I really, really wanted to love my Nexus One and Android. I did, for awhile.

The Nexus One is a beautiful device. The screen is beautiful. The design is beautiful. The scroll wheel is a little useless except for when you're on the command line but it's fun to fiddle with. I really adore the taskbar workflow which makes a ton of sense for me. Having apps run in the background and the taskbar/way that Android surfaces information was the main reason that I purchased it to replace my original iPhone. I still think that the Nexus One is the more grown-up device in that way.

However, my patience with it has begun to fade. First, I thought I just needed to give myself time to adjust to the keyboard, that I was having difficulty typing on it because I was used to the iPhone. I've had my N1 for close to two months and I am still frustrated trying to type on it. It's just not as intuitive with guessing what you're typing, the touchscreen accuracy on the N1 I've found is just less than the iPhone. You have to hit the "buttons" harder, aim differently. In fact, the defining moment when I decided I wanted to get an iPhone 4 was when I picked up my boyfriend's new iPhone and began to type a note. It took me half the time that it would to get my text right that it would on the N1 and none of the frustration. It just seemed to flow.

Now, I have to say, when I first picked up his iPhone 4 it immediately seemed a little slow to respond. I don't think that it is a processing time thing but rather a UI thing. The N1 feels snappier if you're not typing. Getting into the home screen, opening an app seems to happen quicker. I think the transitions on iOS take a little longer but they add the polish. It's true - apps on Android just aren't there yet. But I could live with that.

What I can't live with? The battery life. I guess our friend Steve Jobs deserves some credit for being honest when saying that he wasn't going to put out an iPhone that would multitask until the battery could keep up. Man, does my N1 eat up a charge. If I use it consistently for listening to music, making a phone call or two, text messaging, checking Twitter, my battery won't last the full day. I've gotten in the habit of carrying around the charger cord. And let me be clear when I say that it's really not a *ton* of use that will do it. I don't think I've ever turned the wifi on at all.

I will miss the freedom of adding to the MicroSD card and calling it a day. Of getting notifications right on my phone when there is a system upgrade. I really have hated the layered, poorly thought out way that syncing multple types of data to your iPhone is handled through iTunes and iPhoto. Hopefully Apple is working on that but it's one of the main reasons that I decided to get away from the iPhone in the first place.

In the end, though, I was right about the N1. It's not as shiny but it gave me the data I wanted in the way I wanted it. I could probably keep the N1 and be perfectly happy since I have an iPad to fill the Apple device gap. But what good is a device that allows you to stay connected easily if typing text is a chore? Or if you're busy rationing the battery?

I think most of all it makes me sad to abandon an open source platform. I think that if you're upgrading from almost any other phone, smartphones like Blackberry included, it would be a definite upgrade to have an N1's power. I guess Apple just has their hooks in me deeper than I thought!