Its been over  6 months since the Nexus One leaped onto the scene and in Android time, that’s almost an eternity and yet, I find myself more content  with this phone than I have any other I’ve owned. In the last 6 months great Android phones like the Motorold Droid X, the various versions of the Galaxy S series as well as Sprint’s HTC Evo have all launched with mass hysteria from the community and great reviews from the critics and yet, here I am, totally still in love with the best Android device on the market, the Nexus One and here is why I think so.

Custom Interfaces

While HTC Sense was revolutionary back when the Hero  launched and Android 1.5 was king, I think we have all learned that in the end, these interfaces maybe more hassle than their actually worth. From added stress on the hardware to updates that come few and far between, Custom interfaces seem to be the biggest cause of fragmentation outside of hardware limitation. With  the release of 2.2 (and the supposed UI upgrades in 3.0) Android has lost the need for custom interfaces, it looks and works well as a  plain old vanilla OS and needs not HTC, Motorola or Samsung to “pretty” things up. Sure appearance is a matter of opinion but the added lag and delay in updates is reason enough to stick with the Nexus One and its straight from Google OS.

Hardware

Out of all the latest Android handsets released in the US, I’ve yet to find one with the looks and build quality of the Nexus One. The Droid X comes close but its still doesn’t feel as expensive as holding the Nexus One and it is only bested by the Iphone 4. Samsung’s  Vibrant for T-mobile, while I appreciate for being light, feels like a cheap toy or at best a $50 feature phone. When I hold my Nexus One in comparison to the newest breed of Android phones, the others just pale in comparison and when I drop the big bucks on a phone, one of things I look for is longevity and durability and the Nexus One has held true  for me. In a world where the competition (iPhone) is made of fancy glass materials, Samsung and HTC have got to step up their game, the Vibrant and the Incredible, feel incredibly cheap and feel totally uninspired, whereas the Nexus One shines in the hardware department.

Carrier Freedom

Though I have no intention of leaving T-Mobile anytime soon (especially with the release of their speedy HSPA+ network in Cincinnati) but having the option to switch to my local carrier Cincinnati Bell (uses the same 3G bands as T-Mobile) without jumping through hoops to unlock my phone is pretty amazing. Freedom of Carrier input is also very handy when it comes to upgrades to the Android OS. Since Google released the phone they supply the updates and the latest revisions of Android are built directly for the Nexus One. In the carrier model, we wait for Google to bake the OS, the OEM to make it work on their device and then the carrier to approve it and roll it out to its users. None of this is a short process, just go ask Sprint’s Hero user base who waited months for an update to 2.1 while getting completely skipped on 1.6. It actually saddens me that Google did not succeed with the Google Web Store  and  that I’m going to one day have to give up the freedoms and luxuries I have with the Nexus One.

On top of all these reasons, I mostly just really have never fell out of love with the Nexus One. Its everything I wanted in a device and its seems to be of a dying breed of great high powered stock OS devices.  Their is nothing about the Iphone 4, the Moto Droid X, the Droid Incredible or the Evo that make me wanna lose what I have with the Nexus One which is great hardware that runs software coming directly from the Source.