Nexus One or Nexus S?

FiReSTaRT

FiReSTaRT

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Since other platforms are not quite there yet, I will be buying a data device soon, and I'm trying to choose between the two. Is there a special reason to get Nexus S over Nexus One other than the front-facing camera, which I don't even use on my computer? Gingerbread update is coming out for One, and it will have better SIP support, so I'm golden there too... The reason I'm thinking of One instead of S is that One has an actual GPS antenna, while S is limited to A-GPS.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
Since other platforms are not quite there yet, I will be buying a data device soon, and I'm trying to choose between the two. Is there a special reason to get Nexus S over Nexus One other than the front-facing camera, which I don't even use on my computer? Gingerbread update is coming out for One, and it will have better SIP support, so I'm golden there too... The reason I'm thinking of One instead of S is that One has an actual GPS antenna, while S is limited to A-GPS.
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I've read a few reviews on the S, and all-in-all, I'd still rather have the one (which I have). Very solid phone, and I'm definitely happy with it. I'm running cyanogenmod on it, however, so I'm honestly not sure what the stock android experience is like these days (though the two friends I have running it on their nexus ones seem pleased with it). I think one of the biggest reasons I like the one over the S is the feel of it. It has a nice, solid feel instead of the cheap, plastic-y that samsung phones tend to have. It's also solid enough that it has stood up to a few drops and at least one good soaking in .... well, it wasn't water... with no damage. If you have any specific questions about the one, I'll do my best to answer them.
 
From what I heard and read there isn't much of a difference in nexus one and nexus s. Nexus one with a lowered price is totally worth it.
 
You don't need to do much more convincing for me to pull the trigger on Nexus One, since I switched to the unlimited data Wind plan.. Saving about $200 will also be nice :cool:
 
By the way, what's the cheapest place to get it locally? The cheapest I've seen was $440 shipped from QC (new unit).
 
FiReSTaRT said:
By the way, what's the cheapest place to get it locally? The cheapest I've seen was $440 shipped from QC (new unit).
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Couldn't say. I bought mine from Google back in Feb before they were selling in Canada. My colleagues just got some dev phones directly from google for research purposes, but I'm fairly sure that the dev phones are only on the robellus frequency.
 
LiNK666 said:
hey fs, just be careful. I heard that only t-mobile phones will work with windmobile.
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I'm not sure whether it's the T-Mobile phones or not (I can never remember which american carrier is on which band), but there ARE two versions of the nexus one, running on two different gsm bands. One will work with robellus, and the other with wind/mobilicity/videotron. Make sure to get the one that uses AWS for wind.
 
LiNK666 said:
hey fs, just be careful. I heard that only t-mobile phones will work with windmobile.
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Actually S is coming out on T-Mobile first. The UMTS frequencies on the listings for One also match the Wind Mobile frequencies, but I asked the seller (CDN) the question just to make sure.
 
also, I may have mentioned this already, but I'd recommend that you give it a month or two to make sure there are no hardware issues that will require a warranty claim, then install cyanogenmod. some nice value-added features in there. But to do so requires that you unlock the bootloader, which will void the warranty.
 
That's how long it'll take for Gingerbread to come out for One and for me to get familiar with it. I don't plan on upgrading if I can get all of the functions that I want out of it.
 
I see no evidence that either phone has unassisted GPS. That'd be nice but I don't think its reality. And the S is a better phone no question about it.
 
iridebikes said:
I see no evidence that either phone has unassisted GPS. That'd be nice but I don't think its reality. And the S is a better phone no question about it.
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Not true. While I can't speak for the nexus S (though according to firestart, it is agps only), AGPS is simply GPS + network assistance. The "A" means that network location is used to augment the speed at which it gets a lock. If there are no cell towers nearby (or you're in airplane mode) you can still get a gps lock.
 
