A hands-on report at Gizmodo compares Google’s upcoming Nexus One phone to Motorola’s Droid and Apple’s iPhone 3GS, dubbing the Nexus One a “Droid killer,” despite the fact that both run Google’s Android OS. The difference seems to be the Nexus One’s hardware, which the anonymous writer, who initially posted his (or her) views at HTCNexusOne.net, felt was well above the Droid’s capabilities.

Starting with the look and feel of the Nexus One, the writer described the casing as “not smooth like the iPhone, but not as rubbery as the Droid. It's halfway in-between. You can call the design the antithesis of the Droid: smooth, curved, and light, instead of hard, square and pointy. It feels long and silky and natural in your hand—even more so than the iPhone 3GS.”

The writer also described the Nexus One’s screen as “noticeably better” than the Droid, and said “the same feeling carries over when you compare the Nexus with the iPhone 3GS. And it's pretty damn bright, compared to the other two phones. This is probably the best screen we've seen on a smartphone so far.”

As for the hardware, the writer said the Nexus One “is astonishingly faster than the Droid. The speed dominance was most evident when we compared the loading of web pages, but even when you're just scrolling around, launching apps and moving about the OS, you could tell that there's a beefier brain inside the N1.” When loading web pages, the writer said the Nexus One was fastest, followed closely by the iPhone 3GS and “a little while after that” by the Droid.

Nexus One also sports a five-megapixel camera, the same as Droid. (The iPhone 3GS has a 3.2-megapixel camera.) The writer said “it’s not spectacular,” and it lacks the tap-to-focus feature found on the iPhone 3GS. The writer also said the speakers “sounded decent, but not great.” They eschewed making calls on it “because I wanted to keep this as anonymous as possible, and didn't want any sort of way to trace when I used the phone.”

Google has not said whether they will release the Nexus One themselves or partner with another company. The writer felt that if Google makes it “their official Google phone, it'll certify them as the premium Android phone brand out there right now. Even though it doesn't have a hardware keyboard, it basically beats the hell out of the Droid in every single task that we threw at it.”