The tech world erupted Wednesday night as Apple visionary Steve Jobs announced that he was stepping down from his role as CEO, passing the torch to former chief operating officer Tim Cook. Every analyst and pundit who was awake had his or her say on the matter, but one man in particular offered his thoughts from a perspective few have enjoyed. “He really has had to sacrifice a lot to run Apple,” Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told BYTE in an interview on Wednesday evening. “I mean, just your time, everybody wants you day and night, that’s what I mean by sacrifices. It takes so much out of anyone to be under just contant [sic] pressure and demands like that.” Wozniak continued, “Steve needs now to just have some ‘Steve time.’ He deserves it.” On whether or not Jobs’s departure might have a negative impact on Apple’s business, Wozniak noted, “You’ve got to remember. He was surrounded by great, great people at Apple … and those people are still there. I don’t think the core Apple culture will change because of (Jobs’) leaving, not for a long time. Apple is set up. It just needs to stay financially responsible.”

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Look, people that know me know that I’ve been a BlackBerry fan from the beginning. The entire reason BGR was started was because I was breaking information on upcoming BlackBerry devices, mainly because I was obsessed with RIM and wanted to share that information. As we’ve all seen, however, RIM isn’t the market leader any longer. The company really isn’t innovating, and even worse, it’s not even competing with the titans of the smartphone space now: Google and Apple. All three companies have different product strategies, with Google and RIM being the most similar — they view devices as products, and features as check lists. Apple views devices as windows, and features as end-to-end experiences. Hit the break for the rest.

The real problem with RIM is that it hasn’t innovated for years. In that time, RIM’s entire product portfolio has been arguably lackluster, reduced to meaningless hardware upgrades and meaningless software upgrades. The company has tried to right its path by transitioning to QNX, an OS it purchased that will not only run the company’s tablets but smartphones as well in the next year to two. And the PlayBook by itself isn’t a bad product — but compared to the iPad, it’s a non-starter. RIM’s BlackBerry OS 7 (also known as BlackBerry OS 6.1, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 6, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry OS 5, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 4.7, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 4.5, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 4.3, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 4.2, also known as the same OS as BlackBerry 4.0…) isn’t an overhaul, but just another stop-gap solution until QNX.

So the question now becomes: if a company that hasn’t shown any leadership in the smartphone space hasn’t caught up to where it needs to be today, then how will it ever catch up? As it stands, RIM offers decent hardware with borderline-terrible software. In the future, judging from the PlayBook, RIM will offer decent hardware with mediocre software.

A high-level source at RIM told me that co-CEO Mike Lazaridis’ biggest fear was Apple creating a BlackBerry Messenger competitor. Today, Apple introduced iMessage, an app and service that not only looks better than BlackBerry Messenger, but probably works better as well. RIM’s push email and corporate integration pitch is losing steam, and the company pretty much just got out-fruited. We exclusively reported the company was planning on launching an Android and then iPhone BlackBerry Messenger app, but that was supposed to be at least 3-4 months out for Android, and possibly a year for iOS.

I’m sad. Sad because RIM doesn’t get it — and I’m not sure it ever will get it — and sad because RIM had the opportunity to once again be that innovator that it was in the past. It’s still possible… but with each day, each press conference, and each product introduction from elsewhere in the tech community, that chance looks smaller and smaller.

You know what was the other thing Mike Lazaridis is scared of most from Apple? A hardware keyboard on an iPhone. Shit.

The Motorola ATRIX 4G is the fastest smartphone not yet on the market. Come March 6th, however, it will be. AT&T has landed a screamingly fast Android device courtesy of Motorola, and that’s not all. The device is so powerful that it can power a laptop with full Firefox browser, and spit out 1080p video like it’s nothing. We’ve spent almost a day time with the phone and thought it was sufficient for a review, so read on past the break for what we think, alright?

Hardware

The Motorola ATRIX 4G is one of the world’s fastest smartphone, literally. With a 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, it’s a screamer. So much so, it can power a full netbook-like laptop accessory (we’ll touch on that later). As far as other specifications go, it’s one of the few Android handsets to feature a whopping 1GB of RAM. Rounding out the feature set is a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, the first qHD (quarter HD) display, second microphone for noise cancellation, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, front-facing video camera, HDMI port, and a fingerprint scanner for security that doubles as the on/off button.

When we picked up the ATRIX for the first time we were pleasantly surprised with how the materials felt. The device feels solid and well built, and we really love the size. It’s a tad bit thick, but since it’s nicely rounded on the edges, it feels thinner and more easy to hold than the HTC Inspire 4G to us, though the phone is incredibly slippery due to the matte black plastic casing. On the front of the ATRIX you’ll find the front-facing video camera in the upper left in addition to the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and notification LED on the upper right. Besides the four touch-sensitive Android menu keys on the bottom of the front, it’s pretty clean. Switching to the left side of the handset and you’ll find a microUSB port followed by a mini-HDMI port; on the right side of the phone there’s a volume up and down rocker. The on / off button is sneakily integrated into the fingerprint scanner on the top but towards the rear of the ATRIX, and while this bothered us a bit at first (only the inside part of the fingerprint sensor clicks in), it’s grown on us — plus we love using a fingerprint to unlock the handset. Moving to the back: you’ll find the 5 megapixel camera and LED flash,  a reasonably cool carbon fiber-esque pattern on the rear battery door, and the rear external speaker on the bottom of the phone.

Display

The 4-inch display on the ATRIX packs a whopping 960 x 540 pixels into what Motorola is calling a qHD display. While the resolution is quite high, the display to us still looked pretty pixelated. It’s a little odd that the display on the Motorola DROID X actually looks better than the qHD display, in terms of clarity. Colors, however, look great and the panel is very bright and evenly lit. The screen on the ATRIX also fares very well in the touch sensitivity department with a solid and reliable capacitative touch screen.

