

Ask HN: Nexus One or Droid/etc? - nir

I'm looking to buy an Android phone to serve as both my main phone and dev machine. Is there a particular advantage to getting Google's developer phone (Nexus One) over one of the Droids/etc sold by the carriers?
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fragmede
This isn't as important for your personal phone, but the dev-phone comes 'pre-
rooted'. Depending on which one of the Droids you are looking at, installing
newer firmware may not be trivial. With a Nexus One, new firmware is supported
operation, and Android 2.2 is actually supported on the Nexus One.

(The last thing you want to be doing while doing your own dev work is
wondering if the camera/accelerometer/whatever API calls are failing because
of a sketchy driver or whatever.)

(Even if you're not targeting right now 2.2, you still want to have the
ability to test on it.)

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phaedrus
I bought a Neo Freerunner back in 2008. The Freerunner didn't have much
internal flash capacity, and I had a world of trouble finding an SD card that
was compatible with it. The Nexus One has more internal flash than the
Freerunner, but still not much. So I'm getting an HTC Droid Incredible mainly
because it has more internal flash so that I won't be "stuck" if I run into SD
card compatibility problems.

Note that despite the confusingly similar names, the HTC Droid Incredible is
completely a different phone than the Motorola Droid(s). Google themselves
recommend to get the HTC Incredible if you cannot get the Nexus One.

However, bear in mind I haven't actually gotten the phone yet. Better ask me
again after I've gotten the phone whether it was a good idea or not. At one
time I also thought the Freerunner would be a good idea, but as a phone it was
so flawed as to be unusable.

------
sabj
Nexus One: This phone will always allow you to test out the newest updates
with the least amount of pain. You'll always have the newest updates soonest.

Downside, however, is that any particular advantages / disadvantages won't
really reflect the broader Android install base, since there are so few Nexus
Ones. But there are relatively few serious problems that come with
fragmentation when you are considering the 2010 crop of Android phones --
between all the big names, everything should work pretty well.

Getting a Droid (the original Motorola one) can give you a taste of what many,
many people have and are using, same can be said if you got an Evo, DroidX,
etc... And it can be a worthwhile experience to see how performance might
differ when burdened by the skins (MotoBlur, Sense) that are on the phones as
well.

------
enomar
Personally, the Droids seem to be clunkier and of poorer quality. Plus you'll
have to deal with whatever crap Verizon puts on it. The DroidX may have better
specs, but I love my N1. It's a really solid phone.

------
nir
Thanks for the advice, everyone! BTW, does anyone have a data/voice plan
they'd recommend?

------
tooto
nexus gets the updates first but if you root one of the other ones you can
stay up to date as well i guess

~~~
vetinari
Rooting DroidX or Droid 2 will not help you. The bootloader is signed and
checks, whether the firmware is signed by Motorola too. If it not, it will
refuse to boot it.

So if you do not want to be stuck with whatever firmware version Motorola
offers, get Nexus One.

