer feature on this one is a solid battery.
They're really going for the geeks... but are there enough geeks who will pass on both Apple on AT&T and Google on Verizon and T-Mobile?
Ah, but this is what Google wants everyone to believe. They want you to think that they're just messing around and dabbling in every tech-related market. But the truth is far more subtle and interesting.
Google's real product, its core focus, has always been and remains its analytics. Everything they have developed or acquired--GMail, Maps, YouTube, Android, and of course, Google search--has been about one thing, and one thing only: gathering data and analyzing it in order to better match the consumer with the advertiser. You want to know/buy something. Someone else wants to tell/sell it to you. And Google's entire business model is about profiting off the need to make this connection efficient.
When viewed in this context, it becomes crystal clear why they have their hands in all these seemingly disparate technologies. They have a huge advantage, in that by cross-indexing the data they have collected on you, they can have a very complete picture of your preferences. It doesn't matter that YouTube doesn't turn a profit on its own. It doesn't matter that GMail and Android are free. In a sense, these things are not really products. They're more like...well, bait. They are a means to understand you better, and in turn, sell that understanding to people who want to sell you their products. Therefore, you are not Google's customer. The advertisers, the ones who pay Google for their analytics, are their real customers.
Given Microsoft's recent unveiling of Bing (and their "cashback" program), it appears that MS management still doesn't understand Google's strategy. They are trying to compete in this one area, thinking that if they could attract people to use their search engine, they would be competitive. While that tactic might have worked a decade ago, it's much too late now. They are throwing money at the problem because they don't understand that Google is successful because they offer services that are free, easy to use, and effective, then take the data they collect and sell that knowledge to advertisers. They have misunderstood in the same way that people misunderstand why Google developed all these different technologies and offered them for free.
It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.