Software

The Motorola ATRIX 4G runs a version of the love-it-or-hate-it MOTOBLUR UI, and as much of an annoyance it can be sometimes, we’ve found that paired with the ATRIX, it’s not that big of a hindrance. Things run fast, smooth, and effortless, no doubt in thanks to that dual-core CPU, but again, the software UI on here isn’t that big of a deal, even if you are an Android purist.

Phone / Speaker

Talking on the ATRIX was excellent. Calls were very clear with the internal ear speaker sounding very natural, and extremely loud. Noise cancellation also performed well in noisy environments helping people on the other line to hear us more clearly. We also really love the layout of the phone dialer screen — the most recent call/contact is right above the number pad, it’s a nice little touch. You also have the ability to add a number right from the dialer to your contact list, and you have a voice command button right next to that. We can’t remember if this happened on other Motorola devices, but when you go into contacts in the phone app, you’re presented with only your direct contacts in your synced address books, not the ones that are scattered about the actual contacts app (suggested contacts, Twitter contacts from BLUR, Facebook contacts from BLUR, etc.)

The speaker on the ATRIX performed very well in our tests. Music played back reasonably loud without much distortion, though it lacked that low end punch. The speakerphone also performed great, projecting audio loud and clear.

Battery

We’ve only been using the Motorola ATRIX for around a day now, but we can definitely report that the battery life on here seems to be pretty great. It’s easily on par or even a level better than other Android phones we’ve used and tested. We don’t do too, too much calling, but downloading, installing and using apps, email, browsing, Twitter, Facebook, and more hasn’t knocked us off the preverbal battery pedestal one bit.

Laptop Dock

This is where the phone extends beyond a phone into something more, and it gets really interesting. As you might have heard and seen, the Motorola ATRIX has a couple accessory friends, and one of them is a laptop dock — a full fledged computer powered by the phone itself. Motorola told us that there is practically nothing in the laptop dock — no memory, no processor, nothing. In addition to containing basically an 11.6-inch screen, full keyboard, and built-in battery, the laptop dock actually doesn’t skimp on some essentials. The keyboard is backlit (who’d have thunk), there is an oversized trackpad, and it’s blended together in black aluminum and soft touch rubber.

A couple annoyances include the fact that the trackpad is not multitouch, which is a pretty big issue for scrolling — and we feel like a missed opportunity to extend gestures from the laptop dock to the phone. Since the phone literally runs and is displayed on the laptop screen in it’s own window, you have to literally click and drag your finger to swipe on the phone’s display — a nice little two finger swipe gesture would have been great there, for instance. It’s also very cumbersome to use the left and right mouse trackpad buttons as they are hard to push and don’t have great tactile feedback. Additionally, the black metal gets very, very smudgy and greasy even though we’re clean freaks and weren’t eating those delicious Lay’s Salt & Vinegar chips — we swear!

Speaking of the phone running on that laptop’s screen, this literally blows our minds. You have the phone displayed on screen and it’s directly manipulatable by you — you have the four Android buttons on screen, and can do anything you’d want to do from your phone. It’s also super useful as times since you get a full computing-like experience but still have your phone front and center to handle text messages, or whatever you’d want to do. The laptop dock uses the phone’s built in HSPA+ connection so there are no extra charges at all (provided you have the tethering/hotspot $20 plan), in addition to providing you with free AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot access wherever you might be. You also might be wondering what happens if you get a phone call when you’re connected to the laptop… you can make and take calls just fine. The phone goes into speakerphone and Motorola let us know that a built-in microphone was optimized for this mode and we do have to say, it works really well.

The initial honeymoon period with the laptop dock quickly wore off, and here’s why… When purchased with the ATRIX, the laptop dock is bundled for $499 ($199 for the device, $299 for the laptop dock). Purchased separately, the laptop dock is priced at $499. Let’s throw out the possibility of buying the laptop dock separately since in our minds, that’s out of the question. The question is if the laptop dock — a single purpose accessory for your smartphone — is worth $300, and we’d unfortunately have to say that we don’t think it is. While on paper it sounds great, and even in person it looks amazing, most of the excitement is lost when you use the laptop dock. We aren’t in love with the keyboard or the trackpad, and navigation was a frustrating experience for us. Not because of the software or processor, but because of the hardware on the laptop. Additionally, while you have your phone front and center with a full-fledged Firefox browser, that’s all you get and that’s not going to be enough for most people. Especially when for $300-$500 you can buy a pretty solid netbook-like device that will do much more than extend your smartphone — it will be a full computer which can be used with your ATRIX’s mobile hotspot feature.

One last thing about the laptop dock which we loved: there’s a built-in battery and that battery powers the laptop dock in addition to the phone. So think about this… you charge the laptop dock, jump on a plan, work on Wi-Fi for 5 hours, grab your phone and close the laptop when you land, and your phone is fully charged. Pretty impressive to us.

Media Dock

The Motorola Media Dock is another accessory friend the Motorola ATRIX works with, and it’s pretty nifty. The dock connects to your TV with an HDMI cable and extends the device to your home entertainment center with little effort. You can browse and play your music, photos, and HD videos right from the phone, even 1080p video content plays back just fine. There’s one more piece to the puzzle, however. The media dock also lets you run Motorola’s webtop app experience and will save the state you’re in whether you are using the laptop dock or media dock, which is very cool. This is the same concept that the laptop dock features — your phone in a window on the big screen with the application down at the bottom and the full Firefox browser. Navigating with the included remote is a non-starter, so what’s a man to do to get his big screen, dual-core smartphone-powered, browsing on? Well, you can connect a USB mouse and keyboard, but that’s not ridiculously fun, so Motorola has a Bluetooth keyboard you can purchase which works great in this set up.

