So I have had a Nexus one in my grubby mittens for some time. Overall I am quite pleased with it. Yes, as I mentioned in a previous post, it effectively replaces my Phone, PDA, Alarm Clock, Digital Camera, MP3 player and In-car GPS. It’s also incredibly fast. I find myself using it to read my emails even when sat at my desk, something I never would have wanted to do with Palm Blazer. One of the nicest things about Android phones is the abundance of very clever Google aps available for it. Google Goggles, especally is a real crowd pleaser. But there are a whole host of apps I can download on a whim, and the vast majority of them are free. This is becasue, unlike the iphone, Android is open source and most people who code programs for it, are hobbyist programmers. And yes, I can download porn onto my phone not that that’s something I would be particularly interested in, but It feels good to have the option to do whatever the hell I want with my phone without Steve Jobs tutting at me in the background.

What I found quite interesting, was the way it pulls your contacts details from your SIM, from Gmail, from Twitter and from Facebook and try’s its level best to associate these all into one entity for each person. Which is fairly neat. It has the somewaht annoying side effect were your contacts Name as listed in Facebook or Twitter takes priority over the one you have entered yourself. This is fine for Facebook, since that forces people to use there real name. But Marginally annoying in two specific cases. I have one friend who has a Twitter account and not Facebook, so unfortunately my phone refuses to recognise her as anything other then he Twitter user name, which isnt quite Curlywurly_1987 but it still annoys me. I have another friend who goes by her middle name as far as the whole world except Facebook is concerned, which means I have to consistently remind myself who the hell Susan is.

There is an option to only show user accounts you have a phone number for, which is good. So the likes of Stephen Fry and William Shatner, both of whom I follow on Twitter arn’t clogging up my address book. But its amassing the number of people who list there mobile phone number on facebook. So now my Phone book is full of people I have said about three words to since leaving school. Primary school, in some cases.

Emails make an alert similar to text messages, which is usefull. However, you have to consider that while the average text message I receive Is liable to be informing me about some urgent information, most of the email I get comes from various mailing lists.

This all leads to a fealing over overconnectedness that can be a little overwelming at times, and since only Simon also has an Android device, it all seems a little much. I mean, communicating instantly with Email or Google Talk is fun. Knowing were other people are all the time using goggle latitude is fun too. But when the majority of the peaple you know carry phones that can just about manage the onerous tasks of “Sending and receiving calls and texts”. Even though the N1 has been out a year, and Android in general longer, I still feel like and early adopter in many ways.

My only gripes really about the N1 though are:
1/ You cant tether it to another device to use as a 3G modem.
2/ Running WiFi/Blutooth/3G/GPS connections on a device eats the battery. I mean, this is to be expected, but A battery realy has to be able to last 9-10 hours between charges to be a practical phone for daily use.

Fortunately, these issues are rumoured to be fixed in the new version of android (Froyo) that’s due out in a few days. Here I want to point something out that realy is unique to the N1, because most of what I have said so far can be applyed to “Android phones” or even “Smartphones” in general. My Firmwere updates come from Google. Directly. On Release Day. They don’t go to my Device manufacturer or to my carrier first. If you are looking at the likes of the HTC desire and thinking its a slightly better product then the N1. Stop and consider the advantages of buying direct from google, for what is essentially the same phone.

So, after a little indecision and some speculative bidding on eBay, I finally made the decision to buy a new Nexus One from Google, in the USA. Not a cheap option, but worth it when I consider that I was also considering purchase of an MP3 player, digital phone and a GPS unit, It will also enable me to cancel my USB internet Dongle, and replace both my phone and somewhat aged Palm TX. (though these apparently still go on Ebay for going on £100. Anyone interested in one for a fraction of that price? )

A full review of the Nexus One will be forthcoming when it arrives. For today I wanted to share with you a special idiocy of international shipping.

DHL Shipping Information

As you can see, DHL undertake a herculean effort to get my package to me, across America, across the Atlantic and across the country to my local Liverpool depot.

Were it will sit until Monday, because the final leg van men don’t work weekends.

I’m not saying they should, I can wait till Monday. I just feel bad for the guy who had to set off from the East Midlands at half five this morning so it could get to Liverpool to languish for two days, seems kinda like work for works sake, to me.

I don’t mean for this to become a political blog. I Genuinely don’t. So kicking off with a political post as the first real content post is something I was somewhat hesitant to do but being as its actually the day of a General Election, I wanted to say something.

I’ve voted Conservative, and I don’t care that you know.

I fail to understand how a persons political choices become a damming indictment of there character. But especially among my generation there’s sort of a real stigma around admitting to being a Tory voter. Of the people I know only one other, Dave, an old house-mate of mine and now a PHd student, is voting Conservative. Every other person I know is voting Liberal Democrat. I don’t have a massive problem with that, its the choices people make, what grinds my gears a little bit is this conception that the Liberal Democrats are the ‘Good Guys’ and the Conservatives are the ‘Bad Guys’. I don’t get it, is it some kind of bizarre genetic memory whereby those who weren’t alive under thatcher still ‘know’ it was the worst time ever? Or is it mental conditioning brought on from watching re-runs of ‘Spitting image’?

What really winds me up though, is that Gordon Brown, who has never won an election as PM, looks set to continue his reign under a Lib-Lab Coalition so we can get more of the same, which by all accounts, nobody wants.

And it will have been Lib Dem votes that put him there.

Thats it, I promise. No more politics.

Hello, Welcome to Nerv-Impulse, my new blog were I will ramble at about the various subjects dear to my heart. It is my small crouton of order in the thick meaty soup of chaos that is the internet. You may find it interesting, you may not. But here it is all the same.

Check the “About” page to get an idea of what kind of content will be appearing here in short order.