Nexus One Vs. Motorola Droid

**Motorola Droid vs. Google Nexus One: A Comprehensive Head-to-Head Comparison**

**Introduction**

In the ever-evolving world of smartphones, two devices stood out in their respective markets: the Motorola Droid on Verizon's 3G network and the Google Nexus One on T-Mobile's 3G network. This article delves into a detailed comparison of these two Android powerhouses, exploring their specifications, performance, user interfaces, and ultimately, providing insights to help you make an informed decision.

**Device Specifications**

Both devices boast impressive specs, each catering to different preferences and needs.

- **Motorola Droid (Verizon):**

- **OS:** Runs on Android 2.0.1.

- **Processor:** 550 MHz.

- **RAM:** 256 MB.

- **Storage:** Comes with a 16 GB micro SD card.

- **Screen:** 3.7-inch, 854x480 resolution.

- **Camera:** 5 MP with 4x digital zoom and dual LED flash.

- **Design:** Features a slide-out keyboard, making it slightly bulkier but offering enhanced typing comfort.

- **Google Nexus One (T-Mobile):**

- **OS:** Runs on Android 2.1.

- **Processor:** 1 GHz Snapdragon.

- **RAM:** 512 MB.

- **Storage:** Includes a 4 GB micro SD card.

- **Screen:** 3.7-inch, same resolution as the Droid.

- **Camera:** 5 MP with 2x digital zoom and single LED flash.

**Performance Tests**

The video conducted several performance tests to gauge speed and responsiveness:

1. **Website Loading:**

- Both devices were tested on the same Wi-Fi network. The Nexus One consistently loaded pages slightly faster, especially noticeable when accessing unvisited sites like comedy.com.

2. **3G Network Performance:**

- Using Verizon's EVDO and T-Mobile's HSDPA networks, the Droid often outperformed the Nexus One due to Verizon's generally faster 3G speeds.

3. **App Launch Times:**

- Both devices showed comparable speeds when launching apps like Android Marketplace and Gallery, with minor differences depending on network conditions.

**User Interface and Navigation**

- **Navigation:** The Droid's physical keyboard provided a more reliable navigation experience, whereas the Nexus One's capacitive buttons sometimes lacked responsiveness.

- **Home Screens and Features:**

- The Nexus One benefits from 2.1 updates, offering five home screens and live wallpapers, while the Droid, with its upcoming update, will match these features.

- **Multitouch Functionality:**

- The Nexus One has native multitouch support, whereas the Droid's current version lacks it, though third-party solutions are available.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, both devices offer robust performance and features. The Motorola Droid excels with its physical keyboard and Verizon's reliable network, making it ideal for users prioritizing network reliability and traditional input methods. The Google Nexus One shines with superior hardware specs and a sleek design, perfect for those with strong T-Mobile coverage.

