Google's Nexus One is a smartphone of rare pedigree. But you wouldn't know it if you only listened to iPhone fanboys. Here at Top10, we know better. To make our case, we've listed ten reasons why the Nexus One trumps Apple's handsets.

1 Flash player support

For all the pie in the sky promised by the iPhone’s “superior” web browsing experience, it lacks support for the web’s leading multimedia platform, Flash. Apple’s continued reluctance to accept Adobe’s Flash player support into the iPhone is only the first in a series of draconian policies preventing millions of people from enjoying the web to its fullest.

While some Apple fanboys will argue that HTML5 video is the future, that future is still some way away and Flash is here right now. There's no reason why iPhone owners should not be able to benefit from Flash in the meantime - especially when Android and other mobile platforms have already embraced support for Flash player 10.1, even though Google is just as much a proponent of HTML5 as Apple.

2 Available Unlocked

Want a cutting edge smartphone but don’t want to get tied down with a long and expensive contract? No problem. The Nexus One will be available unlocked for your pleasure with no strings attached, making the iPhone contract feel like a relationship that just won’t seem to end.

3 Replaceable battery

Smartphone batteries are a bit like bankers these days; you just can’t depend on them anymore. Fortunately, the Nexus One’s battery can be easily replaced should it die on you all of a sudden. The iPhone’s battery on the other hand is welded shut. Still if you do run out of juice, it doubles as an excellent paperweight.

4 Customisation

When it comes to customisation, the Nexus One knocks spots off the iPhone. Instead of staring at a boring black background, you can set what Google calls ‘Live’ wallpapers that react to your touch on the screen. Plus there are shortcuts and widgets that give you direct access to the functions of your favourite apps right from the homescreen, as well as good old folders to organise all your apps and other content.

5 Because it’s Google

Google is undeniably one of the leading providers of online services used by hundreds of millions of people everyday, be it search, email, instant messaging, news, YouTube, Google Maps, just about anything. Because the Android platform is Google’s brainchild, these are all seamlessly integrated in to the Nexus One.

Just don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting anything remotely cohesive on the iPhone. As if their decision to cast Google Voice into App Store purgatory wasn’t enough, rumours have already begun to surface that Apple is reportedly cutting a deal with the devil, I mean Microsoft, to make ‘Bing’ the default search engine on the next iPhone. Really, Apple? Really??

6 Multitasking

Nowadays it’s not just enough to be able to listen to some music and surf the web with your smartphone. Our busy schedules require us to juggle multiple tasks even when we are on the move. The powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor on the Nexus One means that multitasking between apps brisk and makes life immeasurably easier. The iPhone can multitask as much as flying cockroaches can be considered birds.

7 Better camera

The Nexus One features an impressive five megapixel camera with LED flash that in layman’s terms trumps its iPhone counterpart as a snapper. Not only that, the camera app on the Android loads faster and boasts a number of advanced settings that you won’t find on the iPhone.

8 Expandable memory

Although the Nexus One comes with only 4GB of microSD storage, it can be easily expanded to up to 32GB. The great thing about this is that when you eventually reach the storage limit you can simply purchase an additional microSD card and stash all your multimedia content away instead of performing the sacrificial rites on them.

9 Harder, better, faster, stronger

Nexus One may not be a giant leap in smartphone technology but it surpasses iPhone in a number of areas. Not only is it a thinner and lighter phone, it has a larger, sharper AMOLED display, a faster processor, twice the memory and an additional microphone for noise-cancellation. This is the Crème de la Crème of what Android has to offer.

10 One more thing…

It is NOT an iPhone. Didn’t see that coming did you?

In all seriousness, this is really something to consider if you are going to spend a good deal of money on a cool new smartphone. The iPhone has been all the rage for the last three years and it is no doubt a great phone. But for some of us it has become too ubiquitous for its own good. If you are looking for a refreshing, and in many aspects superior, alternative, then the Nexus One is the way forward.