It's not perfect ... the browser is sort of "mobile plus". Meaning that you get a lot of the same feature levels you'd get in the mobile version of a web page (Gmail Mobile, Google Reader Mobile, etc.), just with touch screen enhancements. So, for example, the Gmail "Send as" feature, filter authoring/editing functions, label creation/editing features, etc. are all not present in the built-in Android Gmail client. Nor in the browser (oddly, the Android Gmail application isn't the same as the Android browser experience for Gmail).

That's probably my biggest gripe. My G1 has a keyboard, but I can't use (full) Google Reader shortcuts with it, because it's Google Reader Mobile ... just with a fancier GUI than what you'd get on Symbian+Opera, or a WAP based browser (I can finger select articles and such, and finger scroll the list, instead of having to use number keys). I understand the desire to have a finger optimized experienced for those apps, but I don't understand why they didn't make their own experience with their own apps a bit more ... advanced. As it is, I don't fully read with Reader on Android. I mark as read anything I don't really want to read, skim the stuff I really want to read (and mark it "keep unread"). Then I have to do my real reading, starring, tagging when I get to a desktop.

(and, that's the kind of thing I would want/need to see fixed for Android on a netbook, but that's pretty much my ONLY objection to Android on a netbook)

There are other, similar, application layer annoyances. The IM app is similarly like a fancy-GUI on a typical cell phone IM client (only 1 active protocol at a time, only 1 active account in that protocol at a time, no where near as many protocols as Pidgin, and only 1 google talk account at all). I suspect that this one will get better as the ecosystem evolves, though. I can't be the only one who wants a better IM client for it.

And, no tethering support. But I hear that's more a carrier issue than an OS issue (they had tethering support in pre-release, but supposedly T-Mobile nixed it).

It doesn't have built-in access to the linux command line ... but I actually don't miss that much. The _main_ thing I used the command line for with Maemo was ... ssh to my desktops and servers. I can do that with ConnectBot (amazingly good ssh client ... orders of magnitude better than Putty on Symbian, for example). Though, I do miss an easily integrated VNC viewer (there is a VNC viewer, but I can't get it to work with ConnectBot's port forwarding AND do VNC passwords).

That's my negatives. On the positive side -- rich and growing application ecosystem. Lots of people working on access to the lower layers (but not yet an official 3rd party distribution, that I know of). Persistently connected device without having to carry two devices (though, that's as much the hardware as the OS -- if there was a Maemo phone, I'd probably be able to do that with Maemo as well).

I'm not big on pocket media players ... though I did recently load the UMPCPortal podcast on my G1 and listen to it on my way to work, and liked that. But, that's the extent of my attempts to use the G1 as a media player. On Maemo, I sometimes used Rhapsody (but not often; I use it more on my desktop than on anything else). So, I'm not a good source of info about comparing them as media player platforms, nor am I going to be swayed in my preferences based on which one is a better media player.

If you can make it past those negatives, like if you're ok with the level of web browser it has, and you care more about "1 device in my pocket" than a fully accessible linux command line, or your CLI needs are met with the SSH client, and if you aren't fanatical about having X on your Linux ... then Android is probably a good solid choice. Otherwise, I'd probably recommend sticking with Maemo, Mer, or an Ubuntu based MID.


In an ideal world, I'd have a Nokia Mako (with tiltscreen and 5 row keyboard) or HTC Touch Pro2 (with dpad on the face), scaled up to a 4.1" or 4.3" touch screen (maybe with multi-touch, maybe not), 800x480, gobs of memory and storage, at least one accessible microSDHC, 3.5mm headset jack, Micro-DVI-I out, USB Host+OTG, USB client for charging and data mode, dual SIM cards, quadband GSM, Euro/Asian/NAM/T-mo-USA 3G, running Maemo ... with Dalvik/Android-runtime for the app ecosystem, both the Android browser and built-in apps, and a full (non-mobile) browser, flash, java, a VNC viewer that is well integrated with the SSH client (and works through port forwarding and fully compatible with VNC passwords), VNC server and/or ability to act as a Redfly handset, and the ability to act as a tethering source for BT DUN, BT PAN, USB, and Wifi.

But, no one makes anything like that. And probably never will. So, for now, it's a tradeoff between Android on a phone or Maemo on a non-phone. For me, that means Android on a phone. When I get a chance to see Maemo on a phone, I may (or may not) shift back to Maemo. But, none of the other current contenders (WinMo, Symbian, iPhone, etc.) have made the cut for me.


Those are features of Donut, I think... the pastry names for Android aren't the same as pre-release versions. A recent post on AndroidGuys said not to confuse "Donut" with being something like "Android X.0-alpha". There might be features in Donut that don't make it to public release (in X.0, nor maybe ever).

Though, if they do make it into a future major release, I expect it wont just be for the X3. They're part of the main Android development cycle, so I expect you'd see them on every hardware platform that is capable of supporting the feature.