Showing posts with label Matt Asay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Asay. Show all posts

Friday, March 19, 2010

The iPhone, Nexus One, Or Droid?

(Matt Asay is responsible for this blog post. This was a comment I left at his CNet blog post. I have added a few lines.)


So what is the best smartphone to buy? The iPhone, Nexus One, or Motorola Droid? Is it fair to say those three are the top contenders? Is Nexus One the best Android phone out there? If not, which is? Is Droid better than the Nexus One? Is it a plus that the Droid is on the Verizon network?

I have never bought an Apple product in my life. I think the world of Steve Jobs as a tech icon, but my prejudices and business instincts are more in the direction of Sam Walton, Michael Dell and the 99 cent pizza people.


But if the Nexus One is to the iPhone what Bing is to search - I never seriously tried Bing - is one better off sticking to the iPhone? On the other hand, is the iPhone the Mac, and is Android the Windows, the one for the masses? My instinct says go for the masses.

So far I have stayed out the smartphone welcome. Heck, I don't even have a regular cellphone. I have a prepaid. I hardly ever make or receive calls - most communication happens over email, like Mark Cuban says, "If you can say it to me over the phone, you can say it to me over email" - and the prepaid baby is good enough for sending out Twitter updates, which I don't anymore since I do FourSquare check ins, perfectly possible on the prepaid text. Text it to 50500.

But I might have to give in soon and get me a smartphone. What should I get?

A friend livestreamed a video of him hanging out from across the world in Asia. He was using a Ustream application on his iPhone. That was the first time I felt like I could really use a smartphone. If I can take and upload photos and videos in real time from wherever, that would be cool, I thought. Also on the iPhone you can exchange contact info wirelessly. Bye bye business cards. A smartphone can turn you into a power networker.

On the other hand, photo and video editing has not completely migrated to the browser environment yet. That time will come, but that time is not now.

My Gmail is my primary, but I still log into my Yahoo Mail once in a while. It is good to be looking at the competition. An iPhone would be my way to stay a Google person, and still stay in touch with the competition.


Otherwise I am online for so many hours each day, when I am offline, I like to smell the roses, or the subway stench when that is what comes my way, which I compare to roses because I love the city so.

Face time is important, street time is important. It is also important to sometimes waste time. You have to make room for the random thought, for the muse to strike you. And people are all the rage for me, people I know, people I don't know, contacts and perfect strangers.

But I might cave in. What would be the smartphone to go for? Does the Nexus One have that Ustream application? I bet it does. Or should I get an iPhone in my first nod to Steve Jobs? At the risk of being called slick? I have a few weeks before I really might have to decide.

What do you think? What do you recommend?  

TechCrunch: Flurry: More Droid Devices Than iPhones Sold In First 74 Days On The Market


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