Ultimately, your choice should hinge on network availability and personal preferences. For the most versatile option, waiting for the Verizon version of the Nexus One might offer the best of both worlds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up everyone John ringer from techno Buffalo here there are a lot of fantastic Android devices on the market but the two best at least that are available right now the Motorola built Droid running on Verizon's 3G network and the Google built Nexus One Running on T-Mobile 3G network so I want to sort of run through the specs and show you a sort of a head-to-head comparison about how these work generally when I do my head-to heads they're two different operating systems so you can see how each one would do tasks differently here we're running the sort of the same basic operating system so it's going to be a little bit different how we run things here so the difference is this Droid is running Android 2.0 or 2.0.1 to be more accurate whereas the Nexus 1 is running an updated version dubbed 2.1 and this is the first updates to 2.1 a little confusing there's some key differences and I'll show you sort of as we we progress now Google and Motorola have said that the Droid will be getting a 2.1 update but won't be having all of the same features we'll cover all those sort of as we continue let's go over some of the specs so for the US carrier for each of these this is Verizon exclusive and this one you can actually get un locked but if you want 3G you can only use it on T-Mobile you can use AT&T's Edge service if you'd like now Google has also said that there will be a Verizon version of the Nexus one further complicating your decision uh coming out sometime in the next few months so from a price standpoint which is really everybody sticking with their wallets nowadays the Droid is going to run you $199 with of course the 2-year contract the Nexus one is going to be $179 with that same 2-year contract and that's again with uh T-Mobile versus Verizon uh size and weight here you're looking at about 5.96 o on the Droid as opposed to the 4.59 on the Nexus One or speaking of sort of size let's do a real quick size comparison so you can see see the difference the Nexus one is notably thinner it's probably one of the thinner smartphones I've seen But the Droid is by no means chubby but it does have that extra girth because of the slide out keyboard we'll talk about that in just a minute let's continue with some of the differences here um included in the Box you're going to get a 16 GB micro SD card with the Droid and you're only going to get a 4 gig with the Nexus 1 screen size they're both 3.7 in and they have the same resolution of 854 by by 480 CPU speed and RAM are sort of where some of the bigger differences are as well the Nexus 1 has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor whereas the Droid has a 550 MHz um processor in it from a ram standpoint the Droid has 256 whereas the Nexus 1 has a significantly different 512 uh they can both multitask they're both wearing the same operating system certainly they both have Wi-Fi and GPS 3.5 mm headset Jack a um and all the rest let's talk a bit about camera the Droid has a 5 megapixel 4 time digital Zoom with a dual LED flash and the Nexus 1 has the same 5 megapixel sensor with only a two times digital zoom and a single LED flash so there you go the they both have a sort of a rudimentary autofocus as well so enough about all the specs let's show you how they both work now from a purely uh statistical standpoint you think that the Nexus 1 has a big Advantage because of processor and RAM but let's see how that actually translates out so first let me show you that these are both going to be have all their tasks and other applications sort of killed so I've got a third party application here called Task Killer I'm going to go ahead and cut down everything so you can see that we're starting from all of our free available Ram now some programs are going to load up on their own to make things running like we'll see on the Nexus one it's got to load up W live wallpapers and things like that but I want to S of start from a Baseline zero so you guys can see that everything has been shut down so with everything closed we're looking at an available 140 um megabytes and 109 here on the Droid so a bit of a difference let's go ahead and close these um some of the differences that you're going to notice as well I think is going to be the navigation you see right here I'm having a hard time even pushing the buttons I am not a fan of the capacitive buttons on the Nexus one they're often times not very responsive you have to you can't really use use your forefinger that much you have to actually use your thumb and hit it uh they're pretty responsive here on the Droid on the Nexus one you can navigate with the scroll ball here with the Nexus one you're sort of limited to uh your finger so some of the 2.1 updates what you can see the sort of zooming lines in the background those are called live wallpapers and they didn't really add any sort of functionality just sort of fun to look at uh in addition to 2.1 you get a few more home screens I only have uh three home screens here unfortunately and I've got actually 5 I believe on 2.1 uh now you will be getting the same home screens on two when 2.1 comes to the Droid so you will get your same five you're also going to get this new design sort of scrolling applications dock here it looks a little more simple here on the on the Droid nothing terribly fancy just some graphics cues you're also going to get access to multitouch the browser will be a full multi-touch browser um which is not currently the case on the Droid on the unlocked version called the mil own it is but there are third party browsers right now called dolphin for example that will give you multitouch when 2.1 does come to the Droid it will be owed with multitouch so I'm not going to hold that against it right now so let's do some speed tests for browsing um they're both running right now on the same Wi-Fi network and then