UPDATE: We’re waiting for clarification on if the media dock comes with the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

The Verdict

The Motorola ATRIX 4G is a very impressive product that brings an impressive set of accessories and peripherals to market that extend the smartphone into something much, much more. Looking at the phone specifically, it’s a feature-packed Android 2.2 device that has a vivid, high resolution screen, and a screaming fast dual-core CPU making it the fastest phone in the market. We didn’t honestly notice the phone to be that much faster than normal 1GHz-powered handsets, except under extreme circumstances, but that’s expected. We’d say without question that the Motorola ATRIX 4G is one of the best Android smartphones to ever be available from AT&T. The accessories it brings with it aren’t going to push you to buy the smartphone, but the concepts are pretty wild and really do widen your eyes and make you step back to see what cellphones nowadays are capable of doing, and doing well. The fact we’re at a time where a phone can power a full computer is incredible, and it’s great to see a fine device like the ATRIX 4G be the first to do it. If you’re ready to go, you’ll have to wait just a little longer to get your hands on one, as the device is available for pre-order starting this Sunday and is set to be released on March 6th for $199.

Click on over to our Motorola ATRIX 4G gallery!

AT&T and HTC shot us over an HTC Inspire 4G, and while we literally had to dodge falling ice and walk carefully over the frozen Arctic tundra to get to the FedEx package, it’s all warm and snuggled up now. We saw the handset officially make its way into the world at CES, but there’s nothing quite like that second encounter, right? Here are some of our thoughts on the latest Android handset to hit AT&T:

• We really dig the styling of the Inspire 4G. It feels very current yet familiar and the unibody construction with high-grade materials, specifically aluminum, really makes it feel like a quality product.
• Getting the device up and running isn’t confusing, it’s just a little… unconventional? To insert your SIM card and microSD card, you push off a bottom cover, but to insert the battery, you push off a side cover by the volume keys. We didn’t have much luck the first couple times with the battery cover and found it pretty difficult to take off. This is most likely a good thing in the long run, but it’s worth noting.
• We’re a bit disappointed that the handset is as thick as it is. It’s very EVO-like, though more up to date styling-wise (like we mentioned), but we’d have loved for a thinner handset as the device is extremely large due to the big screen and it’s noticeably heavy.
• The screen is great — no problems here. Text on HTC Sense-powered devices always looks a bit aliased to us, but besides that, we’re looking at a super sharp, vivid, bright, and colorful 4.3-inch display.
• Our quick time with the handset proved to be very zippy, and we also love the redesigned camera UI — plus, image capture is lightning fast.
• A small thing, but we love the H+ icon in the status bar to signify HSPA+.

All in all, you can see why we’re really enjoying the HTC Inspire 4G so far. The Inspire 4G launches February 13th for $99 with a two year agreement. We’re putting together our official review, but in the meantime, check out some photos of the device in our gallery, alright?

Sprint and Samsung shot us over a Galaxy Tab and, after several days of fiddling, we have our first impressions to report back. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the first real contender to Apple’s iPad many would say, and while it’s too early for us to totally pit them head to head, there are many visible strengths and weaknesses of the Tab. Want to know what we thought of Samsung’s little, mean, iPad-combating machine? Buckle up and hit the jump!

Let’s get to the most obvious thing — size! Apple’s CEO — who will remain nameless — publicly stated that a 7-inch screen was too small for a tablet, and after using the Tab, we tend to agree. Just using the device for the last few days proved to be very difficult from a size perspective. Seven inches of display on a tablet, for us, feels pretty odd and makes using the device pretty uncomfortable. It’s a very weird in-between feeling; we can’t decide it feels like a smartphone that is too big or a tablet that is too small. We still can’t figure out the best way to use the keyboard in portrait mode. Hold it with both hands and try and thumb type? Hold the tablet in one hand and only use one hand to type? Use Swype?

The weight and feel of the tablet might throw you for a loop at first. Why? It’s actually a tad heavier than you’d imagine (though not too heavy at all). The plastic shell in the back of the device feels very inexpensive and makes the entire device feel a bit… hollow. Thus our conflicted feeling on whether the device felt heavy and expensive, or hollow and inexpensive. The white plastic back is extremely glossy, and while you can’t really see fingerprints much, the tablet feels overly slippery to us. Picture a very large white iPhone 3GS and you’ll get our drift.

Browsing the web with Flash on (enabled by default) proved to be a pretty frustrating experience. Scrolling was jittery, slow, and sometimes pages just wouldn’t even finish loading. However, once we changed the browser’s plug-ins setting to on demand (think Click2Flash), the browser popped to life. Pages loaded very quick, scrolling was almost fluid, and using multi-touch gestures to pinch zoom in and out worked like a charm. The browsing experience on the device is exactly where you want it to be.

As far as annoyances? When holding the device in the landscape orientation, one of our fingers covers the ambient light sensor and dims the display to the point that we can’t use the device. It’s borderline slippery to hold at times, the screen’s quality — while vibrant and vivid — is pretty poor resolution-wise, especially when compared to the displays on some of the latest Android smartphones. Plus, there is that size issue — we’re not sure we’d trade 3-inches of valuable screen real estate for something that’s slightly more portable, yet not really. We say that because there really isn’t a scenario where we think we’d carry the Samsung tablet over Apple’s tablet; speaking strictly from a size point of view. Both aren’t fitting in your pocket, both would fit in your laptop bag or backpack, and so on. We’ll reserve our final thoughts for our full review, in the meantime, make sure to hit the Galaxy Tab gallery for all the pretty photos, ok?

