Hi All,
I've been an iPhone 3G user since they were first released (about a year and a half ago I guess) and while I loved it at first, lately it's become so slow and buggy, and Apple have become so antagonistic I'm thinking of buying a Nexus One.
I won't list all my gripes about the iPhone as I'm sure you guys know them all already (and there are many), but before I can seriously consider switching I'd need to know if the Nexus One could do everything my iPhone can do. (and I hope, a lot more)
Firstly - video playback. I have a long train commute so I watch a lot of video on the iPhone. I very rarely buy it from the iTunes store, so pretty much everything is in MP4 format and usually at the max res the iPhone will handle. (which is about 700x400 or something like that). I encode them in Handbrake or XVID4PSP, and bump up the res so they'll look okay when viewed on my PC, or Apple TV, or PS3. Ideally though I'd like to encode them to 720p and so have a nice high quality file for all my devices, but the iPhone is holding me back.
Can the Nexus One play 720p H.264 video? (with two embedded soundtracks, a 5.1 DD track, and a 2.0 AAC track) Also, as I'm an anime fan I encode soft subtitles a lot with Handbrake, which can be turned off or on in the iPhone, Apple TV, and in iTunes and VLC. Does the Nexus One support soft subtitles?
Secondly - audio playback. I rarely listen to music, (but when I do it's always DRM-free MP3 or AAC at 320 or 256kbps) but I do listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. What do you use on the Nexus One to download/sync podcasts? I'd want something which handles podcasts as well as iTunes does really. As for audiobooks, I get them all from Audible, so they have Audible's DRM on them. I gather Android doesn't support Audible yet? If that's the case, is that going to change soon?
Thirdly - apps. Obviously the iPhone has a lot of these, but the few that I do use a lot I couldn't do without. They are Last FM, and internet radio. (I use Radio Box on the iPhone, but there are many apps that do the same thing). I also play iPhone games from time to time, and would miss the likes of Plants vs Zombies, GTA ChinaTown Wars, PacMan Championship Edition, Infinity Gene, and Canabalt if I couldn't get them on Android. How is the Android gaming scene coming along? Are there any game directory or review sites I could check out?
A lot of questions there... sorry! I use my iPhone a lot but the lack of multi-tasking is just driving me nuts, as are all the annoying limits placed on pretty much everything on the phone. Want to download a podcast when you're away from wi-fi? Good luck finding one small enough to fit within the arbitrary download caps Apple set for 3G. Oh and I just love how even the iPod app crashes several times a day, and how I have to hard reboot the thing every few days just to clear out all the junk from it's memory. I better stop before I end up ranting, as to be frank, the iPhone, for all it's good points, is just pure annoyance in so many ways now.
Thanks all!
I've been an iPhone 3G user since they were first released (about a year and a half ago I guess) and while I loved it at first, lately it's become so slow and buggy, and Apple have become so antagonistic I'm thinking of buying a Nexus One.
I won't list all my gripes about the iPhone as I'm sure you guys know them all already (and there are many), but before I can seriously consider switching I'd need to know if the Nexus One could do everything my iPhone can do. (and I hope, a lot more)
Firstly - video playback. I have a long train commute so I watch a lot of video on the iPhone. I very rarely buy it from the iTunes store, so pretty much everything is in MP4 format and usually at the max res the iPhone will handle. (which is about 700x400 or something like that). I encode them in Handbrake or XVID4PSP, and bump up the res so they'll look okay when viewed on my PC, or Apple TV, or PS3. Ideally though I'd like to encode them to 720p and so have a nice high quality file for all my devices, but the iPhone is holding me back.
Can the Nexus One play 720p H.264 video? (with two embedded soundtracks, a 5.1 DD track, and a 2.0 AAC track) Also, as I'm an anime fan I encode soft subtitles a lot with Handbrake, which can be turned off or on in the iPhone, Apple TV, and in iTunes and VLC. Does the Nexus One support soft subtitles?
Secondly - audio playback. I rarely listen to music, (but when I do it's always DRM-free MP3 or AAC at 320 or 256kbps) but I do listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. What do you use on the Nexus One to download/sync podcasts? I'd want something which handles podcasts as well as iTunes does really. As for audiobooks, I get them all from Audible, so they have Audible's DRM on them. I gather Android doesn't support Audible yet? If that's the case, is that going to change soon?
Thirdly - apps. Obviously the iPhone has a lot of these, but the few that I do use a lot I couldn't do without. They are Last FM, and internet radio. (I use Radio Box on the iPhone, but there are many apps that do the same thing). I also play iPhone games from time to time, and would miss the likes of Plants vs Zombies, GTA ChinaTown Wars, PacMan Championship Edition, Infinity Gene, and Canabalt if I couldn't get them on Android. How is the Android gaming scene coming along? Are there any game directory or review sites I could check out?
A lot of questions there... sorry! I use my iPhone a lot but the lack of multi-tasking is just driving me nuts, as are all the annoying limits placed on pretty much everything on the phone. Want to download a podcast when you're away from wi-fi? Good luck finding one small enough to fit within the arbitrary download caps Apple set for 3G. Oh and I just love how even the iPod app crashes several times a day, and how I have to hard reboot the thing every few days just to clear out all the junk from it's memory. I better stop before I end up ranting, as to be frank, the iPhone, for all it's good points, is just pure annoyance in so many ways now.
Thanks all!