Within the last week we have seen the second arrival to Google's new online store, the Nexus One Desk Dock.  From the time the Nexus One was first released everyone wondered when then desk dock would come out and if it would be worth it.  Well the time has come and seeing how I just got mine yesterday I want to do a little review and let everyone know what I like and don't like about it.  

The Fedex guy showed up around 1pm yesterday with my bland looking brown box.  I quickly opened it up and was pleasantly surprised to see  the dock came in a white box that was virtually identical to the one the Nexus came it.  The only difference was that it is a little shorter and not as wide but besides that they're the same. 

I opened up with box and found all the items you would expect inside, the power cable, the audio cable and the dock itself.

 One thing I noticed about the audio cable right off the bat was the fact that it uses gold plated connectors which was very nice to see.  Gold connectors are generally better for audio cables  due to the lower resistance they offer over other materials.  

The dock is great looking and seems to be very solid.   The front face is a glossy black plastic while the rest of it feels to be metal with a matte black finish on it.  Both combined to give you a sleek look that will fit in great on any desk.  

Once I got everything unboxed I wasted no time hooking it up to my home stereo to see how it would perform.  The set up was very fast and easy.  All that was involved was plugging the power cord into the wall and into the back of the dock followed by plugging the left and right RCA cable into my home stereo system and then to the back of the dock.  

I than placed the phone in the dock and almost instantly the Bluetooth icon appeared and the clock app launched on the phone.  It than popped up a box asking if you would like to use the dock as the default audio device for notification   and music playback.  

When the clock app pops up there is a music symbol at the bottom that will pull up the music player when clicked.  I selected a song and away it went.  The audio started playing out my home stereo and sounded wonderful.  I than stopped the music player and launched Pandora to see if it would play through my speakers as well.  And of course that worked just fine.

 While music was playing I ran into my first issues with the dock which in my opinion is pretty annoying.  I received a text message so I picked the phone up off the dock to respond.  Due to the music being transmitted wirelessly I assumed it would continue to play while it was off the dock.  Well I was wrong on that one.  Once you pick up the phone the music will continue to play for about 5 seconds and then it stops.  This issue is really bugging the hell out of me.  

Due to the music being transmitted via Bluetooth you should, in theory, be able to walk around with the phone in your hand while it continues to send music through the dock but it does not.  If you start music playing before putting the phone on the dock you hear it from the phone's speaker and once you set it on the dock it will switch to your stereo automatically without stopping.  But when you remove it from the dock it actually pauses the music.  It does this both with the built in player and Pandora.  I am yet to test any other music players but I would assume they would be the same.

I believe this was probably overlooked in the development and I hope it will be corrected.  It seems to be a simple command that is sent to the music player when the phone is taken off the dock so it should be an easy fix. I do however find it very annoying to receive a text and have the music shut off when you go to respond.  I have talked to several other people that have purchased the dock and they feel the same way about it. 

My next issues with the dock is the fact that you cannot transmit data through it.   This is where I think Google really dropped the ball in the development of it.  In my opinion it would seem to make perfect sense to allow the dock to get its power from a USB cable and have the ability to transfer files from your computer to your phone via the dock.  This would have been a great feature to implement and I feel it loses a lot of points because of this.  

Alternatively being able to transfer files via Bluetooth would be nice as well.  I use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse on my computer so I have a Bluetooth dongle at the ready to connect other devices with.  If the dock was able to function as a bridge between the phone and computer would have been nice.

One last thing I wanted to include about the design of the dock is the way it holds the phone.  It looks great when the phone is sitting in the dock but there isn't much holding the phone in place.  If your phone is on the dock and you need to pull down the notification shade and you push too hard at the top of the screen it will fall out of the dock.  I would consider this a minor issues due to the fact you figure out not to push hard pretty quick but it is worth noting. 

 Besides the downsides I just mentioned I would say overall it is very nice.  I love the way it looks on my desk and love the fact it will send music to whatever receiving device you have it plugged into.  I have actually since used an adapter to plug it into the line-in on my computer and then allow it go out the speakers.  This way I can adjust the audio with software I have on my computer and I have the benefit of always having the phone on my desk to view the Album artwork of the song play (not very important but I like it). 

So if you're thinking about getting it I would say go ahead and grab it.  If you're a tech geek like me I'm sure you will really enjoy it.  

If you already have it we would love to hear what you think so let's hear it in the comments!