It has been four years since the launch of Boy Genius Report and I can easily say that I have enjoyed every single day while working on growing, expanding, and continuing to break the biggest stories in the mobile category. Today, Boy Genius Report is growing up. We are finally switching over to the www.bgr.com domain (though www.bgr.com will still continue to work as a redirect) and the first phase of our expansion is underway. We have hired more full-time writers in the past 4 months than we have had in the past four years and we are definitely not stopping. Today, I’m super excited to introduce the new redesign for BGR that has been in the works for several months. It encompasses everything the brand is — authentic, cleanly designed, relatable, and of course, that indescribable edge that it won’t ever lose.

Every segment of the site has been redone and reworked. From our Featured Articles and Top Stories area at the top of the page which will enable us to feature a wide variety of content, a brand new gallery which enables our photos and albums to be consumed even faster, to a new commenting system (finally!) which will promote an even higher level of communication between our readers. It also includes informational resources like BGR Analysis, places to meet the editors of BGR and to check out our thoughts, predictions, commentaries, and much, much more. The new BGR is everything that I have envisioned it to be for a long time.

Thank you guys for making us the number 1 mobile site (and the number 4 tech site in the world, according to Technorati!). We are plugging away harder and harder every day to continue delivering the highest quality breaking news, original content, and of course, that original BGR voice that you love. There are many more exciting things in the works, and I can’t wait to share them with you.

Of course, drop those comments in — we want to know what you think of the new design!

We had a chance to get up close and personal with Sony’s latest TV set and sister Blu-ray player. Here are our first thoughts:

• We haven’t seen Logitech’s Revue Google TV device in person, but the Sony experience looks similar to it. Sony told us that the only Sony customization was a recommended channel area, so for you purists out there, it looks like this is a really clean Google offering.
• We caught some lag when hopping menu to menu and typing when using the remote sometimes took a second or two to catch up but all in all, the Intel Atom-powered TV seemed pretty zippy.
• Speaking of the remote, we’re completely torn about it. Andrew loves it, but I couldn’t care much for it. The size is definitely intriguing as it is way smaller in person than we expected it to be. Also, the feel is right — pretty light without feeling inexpensively cheap. However, the myriad of buttons sort of confuses us, especially when a bunch of them don’t serve a purpose 90% of the time in what we’d imagine would be your daily use. I’ll use my Android handset to control my Google TV device as opposed to a manufacturer remote, you can believe that. Last thing about the remote… no backlight! So sad.
• The picture in picture capability is practically the selling point here… if you’re a multitasker, you’re going to love with PIP on. It’s pretty amazing that you can have that picture window of the current TV show or recording you’re watching open on the screen and at the same time browse a website, check something on Google Maps, search for a program to record, and more.
• The range in sizes and price is pretty spectacular. At a cost of $1,399 for the 46″ edge-lit LED model is practically a steal — and the time to market is also delicious as the sets and Blu-ray player will be available this weekend.

All in all, this wasn’t something we didn’t expect, yet we’re incredibly excited for Sony to pioneer this new category of TV entertainment. Let’s see if they can knock it out of the park…

Click on over to our Sony Internet TV with Google TV gallery!

We said we’d be back with a follow up to our hands on post, but to be completely honest, and based on the comments and response you guys gave, there’s not too much to write about. A lot of you wrote in and wanted more photos, so we’ve taken some great high resolution photos of the device like we promised.

In terms of the phone itself, RIM isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel. In fact, they aren’t even reinventing the Curve. With the same features as the original Curve 8520 (plus the addition of 3G), we’d be shocked to see this device launch with great fanfare. Knowing RIM, however, they’ll try and milk this for all it’s worth and so will T-Mobile, but it will be hard to justify anything more than a model refresh.

We like the BlackBerry Curve 9300 a lot, but it’s beginning to feel extremely outdated even for a lower-end low cost handset. Yeah, even with 3G. Plus, it hasn’t even launched yet.

Click on over to our BlackBerry Curve 9300 gallery!

Bear with me on this one, alright? It’s a long shot, but part of me thinks this is a set up. Apple hasn’t gone over things like how notifications work, they didn’t address multitasking, and in some places, it felt like Steve & Co. purposely rushed over certain areas in the announcement.

What if there is going to be an iPhone SDK event/announcement before the Apple iPad actually hits stores? Apple said “late March” for the non-3G unit to be available and that’s curiously right when Apple usually holds its iPhone/iPod OS SDK events and where we’d most likely see iPhone OS 4.0 appear. Is it possible this is just to get the ball moving and Apple has some bigger stuff up its sleeve already? Multitasking, redone notifications, and a whole lot more, coming to both the iPhone platform as well as the iPad? Now, why release an SDK based on iPhone OS 3.2 and have devs code for that and then have to redo it, you might be asking, but iPhone 4.0, if it was announced in March would probably be a beta and not released to the public until June/July. That would give developers time to redo any applications for full 4.0 compatibility. Plus, the general public would get iPhone OS 3.2 while developers concurrently used iPhone OS 4.0 and developed for both that and the iPad. Maybe just wishful thinking, but heck, it would make sense.

Ah, the Google Nexus One. Google’s current “flagship” Android device received an enormous amount of attention in the time leading up to its release. While definitely justified, it also came with a dose of unrealistic expectations. Admittedly, it is one of the most powerful smartphones on the entire planet (no, we won’t refer to it as a superphone), and it’s packed to the brim with the latest high-end specifications that any true geek would love. But, what’s the verdict? Well, you’ll have to read on to find out obviously. We’ve reviewed the phone with an open mind, and have also offered up some personal thoughts following the review. Just remember that violence is never the answer, ok?

