So, my buddy Harper is hooked up with all sorts of the right people. Sometimes it makes me a bit jealous, but a lot of the time I get to benefit from his hookups as well. This is a story of another one of those times.

Last spring, Harper got hooked up with some G1 dev phones - you know, the very first Android phone. He basically had so many that he didn't know what to do with, so he hooked me up with one... He was sort of like the Google Phone Santa Claus.

Fast forward to this February, Harper wound up with a few of the hot new Google phones. Having so few, he couldn't really be as generous with these, so he had a little programming contest with this group of tech dudes we chat with... and this is no lowbrow list of dudes; this is a straight up ill list of amazing developers and such. Whoever wrote the best app would get a free Nexus One.

I really wanted to submit an app, however I simply didn't have enough time to learn Android dev and crank out something solid. Plus, I figured with the kind of competition we had, someone was SURE to submit something ridiculous. However, when there was only a week left in the contest Harper sent me an IM saying there was only 1 app submitted, "Mobile Meat." It was a bare minimum effort at the contest, so he told me I should enter something.

After a bit of pondering, I decided to write a soundboard based on clips from my voicemail message (which Harper recorded while hacking my phone one night). Within probably 8 hours I had an app finished and available in the Android market. I was quite pleased with the development experience... and even more pleased when I won the contest and got a fancy new phone in the mail.

Over the past year, I've switched back and forth between my old G1 and an iPhone. But now that I've used this Nexus One for a little over 24 hours, I have no idea how I put up with that G1 for so long - especially with that cracked screen. ;)

The Nexus One is simply amazing. It feels much less like a toy than the G1; it's super light and thin but still feels solid. It's also crazy fast/smooth and Android 2.1 is sooo much more polished than 1.6.

I hate to say this, but the Nexus One is right up there with the iPhone... Except with better resolution, a nicer cam with a flash, amazing google integration, facebook integration, google voice, navigation, and what's that other little thing? oh yeah, multi-tasking.

Don't get me wrong, I love the iPhone as well. I just feel like I agree with the openness and "googleness" of the Android OS a bit more. If you're in that boat or you have an older Android device that you're frustrated with - do yourself a favor and upgrade to the Nexus One right now. You will fall in love.

Now... if I can just keep from cracking my screen this time. ;)