For the past few days, I have been playing with an HTC Nexus One running 2.2.1 of the Android OS (or Froyo). It’s quite polished, extremely fluid and really fast. Its also far from perfect, but very close.
After so much time with the iPhone, Nokia and Blackberry Android is a really refreshing change. Like most things it takes a bit of getting used to but it’s far from hard and quite consumer friendly.
The multitasking is awesome and as far as I can tell is actually multitasking unlike iOS. Pages load in the background, apps download in queue and its very smooth.
The thing I like the most is how contextual things are … and his how well considered this is with regard to the multitasking. You first get a glimpse of how this works with the slick notifications system. As you respond to incoming messages you simply slide back to where you were. In maps, you can go between shopping, latitude, buzz and navigation in rapid succession. A simple back tap can go back to the prior app or screen within an app. These sheets are similar to how the blackberry manages things from the inbox but Android does it everywhere.
My main issues are the lack of system memory and battery life. I’m very interested in what 2.3 (Gingerbread) can bring and really want to try an even higher resolution screen.