Hardware

It is really remarkable how HTC has so beautifully blended a perfect mix of gigahertz processors, gorgeous and beautiful capacitive displays, and great crafted casings. We’ve got a big, bright 3.7″ AMOLED capacitive 800×480 display, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB of RAM, world-wide 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash among other things, into a tight and slim 11.5mm package.

This time around, the hardware still isn’t completely perfect. The capacitive display, while excellent, doesn’t have the same response as its largest competitor in the touch screen arena. It’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but we feel like the 5% or so difference  becomes noticeable with everyday usage. It could be a combination of hardware and software (and most likely is) but for the most part, the average user will have no issue rapidly switching through homescreens, flicking through email, or firing off text messages on the large and responsive display.

One other annoyance is the touch-sensitive buttons below the screen, however. They seem to be the exact same as what’s on the HTC DROID Eris, and we are having the exact same issues. Their contact point seems to sit a little higher than it should, so if you press the button normally from the bottom half, your touch probably will not register. You have to hit it at exactly the right point — the top 25% — and even then you may hit the screen instead because it’s right there, sitting 1mm above, after all. The haptic response also isn’t entirely comforting as is on the Motorola DROID, whose touch-sensitive buttons are the most friendly we’ve ever used.

The trackball as a navigational input device is fine — it’s a trackball that’s been used on many, many devices for many years. Is it necessary? Probably not, but we gather that some people prefer anything physical they can “count” on in this day and age of all touch, no feel.

Software

And, unfortunately we have to mosey on to the software side of things.

Android has gone through a pretty big transformation between now and over a year ago. There’s built-in Exchange (contacts and email only) support, Facebook, widget support, updated browser with a useless double-tap feature, voice search / commands, and many others. And while in our testing Android 2.1 worked reasonably well, we just can’t get over the fact that in addition to software inconsistencies which we’ll touch on below, there are still small slow downs and hiccups even with this 1GHz processor. That’s not good.

With that said, Android 2.1 doesn’t add too much more than what the Motorola DROID offers (that runs Android 2.0). We’ve got “live” wallpapers which are animated wallpapers for your homescreen that dynamically change based on different events: time, time of day, sound, touch — those are fun, if not a compete waste of battery. Additionally in Android 2.1, every text entry field is voice-enabled (data connection required) so you can practically say what you’d like to type, and Google will try their best to figure out what you are saying. In our limited testing it actually worked quite well in pretty low-noise environments, but your mileage will obviously vary based on your speaking patterns, accent, background noise, and other variables.

The application drawer which used to slide out from the bottom of the device no longer does so. It’s just takes a simple tap to engage your application list that beautifully fly in from behind you. Think of it as exactly the opposite transition effect that the iPhone uses. There’s also a News and Weather widget/application set which looks great and is pretty customizable. It’s definitely the best implementation we’ve seen on Android in terms of a news/weather widget, but that also speaks to how poorly 3rd party widgets and applications are designed and developed on Android as a whole. The redesigned photo gallery is visually impressive and the 3D effects with accelerometer-injected tilts are enticing. But, we’d have rather Google spent more time on perfecting other applications instead of jazzing up the photo viewer.

Don’t get us wrong, Android 2.1 comes with some improvements visually and under the hood as well, but Exchange support is still mediocre at best, and we get this incomplete feeling. Again, a “feeling.” You’ll see why that’s important.

Phone quality

If T-Mobile actually had coverage… Joking aside, the Nexus One, as a phone, is the best phone we’ve ever used. It sounds so, so great and is really refreshing to be able to have an excellent and smooth voice exchange with another party. In addition to the call sounding great on our end, the call also sounds absolutely perfect for the other person as well. Why, you ask? Because HTC has ingeniously integrated dual microphones for superior noise-cancellation. It’s been done before in other applications, in some form or another — Motorola has long had CrystalTalk — but it’s the best implementation on a phone that we’ve ever used. Literally, you could be on the busiest street in New York City with babies crying, cabs honking, wind blowing, and there’s a decent enough chance that the person you’re speaking to on the other end wouldn’t even notice. And oh yeah, it will be supported by Verizon Wireless this “Spring” so you can pair that with “America’s Most Reliable Network.”

The actual loudspeaker on the phone is decent. It’s definitely loud enough, but it’s not that clear and can get distorted pretty easily if the volume is raised up enough. With that said, calls with speakerphone enabled still were pleasant enough and both us and the poor test subject on the other end of the line had a clear enough conversation without disruption.

Screen

When you think of an AMOLED screen you probably think bright, beautiful colors, crisp, sharp detailing, and you also probably think, “that might not be the best screen to use at the beach.” And, if you thought that last part, you’d be right. The screen on the Nexus One, while gorgeous, is not usable in direct sunlight and it’s rather depressing. Getting over the sunlight issue, the screen isn’t as rich as the Motorola DROID’s display, unfortunately. We didn’t miss the actual resolution in terms of having more room, but the DROID’s display doesn’t show pixelation like the Nexus One does, and just honestly seems like a better product. Now, before you get too worked up, the Nexus One display is in and of itself great, but if you’d like to know the best of the best, it would have to be the DROID’s display.

