Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G : Amazing Display

A lot of the reviews of the GSM version claimed that the phone felt big in people's hand and that some people had trouble with one-hand operations, however I don't see this to be the case. I have had no trouble using this phone in one hand. It fits comfortably in my hand, and the phone is incredibly light. While the RAZR might also be light, because it is slightly wider, it did not feel as comfortable in my hand.

While this phone may not have the same high-end processor that is found in the HTC Rezound, the 1.2 GHz dual-core processor combined with Android 4.0 makes this thing lightning fast. (Update 1/17/12: My research has informed me that the processor in the device can actually clock up to 1.5GHz. You can get speeds higher than 1.2 GHz, but you must unlock your bootloader and flash a custom kernel. There are a few that overclock to 1.35 GHz since that is what has been found to be the highest speed that remains stable. Do this at your own risk.)I have found no lag in anything. At times, launching the camera application takes a few extra seconds, but it is really not too bad. Overall, launching apps is the fastest of all of smartphone out there (and yes, this is faster than the iPhone 4S). Since I've already mentioned the camera, I'll mention it now. It takes very good photos, but not quite the quality of pictures that the iPhone 4 or 4S is capable of. While it is only a 5MP camera, REMEMBER that MP is not the whole story because the light sensors are even more important. That being said, this takes very good photos and make this a good point-and-shoot camera, just not great.

While some people don't like the plastic feel that Samsung chooses to use, it feel very sturdy! If you need to take the back cover off, it comes off fairly easily, but snapping it back in is somewhat annoying. But keep in mind, how often will you really need to take off the cover. Because the phone is made of very high-quality plastic, it is much sturdier than the iPhone. Yes, the iPhone may have more of a premium feel to it, but to make a phone that has glass on the front and back of the phone, you will very scared of dropping it for fear of cracking the glass. And if you crack the glass on the iPhone, it is not covered by insurance.

I have two assessments of the speaker on this phone. For phone calls, it's great, whether you have it on speaker phone or not. However, if you try to watch a video or listen to music on it the speaker could be louder, but the fact that the speaker is on the back of the phone plays a factor in why it could be louder. . Let's remember this though, this is a phone so in that respect the speaker is great!

Display
The Display is absolutely amazing! It's crisp, and the color saturation is incredibly. I've never seen a display quite like it. It is on par with the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the HTC Rezound. While the Rezound technically has the highest ppi, the 315ppi on the Nexus is amazing. You can adjust the brightness to save some battery life, and even on low the picture looks as good as is to be expected, but I've chosen to leave it on full brightness because the screen is just that pretty. At time I find myself switching to the auto-brightness setting which I find is very helpful. Since I have always used my cells phones as my alarm clock, the auto-brightness makes it easy to actually look at the phone when the room is dark after I've just woken up. Because the screen is amazing I am willing to leave it on full-brightness most of the time, except when I go to sleep becasue I don't like being blinded when I have to either snooze or dismiss my alarm.

Camera:
I know I've already mentioned the camera a little bit, but since most reviews line item this separately, I will do the same. Yes it's only 5MP, but MP aren't everything. As I've mentioned, the light sensors are more important. It is a little disappointing to see that Samsung didn't inclue the 8MP shooter they use on their Galaxy SII brand becasue that phone takes some pretty good photos as well. After spending a decent amount of time playing with the camera, I find that in perfect lighting, this thing takes great pictures, but other than that, it struggles to take a high quality picture. This still doesn't change the fact that it can take very good pictures, but it's just not what you would have expected in a flagship phone, especially since pictures from the Galaxy SII takes better pictures. Kind of a bummer. However, you can play with the settings as needed to get what I think can still be a very good picture, but not great.

Google really made us aware of the zero shutter lag that comes from the software and camera. I've tested this several times and demoed it to a lot of people that didn't quite believe. I could shoot off about 10 photos in like 2-3 seconds. That's pretty fast!

This thing can also shoot in 1080. Now if you wondering how it can do that with only 5MP, you have to understand what resolution 5MP can produce. A 5MP shooter can produce photos and videos with a resolution of 2984 x 1680. For those of you that don't fully understand the resolutnion of 1080p video, the resolution is actually 1920 x 1080. Now that you can see this, it is clearly understandable why and how the 5MP shooter with a great sensor shoots in 1080. (Updated on 1/27/12: My initial review mentioned 720p recording, but after using the camera enough, I found that was in fact capable of shooting 1080p video in the settings. Default is 720p though, so be sure to change it!).

Again though, the camera in the Galaxy Nexus isn't quite going to give you pictures of the quality that come from the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, but this is still a decent camera.

Software:
I came from a Blackberry, but I have had some experience with iPhones and various Android phones and the custom skins different OEMs use. I can say that the lack of OEM customization and the pure Android experience is by far the best. I like it better than the iPhone OS too. While some people won't like seeing the Google Search Bar widget built in to all the home screens, I kind of like it. The swipe down notification tray is great (something I didn't have with my BB), and you can access it even while the screen is locked, but if you have security set up you will need to unlock before accessing notification tray.

The speech to text feature baked into the whole OS is very good. However, you need to speak very deliberately, and very clearly. If you do, it's about 95% accurate. the other 5% actually has some other options to select from that it thinks you said. While I have not demoed Siri on the iPhone 4S, i do know that you need to speak very clearly too for that, but it might be more accurate. I can't say for sure though. And while the speech to text in ICS is not a personal assistant, I do not need to talk to my phone like I am on the Star Trek Enterprise. Also many owners of the iPhone 4S don't even use Siri after the first couple of weeks. After months of having this phone, I use the speech to text all the time because it's very easy to access and dictate messages when my hands aren't free to type or if my eye should be elsewhere.

