On Thursday, I was the first person in line at the Verizon store in Culver City, CA, to pick up the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus is the latest phone from Samsung featuring the latest build of Google’s Android operating system, 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). This is particularly exciting for me, if only because I haven’t upgraded my phone since I first ordered my original DROID. Since then, I’ve been putting the phone through it’s paces, in a “how does it stand up as a general use device and in replacing my DROID” way.
So does the phone stand up? In a word, yes. In three, oh hell yeah.
With the device in my hand for the first time, it’s clear the Nexus has a way, way, way bigger screen than my old phone, but it’s also impressively thinner, lighter, and sleeker. THis may sound odd, but it also isn’t too light or thin. I had played around a little bit with the RAZR and it felt wrong in my hands, as if I could accidentally break it if I squeezed the phone too hard. The Nexus provides just enough heft to remind you that it’s there, but remains relatively low on overall mass. The phone is a little too large to use completely with one hand — and it’s not like I’ve got tiny mitts — but I can cover most of the phone’s real estate with just one thumb.
No, I'm not Wil Wheaton.
Overall, it provides a good, solid fit in my hand. It’s a fairly pretty phone as well. My DROID was something of a beast — all harsh lines and Darth Vader-esque design. The Nexus is a bit more subtle — more of a gray instead of black, soft curves instead of sharp angles. The 4.65″ screen is bright and beautiful. Colors pop like crazy, and the hi-def screen makes everything from reading text to watching movies that much more pleasurable on the eyes.
The lack of physical buttons is something of a plus and a minus. On the one hand, it allows the screen to be bigger without having too much room taken up by the bezel. However, the virtual buttons aren’t always in the right places. If I’m in the Music app, the menu button is in the top right hand corner for some reason, instead of at the bottom with all the other buttons. Likewise, the placement of the few remaining physical buttons and ports are slightly awkward. The volume rocker is on the left-hand side of the device, to be operated with the forefinger, but my brain keeps wanting to use my thumb, which is for the power button. The headphone jack is located at the bottom, next to the micro USB port. This is good for keeping cords together, but bad for using with any kind of cell phone case.
On the plus side, the Nexus comes with in-line headphones of decent quality, which is nice. The audio quality holds up, even better with the built-in equalizer on the new Music app. It’s not quite as fully-featured as some third party apps like Equalizer, but it’s nice to know Google was thinking about it. One gripe — the speaker sucks, or at least is less powerful than the one on my DROID. It also sits right where I place my hand in landscape mode and because there is no recessed area, the speaker is easily muffled by a misplaced finger.
I gave the Nexus its first real big field test on Saturday with a trip to Universal Studios. There are virtually no places to charge a phone there, so it’s the perfect place to test battery life in a real-world situation, with camera use, periodic phone calls, emails, etc. For a 4G phone, I was blown away. I managed to last an entire day on my phone — from 9 AM when I unplugged it from my car charger to 10 PM when I got home — without having to plug in. That includes doing some battery-intensive things like streaming music while running the GPS on the way home while unplugged, just to see what would happen. You might want to grab a second battery if you have a tendency to make five hour phone calls, but this may be the first real all-day 4G phone.
I was rather impressed by the camera capabilities on the phone as well. I’ve read reviews saying it’s not up to snuff compared to other camera phones, but for what I needed it to do, it held up pretty well. What is amazing though is the shutter speed on the device. It takes pictures almost as fast as you can push the button, as you can see from the slideshow of a man set on fire, falling off a 45 foot platform.
If those pictures seem impressive, they’re even more so because I had the phone set for scenic, not action. (Let’s pretend I did that on purpose.) No doubt, there are phones with better optics. But I think I prefer the quality trade-off for the speed. If I want quality, I can get an actual camera. This is for grabbing shots on the fly. The camera also has some wacky stuff built into it, like various filters, a panoramic mode, etc.
You want to click on me.
Video is a treat as well. Solid colors, decent handling in low-light conditions. The audio could be a little better, but that’s true of every cell phone I’ve seen.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCoAcvOR1nU&list=UURl94D2M2zNKiiWVG5xwMIA&index=1&feature=plcp’]
As for everything else, for the most part, Android 4.0 is a treat. The new way multitasking is handled actually makes multitasking a viable option. The only things I really feel are missing , at least compared to my DROID, I can probably get by installing the latest build of CyanogenMod.
So far, I can definitely and easily say I’m very, very happy with this phone. The few negative features are for the most part very minor. Honestly, the worst part about it is the speaker could stand to be a little louder. I haven’t even gotten around to playing with some of the more obscure features, like the NFC, because it’s a relatively obscure technology. I can’t recommend the phone on a purely unbiased, “I’ve played with every other cell phone on the market and this is the best” kind of review, but after playing with what will probably be my primary communications device for the next two years, I am a very happy customer.
Have to say I’m loving mine as well, also transitioned from OG Droid to Galaxy Nexus.