Camera

The camera is decent, if not semi-enjoyable to use due to the speedy processor and fast photo snaps. It’s worlds better than the Motorola DROID’s camera, in both hardware and software partly in thanks to HTC (even though they aren’t known for their excellent cameras) and partly in thanks to some refinement with Android 2.1′s camera application. Unfortunately since this is a Google Experience (read: not raped by manufacturers), some of HTC’s awesome tweaks like tap to focus aren’t present. It’s such an invaluable feature for a touch screen device with a camera, and it’s a shame it’s not in here. In general, echoing our thoughts from the DROID review, though, Android’s default camera application is mediocre at best, slightly frustrating, and mildly confusing. It’s a recurring theme you’ll see in Android and in my personal thoughts coming up later later, you’ll see exactly why – one of many issues is that there isn’t a single amazing application on the Android platform.

Battery:

The Nexus One ships with a 1400mAh battery, and while you’d think that 1GHz CPU would run through that battery like a Kenyan track star, the battery actually holds up quite well. Power users are probably going to have to have a charging station visit at some point during a long day, but for regular phone, browser, email, and multimedia usage, the Nexus One actually almost lasted an entire day.

Google services

What would a “Google Phone” be without Google’s services? Everything is stuffed into Android, and Android 2.1 just as you’d expect. Obviously Google’s Gmail app is the best you’re going to get if you’re a Gmail warrior, and other Google services tightly integrated into the Nexus One (and more Android phones) you can look forward to include: Google Maps, Google Navigation, Google Voice Search, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Voice, Google Market, Google News and Weather, and of course, YouTube.

Conclusion

The Nexus One is the best Android phone to date, and if you love your Android devices, this is the phone that beats them all. There are always going to be new handsets around the corner — HTC isn’t slowing down, Motorola is pushing forward, and countless other manufacturers are pumping out handsets — but right now, this is it. Now, if you ask us if the Nexus One is the phone for you, we’re not sure. If you’re stepping up from another basic smartphone or regular phone, there is little doubt you’ll be drawn in by the beautiful screen, the oh-so-easy Gmail and Google service integration, and a solidly built handset with amazing phone capabilities. However, if you’re coming from a BlackBerry or iPhone, we’re not sure you’ll be able to ride it out as Android still feels undercooked to us, and while the “openness” definitely shines through, we feel it might be shining a little too bright.

Personal opinion

For my personal opinion on Android as a whole, head over here!

For our non-Canadian readers, it might be pretty hard to understand why there’s been so much hype about WIND Mobile finally launching. It is just a cell phone carrier after all, right? Kind of. It is a business at the end of the day, and a business hopes to be profitable (they want to make as much money possible), but the reason WIND is so brilliant is because they’re capitalizing on years of pillaging by Canada’s big three mobile providers: Rogers, TELUS and Bell. We’re not going to get into why Canada’s cellular options are so bad and expensive — Canada is a huge country, 90% of the people live within a certain amount of miles to the U.S. border, people expect coverage everywhere, it’s expensive to maintain — because it doesn’t matter. What does matter is how revolutionary WIND is to the average Canadian cellular subscriber and how much money that person will save. Here’s an example of a standard Rogers phone bill for a BlackBerry:

• $45/month for 400 minutes, unlimited calling after 9PM, and a choice of either unlimited Rogers-to-Rogers calling, my5, unlimited SMS, or an extra $100 minutes. Let’s assume you chose unlimited Rogers-to-Rogers calling.
• $25/month for a 500MB data plan for your BlackBerry (BIS not BES)
• $20/mo for unlimited SMS, caller ID and voicemail for a smartphone
• Total with fees of around $93/month (excluding taxes).

Over the life of your cell phone contract of three years (yes, it’s three years in Canada), you’ll have paid approximately $3348 to Rogers, and you’d have a brand new BlackBerry 9700 for which you paid $249.99 for. All in all, $3597 before tax. Here’s a WIND plan:

• $45/month for unlimited minutes, unlimited SMS to U.S. and Canada, voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding
• $35/month for unlimited BlackBerry data

We’re at $80/month with unlimited everything, no contract, and no fees to change plans or features.

Sure, a difference of only plus or minus $13/month might not get everyone excited, but think of it this way… you don’t have to pay $500 to cancel your contract, you can elect to pre or post-pay, and never have to ever worry about overages unless you’ve got a lot of pals overseas. The option of unlimited anything is a downright comforting thought for consumers. As long as you can get over the $200 additional entry fee for an unsubsidized but very fairly-priced handset (note: Rogers charges $599.99 for a contract-free Bold 9700 as opposed to WIND’s $450), WIND looks incredibly attractive. Plus, you won’t get tied to the tree and spanked. Metaphorically, of course.

It isn’t all rainbows and ponies, however, as we have to take coverage (when you roam on Rogers, for instance, you’ll only get EDGE as WIND uses the same AWS 3G spectrum T-Mobile uses and is incompatible with Rogers, TELUS, and Bell), customer service, and profitability into consideration. The bet is that WIND makes so much that they can continue to save you money. Funny, isn’t it? Again, they’re a brand, brand new network, but with a boatload of cash behind them, some very smart and attractive pricing, plans, devices, and services, we think they have an amazing shot. They’ve also permanently disrupted the Canadian wireless landscape for the better, and within days or weeks, you’ll start to see better pricing from red, green, and blue. Thus giving our Canadian friends something they’ve long hoped for — competition.

Avril Lavigne. Luke Wilson. Whoopi Goldberg. Those three names don’t exactly jump out and immediately connect with us when we see them. And isn’t that the point of advertising? The point of branding? To connect to something, identify with it, and relate to it. Sure jazzy music and clean visuals (or dark, ominous tones with scary eyes) will help liven up your advertisement, but if you’re bringing a celebrity in to help, why don’t you make sure the celebrity is someone that people actually care about? I don’t mean to knock on Luke or Whoopi as I’m a fan of both (Canada can have Sk8ter chick), but while they might be intended to reach a certain demographic, in actuality they don’t help, they hurt. People pass it off as something they don’t care about. There’s no instant reaction or memorable moment that people will immediately remember or associate with any of those commercials.

