I’ve had my Nexus S phone for only about 3 weeks, but at this point its main purpose is decorating a drawer in my desk. That wasn’t exactly my plan, but it looks like it will soon be back on eBay, from whence it came. There are two real problems I have with it.
1) It’s not a good phone.
I’ve dropped goodness knows how many calls in the past week. It got so bad that for long conversations, I just started using Skype and paying by the minute. I have one call that got interrupted 4 times in 15 minutes. Granted, the reception isn’t great in my room, but the little Samsung dumb phone I borrowed before getting the Nexus had no such problems. Other annoyances include limited battery life and the fact that the phone gets noticeably warm during long calls.
2) Application quality is mediocre.
This is a slightly unfair generalization, but of the basic apps I use, every single one is clunkier than on the iPhone, starting with the Browser and Mail apps. It is frankly a little surprising given how slick Chrome is on the desktop, but there it is.
I guess the moral of the story is that mobile platforms are difficult, and even large successful companies like Google are still figuring things out. I hope they figure out fast though. I’d hate for Android to wind up being the Windows 95 of the 2010s.
