Nexus One
You can’t have failed to avoid the hype surrounding Google’s launch of this phone in early Jan. Of course, it came with the usual claims of finally being a worthy challenger to the iPhone. While you can’t get your hands on one in Thailand yet, what we’ve read has us guessing it’s just the latest pretender doomed to fail.

The specs:
Nexus One is made by HTC and runs the latest Android 2.1 operating system. Stand out features include the 3.7” AMOLED touch screen and 5-megapixel camera. The Snapdragon 1GHz processor is the fastest in the market.

The headlines

• The 3.7 inch 480 x 800 AMOLED certainly beats the iPhone’s 480 x 320 display for sheer size and picture quality.
• Two microphones: one will absorb all surrounding noises, while the other focuses only on your voice, removing the background noise from your call.
• Google Voice not only allows you to command your phone to call, create a message or even give directions on interactive maps, but the Nexus One can transcribe voices to text. This feature works for voice mails, web browser and even Facebook status updates.
• The Live Wallpaper feature,which includes options like smoke, and waving grass isn’t particularly useful, but it looks great.
• The transparent trackball changes colors so you can identify different incoming communications, from SMS to email.

Negative press:

• Lots of reports that all the whistles and bells on this phone lead to a mega drain on the battery, making it more of an energy hog than even the power hungry iPhone.
• Though paired with Google, reports say that the browser runs a little slower than iPhone’s Safari.
• Around 20,000 apps available versus 100,000+ on iPhone.