Nexus One in India - First Impressions

No - the Google Nexus One is not yet available in India. BUT I did manage to get one shipped to India (thanks to a friend).

Of course the Nexus One was not for me. Now why would you think that? It is, and always was, intended for the formidable better half :-). As a gift. (As are all the gadgets that I end up fancying).

So I got the phone last Friday - gift wrapped it in a fancy box, and sprung it on her (she did not know that I had bought the phone, so it was a good surprise - the additional diamond earrings in the box had nothing to do with that ;-).

Installation was a breeze - though I do not have data enabled on the service plan - I was able to insert the Airtel SIM card easily and switched it on. Got a signal almost immediately - which was very surprising considering the signal quality at our house is pretty flaky. Will most likely switch to Idea Cellular as Idea's data network seems to be pretty reliable.

Here is a list of first "impressions". A quick interview with the missus gave the following points

Like:

• Feels good to carry around (won't be surprised there, as the last phone was an ancient Nokia 6610i)
• Gorgeous Display!
  
• Fast (snappy), responsive
  
• Gmail experience is good
• Search (esp. phone numbers) is very handy
  
• Applications are very intuitive (call log, contacts, etc)
  

Not Like:

• Unlocking takes a bit getting used to (can't really do it fast)
• Need to press the top ringer button to switch the phone on (from standby) - unlike the iPhone/iPod touch where you press the home button.
  
• No pinch zooming (lack of multi-touch sucks)
• Google Voice app disappeared once I put the SIM card in (as Google Voice is not supported in India). I will try the Truphone app though - and see how that works.
  

All in all she seems very pleased with it. So these were the first impressions. Will follow this with a detailed review once I get her to switch to Idea (waiting for MNP) and enable data.