i'm having a hard time getting through this guy's review since there is so much bias and incorrect information.

One real issue I have with all of the Android phones is the four hardware buttons they all have: back, menu, home, and search. Three of the four shouldn't be there. Coming from Google, I can understand the emphasis on search, but it simply doesn't belong in a hardware button. I don't need to search while I'm playing a game, for example. Likewise, the menu button isn't applicable in all situations, nor is the back button. Of the four, only the home button really needs to be a hardware button, and it's not a coincidence that Apple made that exact design choice.

most android software is designed with these 4 buttons in mind, and i use all 4 of them very frequently. the search button is not restricted to searching the web or anything, and many applications have some implementation of searching within them. the back and menu buttons are required in almost every application since there are no on-screen buttons like most iphone applications have (which look different from app to app).

When you hit the home button, the previous application keeps running, which means it keeps eating memory, keeps using processor cycles, and keeps eating battery.

oh, you mean just like every mac os application that, when closed by clicking the "x" button, stays running unless you go through its menu and quit?

To truly quit most applications requires a multi-step navigation that is neither intuitive nor well-documented.

many have a quit function in their menu, or just hitting the back button at its main screen usually quits it. i can't speak for every 3rd party application.

The ability to have more than one GUI application at a time on a device with such a small screen isn't as important as some make it out to be, since you can't actually interact with more than one a time.

on my mac i usually have to command+tab to work with more than one application at a time. it's no different on android. holding down the home button brings up a list of running applications that looks just like command+tab on a mac, and allows you to quickly jump between two applications. on the iphone, doing that (which would require going to the home screen between each jump) would restart each app every time, losing your context.

In the early days, I was a big proponent of having Apple add the ability to run multiple apps to the iPhone OS, but I've come to change my mind on that. I think most people don't need it and Android's implementation only confirms it.

ok, then most won't use it. that's no reason not to implement it. what percentage of iphone owners use copy-and-paste of text, or holding down home and power to take a screenshot?

even if users don't want to keep switching between apps, allowing background functionality is essential for using things like pandora to play music, or a location-tracking application to keep updating your status in the background. even if you just have to switch into an app to look at a phone number, or look at a map, not having to quit those other apps is very useful.

The day of my flight home from the U.K., I set alarms on both devices (I'm paranoid bout missing flights). It took me quite literally three to four times as long to configure and enable the alarms on the Nexus One as it did on the iPhone. Add that extra time by the number of tasks you do on your phone in a given day, and it can add up to a considerable amount of time.

and this is surprising why? you're used to how it works on an iphone and aren't used to how it works on android. it would be no different if you were used to windows and switched to a mac. once you get used to the new method, you'll do it quicker than the previous one.