we'll sort of shut down the networks or shut down the Wi-Fi and we'll see how they compare on their own 3G merits let's go ahead and going open up the browsers on each of these and ENT your default right to Google so I'm going to go ahead and launch technobuffalo.com on each of these and TechnoBuffalo has been loaded on both of these before so it'll be a test of a site that you visit uh on a more regular basis all right so I'll try and hit these both at the same time which is more difficult than you think it would be all right and we're off on both of them and again running on the same Wi-Fi network like the Nexus one is displaying the content first the Droid was pretty close behind the Nexus one is done and the Droid is still loading and it's done so finished just a little bit behind not much but there was definitely a noticeable difference let's see how the processor and the ram handles scrolling here if you scroll very quickly does it keep up it does appear to keep up you don't get any sort of that checkerboard pattern at the bottom which I find very annoying is sort of a sign of a slower processor uh none here of course on on the Nexus one as well if you don't see it on the Droid you wouldn't expect to see it on the Nexus one either okay so next we're going to load up a website that I've never visited on either of these devices so it'll be sort of a raw test with nothing stored in the memory nothing cached at all we'll go to comedy.com which I assume is a site so we've got it queued up ready to go go at the same time and this will be again a test on the same Wi-Fi network of the speed and see if we get the same result that we had last time all right and and they are both off loading comedy.com which has never been put on either of these again it looks like the Nexus one's got a slight Edge but the Droid appears to be pretty close behind Nexus one is done and the Droid is still loading you can probably start counting so maybe 2 or 3 seconds uh behind so we did see the same results now here with 2.1 we do have native multitouch we do not have native multitouch here though on the Motorola Droid so let's turn off Wi-Fi and try one more test and you can compare Network to network so if you want to pick these phones up as they are right now T-Mobile versus Verizon let's see if there is a difference okay so we're going to load technobuffalo.com again again using Verizon's 3G evdo network and T-Mobile's 3G hsdpa network let's go ahead and hit them both at the same time and see if we can get a winner so they are both off they look to be pretty close to the same looks like the Droid is actually a little bit quicker now uh it's actually showing content much earlier than the Nexus one is appears the Nexus One made a quick comeback it's a head-to-head epic battle here they both appear to be at almost exactly the same place you can see that yellow bar across the top on each and the Droid actually finished first and the Nexus one is still loading and there was a reason that I wanted to show you this in all the websites that I loaded Verizon's network was faster than T-Mobile's and that's despite the significant processor advantage of the Nexus one so if you're using Wi-Fi like you saw you're going to get faster load speeds on the Nexus One if you're using just your 3G network you are going to be a little bit quicker on the Verizon and I do have um pretty much full bars of 3G service on each so something to keep in mind so let's see now how these load programs and they've had both the same applications are loaded on each let's see how they load the same things and see if there's any sort of speed difference so we will load let's say We'll launch Android Marketplace at the same time we'll see if there's any difference with either of these so a little bit quicker on the Droid actually the Nexus one is still loading and again we are not on Wi-Fi we are still using the 3g connection so there you have it once again another sort of of shock at how much faster a Verizon's network is than T-Mobile's let's go ahead and launch another program let's go ahead and try a calendar for example so actually a little bit quicker on the Droid not much let's launch a few more and we're using the same program at the same time so the same amount of RAM is being consumed on each let's go ahead and pick something different let's go ahead and launch let's say the gallery on each and you'll see a difference in the gallery too between the 2.0 and the 2.1 so pretty close they show things differently but you know relatively even as far as how they um how quickly they launch so let's talk about a few more things and trying not to make this an hour long video there's so much we can cover here uh camera quality I found to be almost identical on each and that includes um camcorder quality so that's sort of a wash I'd say I really do like the buttons much same having that trouble again the button much more on the Droid now if you prefer a cordi keyboard the Droid is going to be your best option because of course it has one I'm admittedly not a fan of the cordi keyboard on here the physical keyboard the keys feel a little bit mushy and I think this d-pad is taking up a lot of unnecessary space I actually prefer to type on the full cording keyboard that you can use here and you can type either in landscape or portrait using the onscreen keyboards on each so they're both pretty much the same experience so if you have to pick a device you know it's really again going to be your choice if I had to choose one uh today I would probably pick the Droid running on Verizon's Network I found it to be a little bit more reliable than T-Mobil and a little bit more widespread depending on where you are now it's not to say I haven't been happy with the Nexus 1 it's a fantastic phone if you get great T-Mobile service where you are it's certainly worth considering um your best bet in the long run maybe to even wait wait for the Nexus One to come ver to Verizon you can get the best of both worlds so guys wanted to give you sort of a abbreviated head-to-head of the two big shot