Google and Sogou Pinyin IME comparison on the Nexus One

A friend of mine lent me a Nexus One that I will try out for a few weeks.  I would like to buy one, but  before I do, I want to confirm it works in China with my China Mobile M-Zone service.  I will be going to Beijing later this month so will have an opportunity to swap in my SIM when I get there and see what happens.

One of the first things I did was install the Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME.  I activated both of them in Language and Keyboard but nothing seemed to be happening when I entered text.  I kept getting the usual Android keyboard.  Finally I saw somewhere on the net that pressing on the text entry field for a few seconds would bring up a selection menu for choosing the input method.  I don't think this was the case on the G1, the G1 used whatever keyboard was selected in Locate and Text.  Anyway once I found this out, I pressed on the text entry field on the screen for a little bit and sure enough a menu came up, giving me a choice between the Android keyboard, Google Pinyin IME, and Sogou Pinyin IME.  Being able to select input methods from the text entry field rather than the Settings is certainly a nice touch.  I have not previously tried the Google Pinyin IME so I will see how it compares with the Sogou Pinyin IME and report back in a few weeks.

UPDATE: I have been trying out Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME.  I will probably stick with Sogou.  The main difference between the versions I have on my Nexus is that while both of them allow for easy switching between Chinese and English input, only Sogou retains auto-completion for English language input.  Unless I am missing something, when you have Google Pinyin IME as the input method, there is no auto-complete or auto-correction on the English words you input.  I find that really slows things down.

One minor annoyance: by default Sogou when installed seems to have the key click sound turned on, so when you are typing, it is making annoying typewriter sounds.  That is easy enough to turn off in the settings.
Oh, one more thing: I just noticed that on the version of the Sogou IME that is now installed on my Nexus One, the menus are in English.  In earlier versions, they were all in Chinese.  That wasn't a problem for me, but might be for some.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE (23 July 2010): I tried out both Sogou and Google Pinyin IME on my Samsung Vibrant.  They both work.  The latest version of the Google Pinyin IME seems much improved.  And the amount of stuff that Sogou claimed to need access to was pretty creepy...  why does it need my contact list?  While Sogou seems to work, I just didn't understand why it needed access to so much, so in the end, I uninstalled and kept Google Pinyin IME.  I just wish someone would come up with a Swype-based pinyin or other Chinese IME.