iridebikes said:
I see no evidence that either phone has unassisted GPS. That'd be nice but I don't think its reality. And the S is a better phone no question about it.
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You may be right on unassisted.. I may have been misinformed on that, but in any case, I don't see S as $200 better for my needs. The CPU's are very close, I don't need a killer GPU, I won't do much multimedia stuff on a 4" screen, and I won't do video-conferencing. Phone, short IM's/E-mails, navigation, music, some browsing, SIP, remote control for my XBMC and I'm a happy man :cool:
 
Mikey-D said:
Not true. While I can't speak for the nexus S (though according to firestart, it is agps only), AGPS is simply GPS + network assistance. The "A" means that network location is used to augment the speed at which it gets a lock. If there are no cell towers nearby (or you're in airplane mode) you can still get a gps lock.
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Not true? Its plenty true buddy. Neither of those phones has unassisted GPS. Please take that phone out somewhere without cell towers and let me know how long it takes to get a lock.

The secret answer is: too f'ing long for it to be usable. All phones have A-GPS and will for a long time.
 
FiReSTaRT said:
You may be right on unassisted.. I may have been misinformed on that, but in any case, I don't see S as $200 better for my needs. The CPU's are very close, I don't need a killer GPU, I won't do much multimedia stuff on a 4" screen, and I won't do video-conferencing. Phone, short IM's/E-mails, navigation, music, some browsing, SIP, remote control for my XBMC and I'm a happy man :cool:
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What phone do you have now? $200 diff in price is a tough choice... but a bigger screen is always better, and the S has a super-AMOLED unit so its not just bigger but should also be sharper and brighter. It also has NFC, which is probably gonna be a big deal in the next year or two. Then again by that time you may be shopping for another phone.

Reason I ask what phone you use now is that you might not realize just how much multimedia usage you'll put this phone through if you're not used to one already (aka coming from a flipphone or blackberry or something). You also might be mistaken about just how many useful apps you'll have on the phone once you discover how many are actually out there.
 
iridebikes said:
Not true? Its plenty true buddy. Neither of those phones has unassisted GPS. Please take that phone out somewhere without cell towers and let me know how long it takes to get a lock.

The secret answer is: too f'ing long for it to be usable. All phones have A-GPS and will for a long time.
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Are you even capable of responding without condescension?

I'll have a look the next time I'm away from all towers, but in the meantime I know that in airplane mode (no cell/wifi/data connection) it still gets a gps lock just fine. I also know that I've been places where I have no cell connection and still get a gps lock reasonably quickly.

The point isn't how fast it is, but whether it has it. General consensus seems to be as firestart said: n1: gps with agps support; ns: agps.
 
Ugh. There is no difference in the GPS on those two phones. They're both assisted GPS. They both have GPS chips, and they both use cell tower triangulation to get a rough idea of where you are so that the GPS chip can figure it out quicker, because its not as robust as the processor and antenna in, say, your car's navigation system.

They both have the same GPS. Really that's all that needs to be said.
 
iridebikes said:
Ugh. There is no difference in the GPS on those two phones. They're both assisted GPS. They both have GPS chips, and they both use cell tower triangulation to get a rough idea of where you are so that the GPS chip can figure it out quicker, because its not as robust as the processor and antenna in, say, your car's navigation system.

They both have the same GPS. Really that's all that needs to be said.
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I'm not convinced, but that doesn't matter. At this point, firestart has two different people telling him two different things (albeit, one of us is saying A with nothing to back it up, and the other is saying B with first-hand experience) and seems like a smart enough guy that he'll do his own research on the subject.

So back to the topic at hand: I still stand by the N1. If they were both the same price, I'd be hard-pressed to make a choice. But at $200 difference, it's an easy choice for me!
 
I'd tend to agree with Mikey, especially considering all of the flak that Samsung has been receiving for their GPS functionality, especially in comparison with HTC units. With that being said, there might be a slight annoyance with the display in overly bright areas, but since I'm mostly an indoors person, that won't be a dealbreaker.
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