Luke Wilson is brilliant. But he’s not relevant right now. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, he just isn’t as visible as he was a couple years back. Once he has a bang up movie come out, I’m sure we’ll all care again, but right now, we don’t. And to pick Luke Wilson to carry your entire ad campaign is mind-shattering and stupid. Of all the people in the world, that’s the best your agency came up with? How about Ben Affleck? He would have killed it. Hell, Matt Damon would have, too, and all he wants to do is help kids (NSFW). What, too expensive? Even if AT&T spent $10M in talent alone for awesome brand ambassadors, that’s still not too much to spend when you need to defend your network against the largest, and most solid network in the country with some of the smartest attack ads ever played. People want to root for their hometeam, their city, their favorite company, and AT&T doesn’t give them a chance to do so. No one is going to stick up for Luke Wilson’s commercials.

Either of those two aforementioned people would have been funnier, more personable, and could actually strengthen brand opinion in a time when you needed slam dunk ad rebuttals.

I love AT&T. I really do. I love the flexibility I get with switching phones, I love that the technology that I care about is 99.99% always going to be GSM-based. I honestly don’t have that many issues with AT&T and think people really blow certain issues they encounter out of proportion. But it isn’t about what I think, it’s about mind share and people’s opinions. People that aren’t glued to the internet. Verizon was incredibly smart to start their Map For That campaign. It made people question their cell phone service provider much like we’d question if the last Avril Lavigne song we could remember was really from the year 2002.

Never before has anyone really attacked networks like Verizon did. It was always about the phone itself. My phone can MMS, my phone can browse the web, my phone can work anywhere in the world. But Verizon hit hard and said it doesn’t matter if you have an amazing cell phone, your network is shit and it won’t work where or when you want it to. T-Mobile also isn’t earning cool points while their subscribers continue to leave because their phones have gotten so bad and their brand is getting diluted as there’s no clear strategy. Get More? Come on. Motorola CLIQ? They’d be lucky if they moved 175,000 of those things since release. Behold II? The BlackBerry 9700 is the only thing T-Mobile has right now and that isn’t even a conquest device as AT&T offers it, so it’s a wash. Bring on the awesome ads that will make people stay on your network, ads that really connect with us and make us say, “You know what, I like T-Mobile, I’m going to ride this out.” It was a mistake getting rid of Catherine Zeta Jones, an amazing, beautiful, personable, and strong celebrity. It was also a mistake bringing her back. Why? Because no one cares. It’s an afterthought now.

T-Mobile is becoming the new Sprint.

What do we get for T-Mobile’s ads? Avril Lavigne, Whoopi Goldberg, Jesse James, and other people I’m not even going to bother tearing apart. T-Mobile’s myTouch celebrity picks are mind-numbing. The first ones were bad, but they at least sort of made sense from a marketing perspective. Whoopi Goldberg, Phil Jackson, and Jesse James appealed to three very different demographics but the problem was no one who needed to care, cares about any of them. No one went out and bought a myTouch because of Whoopi, Phil, or Jesse. It didn’t happen. Did stay at home moms see Whoopi and say, “I’m going to buy a myTouch”? Nope. Did people buy a myTouch because they saw Phil Jackson and thought, “OMG. The back of my phone can look like a basketball”? Nope. Did people buy the myTouch because Jesse James just looks like a bad ass? Maybe.

In all seriousness, the phone is what’s going to sell if you don’t have anyone that’s memorable, and that’s really the point of what I’m saying. If you’re going to do it, knock it out the park, don’t Luke Wilson it. AT&T could have done countless other things to rebut Verizon’s attacks and they didn’t have to involve a celebrity that we don’t connect with. T-Mobile is grasping at straws with their ads of the amazingly stupid-named myTouch with celebrities that we don’t care about. They’re both wasted campaigns that miss the mark by suits in marketing that obviously have no idea who they’re trying to sell to anymore. Me, you, your parents, your friends — we’re the potential customers, and we’re not stupid. Plus we’re cool.

I want to start this off by saying I have nothing but love for RIM the company. Probably my favorite tech corporation in the world, they’ve created an incredibly unique product that practically replaces the need for drugs for most people. What’s even more fascinating, however, is how RIM (to the pleasant surprise of a lot of us early users) has managed to take a corporate-focused product and service and blow down doors in the consumer world. From the BlackBerry 7100, the first consumer-oriented device, to the eye-catching BlackBerry Tour (it’s business through and through, yet it will be an incredibly popular consumer phone on Verizon and Sprint), it’s clear that RIM has done everything right to this day.

So, what’s the problem you’re asking? They have probably the best back-end infrastructure for mobile communication on the planet, awesome phones that can go head-to-head with high-end smartphones, consumer marketing, a huge consumer fanbase, and practically every businessman (or woman) has one on their hip. One word is where RIM fails so miserably it isn’t even imaginable: software.

You have to look at the big picture here… for what RIM is working with (an incredibly miserable Java OS with so much security and encryption and smoke-blowing APIs) they’ve hit the jackpot. Their OS architecture is fantastic, their use of security is what makes them so trustworthy. But, as each handset release comes closer and closer, people start to see the bigger picture. And that’s the fact that RIM’s OS is more than antiquated, it’s borderline laughable. But it works, you’re thinking, so what’s wrong? I’ve been saying this for years, but it wasn’t designed to do anything the BlackBerry does now. Imagine scotch taping car parts to a 200hp engine and see how far that gets you. Obviously, it’s just a viciously rough metaphor, but we believe a correct one.

