Robert Hope

So I posted a tweet about this, but upon further review with my colleague Drew, I’ve got a pretty decent handle on what bugs me about my new Samsung Nexus Droid. Everyone has congratulated me on getting the next top of the line phone but for me, while that’s all great, the convenience factor of this phone is dramatically limited. It’s almost as if someone decided convenience wasn’t necessary on the ultimate device of convenience…your phone.

Let’s start with silencing your phone. On my old Droid 2, on my home screen, even before the unlock screen, I had a slider I could use to instantly go into vibrate mode. Very handy when I got texts or phone calls during meetings…immediate ignore and then I could put the phone back into standard mode without worrying about settings. In order to put my phone into vibrate mode, I have to unlock the phone and go do three or four clicks deep. That’s unacceptable in my opinion. And yes, I get that there’s a volume control on the phone, but I don’t want volume control; I want instant vibrate mode. Maybe there’s an app for that?

Speaking of apps, I had to download the beta version of Swipe to get my swipe on; it doesn’t come native on the Nexus. Took me a while to figure out why I couldn’t find it and I eventually put the app on the phone. Smart move, yep, taking away one of the input methods.

The systemic screens are unintuitive as well…my first phone call only showed me the phone icon, with no indication as to what I should do to ignore or accept the call. I had to do some experimentation to figure out the slide techniques to do so, but there was certainly no hint on the UI that I had actions available to me.

With that, I can admit to you that the screen on the Nexus is gorgeous, and I like some of the new features such as the foldering on the homepage, I feel like my convenience has been snatched from me like an ice cream cone in a hurricane, and I’ve been left all wet and hungry. Maybe next time I’ll ask a few more questions and not take so much for granted, eh?