Android devices on the market right now hope you guys enjoyed I'm John ringer and I will see you in the next video bye-byewhat's up everyone John ringer from techno Buffalo here there are a lot of fantastic Android devices on the market but the two best at least that are available right now the Motorola built Droid running on Verizon's 3G network and the Google built Nexus One Running on T-Mobile 3G network so I want to sort of run through the specs and show you a sort of a head-to-head comparison about how these work generally when I do my head-to heads they're two different operating systems so you can see how each one would do tasks differently here we're running the sort of the same basic operating system so it's going to be a little bit different how we run things here so the difference is this Droid is running Android 2.0 or 2.0.1 to be more accurate whereas the Nexus 1 is running an updated version dubbed 2.1 and this is the first updates to 2.1 a little confusing there's some key differences and I'll show you sort of as we we progress now Google and Motorola have said that the Droid will be getting a 2.1 update but won't be having all of the same features we'll cover all those sort of as we continue let's go over some of the specs so for the US carrier for each of these this is Verizon exclusive and this one you can actually get un locked but if you want 3G you can only use it on T-Mobile you can use AT&T's Edge service if you'd like now Google has also said that there will be a Verizon version of the Nexus one further complicating your decision uh coming out sometime in the next few months so from a price standpoint which is really everybody sticking with their wallets nowadays the Droid is going to run you $199 with of course the 2-year contract the Nexus one is going to be $179 with that same 2-year contract and that's again with uh T-Mobile versus Verizon uh size and weight here you're looking at about 5.96 o on the Droid as opposed to the 4.59 on the Nexus One or speaking of sort of size let's do a real quick size comparison so you can see see the difference the Nexus one is notably thinner it's probably one of the thinner smartphones I've seen But the Droid is by no means chubby but it does have that extra girth because of the slide out keyboard we'll talk about that in just a minute let's continue with some of the differences here um included in the Box you're going to get a 16 GB micro SD card with the Droid and you're only going to get a 4 gig with the Nexus 1 screen size they're both 3.7 in and they have the same resolution of 854 by by 480 CPU speed and RAM are sort of where some of the bigger differences are as well the Nexus 1 has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor whereas the Droid has a 550 MHz um processor in it from a ram standpoint the Droid has 256 whereas the Nexus 1 has a significantly different 512 uh they can both multitask they're both wearing the same operating system certainly they both have Wi-Fi and GPS 3.5 mm headset Jack a um and all the rest let's talk a bit about camera the Droid has a 5 megapixel 4 time digital Zoom with a dual LED flash and the Nexus 1 has the same 5 megapixel sensor with only a two times digital zoom and a single LED flash so there you go the they both have a sort of a rudimentary autofocus as well so enough about all the specs let's show you how they both work now from a purely uh statistical standpoint you think that the Nexus 1 has a big Advantage because of processor and RAM but let's see how that actually translates out so first let me show you that these are both going to be have all their tasks and other applications sort of killed so I've got a third party application here called Task Killer I'm going to go ahead and cut down everything so you can see that we're starting from all of our free available Ram now some programs are going to load up on their own to make things running like we'll see on the Nexus one it's got to load up W live wallpapers and things like that but I want to S of start from a Baseline zero so you guys can see that everything has been shut down so with everything closed we're looking at an available 140 um megabytes and 109 here on the Droid so a bit of a difference let's go ahead and close these um some of the differences that you're going to notice as well I think is going to be the navigation you see right here I'm having a hard time even pushing the buttons I am not a fan of the capacitive buttons on the Nexus one they're often times not very responsive you have to you can't really use use your forefinger that much you have to actually use your thumb and hit it uh they're pretty responsive here on the Droid on the Nexus one you can navigate with the scroll ball here with the Nexus one you're sort of limited to uh your finger so some of the 2.1 updates what you can see the sort of zooming lines in the background those are called live wallpapers and they didn't really add any sort of functionality just sort of fun to look at uh in addition to 2.1 you get a few more home screens I only have uh three home screens here unfortunately and I've got actually 5 I believe on 2.1 uh now you will be getting the same home screens on two when 2.1 comes to the Droid so you will get your same five you're also going to get this new design sort of scrolling applications dock here it looks a little more simple here on the on the Droid nothing terribly fancy just some graphics cues you're also going to get access to multitouch the browser will be a full multi-touch browser um which is not currently the case on the Droid on the unlocked version called the mil own it is but there are third party browsers right now called dolphin for example that will give you multitouch when 2.1 does come to the Droid it will be owed with multitouch so I'm not going to hold that against it right now so let's do some speed tests for browsing um they're both running right now on the same Wi-Fi network and then we'll sort of shut down the networks or shut down the Wi-Fi and we'll see how they compare on their own 3G merits let's go ahead