There’s so many limitations to RIM’s OS, and even RIM’s data network that it offsets all the wonderful things they’ve managed to accomplish. Remember when people were so excited over leaked shots of OS 4.6 and I said somewhere it was just a theme? Well, was I wrong? Oh, look! OS 5.0! What changed? 99% nothing. Some functionality is added here and there, but the mobile phone landscape has changed so drastically in the last two years, that RIM, admittedly known to planning “three years out” looks to be unable to see the proper direction to head.

You can throw $1,000,000,000 at developers but you won’t get any if your OS, tools, and documentation are so bad, and that’s really in the end a lot of what I’m getting at. I was laying in bed at around 3AM early one morning recently, looking through the iPhone App Store and I came across EA’s Tiger Woods Golf. $6.99, why not? Wait, it’s 150MB? Wow, it must be good. I clicked purchase and literally 4 minutes later, Tiger Woods was installed and up on my screen. Granted I was on a high-speed Wi-Fi connection, but it made me realize more than ever that RIM has the most uphill battle of their lifetimes. When a BlackBerry application over 500k is considered “large”, something’s wrong. When TweetGenius is one of the first BlackBerry applications to do fun, unique things like transparent overlays, consistent shortcuts, and a straight forward UI, something is wrong.

The reason why this is so frustrating to me and I’m guessing many is because RIM literally almost has it all. They’ve got it! They are 90% there but that last 10% has become the most important. If you take Apple for example, and see their shortcomings, and then what they’ve done to fix them, it’s remarkable. It’s a completely different DNA than RIM’s but it’s working. In two years Apple has practically matched Research In Motion in almost every consumer area while having the most advanced mobile operating system with the most advanced mobile SDK on the planet. If Apple can do this in just two years and RIM has stood still, no one thinks that’s a problem?

The reason RIM works is because it’s the entire package, if you will. Hardware, software, infrastructure, corporate integration, security, etc. People want simplicity, ease of use, but more than ever they want more than they need. Stupider people are smarter and expect more, smarter people are stupider and expect more. RIM delivers the same tired package in new hardware and people are starting to catch on. App World? Seriously? From every single developer I’ve spoke to, it’s a non-starter. It basically doesn’t exist to them in terms of a sales channel — it’s practically like 1% if that.

What consumers don’t do is look forward. They look at what’s put in front of them. It’s the exact opposite for the manufacturer and thus why it’s so difficult. Look back two or three years and the Bold and Storm might seem incredibly innovative, consumer-focused, and sure to be hot sellers. And they were and are, but look ahead three years and tell me point blank you have confidence that RIM knows how to steer this ship. I don’t, and that’s being incredibly honest. It’s not me being negative, it’s objectively looking at the landscape and evaluating things. I want RIM to succeed, I want RIM to make kick ass products. I’m just frustrated that RIM is going through hardware like it’s nobody’s business yet fails to deliver on the things that everyone wants. Screw business people, screw consumers, everyone wants a WebKit-based browser. It’s inexcusable RIM doesn’t get it. It’s inexcusable that people put up with a 2003 operating system with so many limitations and restrictions it would make Ahmadinejad jealous. I don’t think RIM is going anywhere, they as a company are incredibly successful, but once they start to lose the consumer market which they worked so hard to get, it’s a downward shift.

Here’s a list of RIM’s models followed by Apple’s in the last 3 years:

RIM: 8110, 8120, 8130, 8800, 8820, 8830, 8300, 8310, 8320, 8330, 8220, 8230, 8900, 9000, 9500, 9530, 9630.

Apple: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS.

There’s a good and bad part with knowing things in advance. For instance, people might hold off on purchasing a new BlackBerry if they know a newer and better one is being released in a couple months, and this hurts a company’s current product cycle. On the other hand, if someone on Verizon sees a Tour being released two months from now, they might rethink jumping ship or switching to a different device on Verizon. And the cycle continues. Looking at RIM’s upcoming products for the next 6-12 months is simply a rehash of current limitations and shortcoming in smaller and sexier packages. The BlackBerry 9020? It’s a Bold in a smaller, sexier package. Nothing else is different. The BlackBerry Storm 2? It’s the same device with maybe improved screen tech. The BlackBerry Magnum? As hot as a hybrid touch screen/QWERTY device would be, it’s still a BlackBerry that can’t pull up a webpage to save its life or play a real game or have any sort of desktop-class application running.

These things won’t change, the core OS hasn’t changed, and RIM has had no reason to change it. Why mess with success, right? Well, if you happen to be Research In Motion, you might have to start changing things up or newer and better operating systems like the iPhone, webOS, and Android are going to eat their lunch and their applications, too.

I’m fortunate enough to be able to have every phone I want on every carrier and that gives a person an incredible amount of clarity when picking the superior products. I use an iPhone 3GS and a BlackBerry Bold everyday, both on AT&T. But to tell you the truth, in the past when people ask me what device would I choose if I had to only pick one, it would hurt my brain. There was just no way to choose. But unfortunately or fortunately, that decision has become clearer and clearer. I don’t think I’ll ever give up my BlackBerry, I’m pretty sure you’ll always find one on my hip in an OEM RIM leather holster, (yes, holsters are cool as shit) but when me of all people starts truly questioning how a company as successful and brilliant as RIM is going to keep up with the next 2-3 years, you’ve got a big, big issue.

I’ll close by saying that the market is still wide open and this doesn’t mean RIM is or ever will go anywhere. It’s just something to keep an eye on and see how the best to ever do it will react to competitors’ advances, innovations, and of course, their software.