and going open up the browsers on each of these and ENT your default right to Google so I'm going to go ahead and launch technobuffalo.com on each of these and TechnoBuffalo has been loaded on both of these before so it'll be a test of a site that you visit uh on a more regular basis all right so I'll try and hit these both at the same time which is more difficult than you think it would be all right and we're off on both of them and again running on the same Wi-Fi network like the Nexus one is displaying the content first the Droid was pretty close behind the Nexus one is done and the Droid is still loading and it's done so finished just a little bit behind not much but there was definitely a noticeable difference let's see how the processor and the ram handles scrolling here if you scroll very quickly does it keep up it does appear to keep up you don't get any sort of that checkerboard pattern at the bottom which I find very annoying is sort of a sign of a slower processor uh none here of course on on the Nexus one as well if you don't see it on the Droid you wouldn't expect to see it on the Nexus one either okay so next we're going to load up a website that I've never visited on either of these devices so it'll be sort of a raw test with nothing stored in the memory nothing cached at all we'll go to comedy.com which I assume is a site so we've got it queued up ready to go go at the same time and this will be again a test on the same Wi-Fi network of the speed and see if we get the same result that we had last time all right and and they are both off loading comedy.com which has never been put on either of these again it looks like the Nexus one's got a slight Edge but the Droid appears to be pretty close behind Nexus one is done and the Droid is still loading you can probably start counting so maybe 2 or 3 seconds uh behind so we did see the same results now here with 2.1 we do have native multitouch we do not have native multitouch here though on the Motorola Droid so let's turn off Wi-Fi and try one more test and you can compare Network to network so if you want to pick these phones up as they are right now T-Mobile versus Verizon let's see if there is a difference okay so we're going to load technobuffalo.com again again using Verizon's 3G evdo network and T-Mobile's 3G hsdpa network let's go ahead and hit them both at the same time and see if we can get a winner so they are both off they look to be pretty close to the same looks like the Droid is actually a little bit quicker now uh it's actually showing content much earlier than the Nexus one is appears the Nexus One made a quick comeback it's a head-to-head epic battle here they both appear to be at almost exactly the same place you can see that yellow bar across the top on each and the Droid actually finished first and the Nexus one is still loading and there was a reason that I wanted to show you this in all the websites that I loaded Verizon's network was faster than T-Mobile's and that's despite the significant processor advantage of the Nexus one so if you're using Wi-Fi like you saw you're going to get faster load speeds on the Nexus One if you're using just your 3G network you are going to be a little bit quicker on the Verizon and I do have um pretty much full bars of 3G service on each so something to keep in mind so let's see now how these load programs and they've had both the same applications are loaded on each let's see how they load the same things and see if there's any sort of speed difference so we will load let's say We'll launch Android Marketplace at the same time we'll see if there's any difference with either of these so a little bit quicker on the Droid actually the Nexus one is still loading and again we are not on Wi-Fi we are still using the 3g connection so there you have it once again another sort of of shock at how much faster a Verizon's network is than T-Mobile's let's go ahead and launch another program let's go ahead and try a calendar for example so actually a little bit quicker on the Droid not much let's launch a few more and we're using the same program at the same time so the same amount of RAM is being consumed on each let's go ahead and pick something different let's go ahead and launch let's say the gallery on each and you'll see a difference in the gallery too between the 2.0 and the 2.1 so pretty close they show things differently but you know relatively even as far as how they um how quickly they launch so let's talk about a few more things and trying not to make this an hour long video there's so much we can cover here uh camera quality I found to be almost identical on each and that includes um camcorder quality so that's sort of a wash I'd say I really do like the buttons much same having that trouble again the button much more on the Droid now if you prefer a cordi keyboard the Droid is going to be your best option because of course it has one I'm admittedly not a fan of the cordi keyboard on here the physical keyboard the keys feel a little bit mushy and I think this d-pad is taking up a lot of unnecessary space I actually prefer to type on the full cording keyboard that you can use here and you can type either in landscape or portrait using the onscreen keyboards on each so they're both pretty much the same experience so if you have to pick a device you know it's really again going to be your choice if I had to choose one uh today I would probably pick the Droid running on Verizon's Network I found it to be a little bit more reliable than T-Mobil and a little bit more widespread depending on where you are now it's not to say I haven't been happy with the Nexus 1 it's a fantastic phone if you get great T-Mobile service where you are it's certainly worth considering um your best bet in the long run maybe to even wait wait for the Nexus One to come ver to Verizon you can get the best of both worlds so guys wanted to give you sort of a abbreviated head-to-head of the two big shot Android devices on the market right now hope you guys enjoyed I'm John ringer and I will see you in the next video bye-bye\n"