The resizable widgets is great. The other thing I like is the ability to create folders on your home screens, but this is something that iOS has had for a while now. However, where this trumps iOS is if you create speed dials. In iOS you can't easily create speed dials, but Android has always been good at this, and with the ability to create folders on your home screen, this becomes incredibly useful because you are not cluttering your screen with all your speed dials.

ICS also has a task manager is that very easy to access as it's built-in as one of the software buttons (remember there are no physical buttons aside from the volume rocker and the power button). You can switch between apps that you have open with a quick press. You can also use this to close any apps that you aren't using anymore. Speaking of Apps, because this is a Nexus device, you won't find any of the bloatware apps that Verizon loves include on its phones. Well, actually you will find 2 apps, My Verizon Mobile and VZ Backup Assistant. I tend to find Backup Assistant to be useless since all my contacts are synced with my gmail, but the My Verizon Mobile i think is semi-useful. Although I have a grandfathered data plan, I can easily launch this app up and check my minutes. If you really don't want these two apps though, in ICS you can disable the apps and they disappear for your app tray.

If you are buying this and don't have a grandfathered data plan you will most defintely want to take advantage of a brand new feature in ICS. You can limit how much data your phone uses each month on the mobile network. This is really important because you don't want to use your phone all month and then get hit with a huge overage charge on data. You can tweak the settings too to limit background data used by running apps also. This is a great add to ICS!

Battery Life:
We've all heard this time and time again, but battery life on 4G phones is not great. So this phone comes with a slightly larger battery than the GSM version. That being said, this was needed for the 4G LTE antenna. You may want to disable 4G if you don't live in an area that has 4G or if you want to conserve battery life. Because I'm not always in 4G coverage, I've turned off the 4G. Since then, my battery life has been great! Most of your battery life is going to get drained by your display, but this is true for all smartphones though. I love how crystal clear the screen is on full brightness so I can deal with the the slightly shorter battery life I will have.

Update 1/3/12: After several weeks now with the phone, I can comment on the battery life better now. On moderate to heavy usage I can get upwards of around 7 hours. On light usage I get more than 10. The real kicker here is the screen. Screens on any smartphone are power guzzlers. Everyone has different usage on their phones. Also, I read someone complaining about how long it takes to recharge. Using the charger the phone came with, the phone charges pretty fast. However, some other chargers I have take a little longer. Since each charger is designed slightly different (voltage and wattage), this could be the factor.

New 1/9/12 - A Nexus Device: Some people might argue this as being a true Nexus, but the idea of Nexus is for it to be a true developer device. Now you don't need to be a developer to want this phone because it is still by far better than most of the devices out there. However, if you do want to experiment with this and learn how to flash roms and do some other fun stuff, since this is a Nexus device, the bootloader comes unlocked and the device is easily rooted. One developer actually wrote a program that does it all for you. So what would have take a user with no experience about 5 minutes (that's how long it took me and I had never rooted a phone since I came from Blackberry), will take you about 1 minute.

Also as a Nexus, this device has no OEM customization, which I've already stated. This makes the User Experience simply put as fantastic! There is next to no learning curve with this phone. Very easy to use in that regard.

Some Issues/Concerns

Some people will likely be upset by the lack of Facebook syncing with your contacts, but from my research this is not soething that has been supported for some time. If you do need that, Friendcaster will do the trick though and can be downloaded from the Android Market. However, there is a brand new app as of 12/19 that apparently works better called "HaxSync - ICS Facebook Sync" that works great. I have yet to try it, but I will be sure to check it out for $0.99.

Yes, there is no Google Wallet, but this apparently has to do with security concerns from Verizon, but it could also have to do with the mobile payment system that Verizon has coming later this year. Because of the Net Neutrality laws, if Google fixes the security issues that Verizon is concerned about, Verizon will not legally be allowed to block the app. So don't be too concerned about this one. You can actually get this on your phone now without rooting by downloading the .apk from XDA. Just remember that you are putting your personal CC information into the app.

Is it really a true Nexus device? Well it depends on how you look at it. Because of the two Verizon apps on it most people would say no. I don't see why Verizon forced Google to include the apps when they don't force Apple to preload the same apps. Kind of bums me out to see VZ flex it's muscles, but I already mentioned these can be disabled and you can completely remove if you root the phone. The real concern here is regarding updates. Verizon has shown that they will interupt the update process that Nexus devices should be receiving. Android 4.0.4 has been available for some time now and Verizon has yet to allow it to be pushed to this device. If you are going to buy this phone, keep in mind that all other devices on VZ's network are subject to the same slow update process.

No Gorilla Glass, but this is really not an issue. I just want to call this out because someone asked me about it. Gorilla glass is actually much more expensive for OEMs and is power hungry. The fortified glass used by the Nexus is incredibly durable. You can take a key and try to scratch it, but you will have a hard time leaving a mark or even cracking the screen.

No USB mass storage. While this was thought to be a huge deal-breaker for a lot of people, you can connect it to your computer and drop files onto the device. So if you were concerned about being able to get pictures or music from your computer to your phone, you don't have to worry too much.

No SD slot. This is related to the USB mass storage because it doesn't have the removable storage. But this phone has a 32GB internal storage. This is more than enough for any user. If you really intend to fill up more than that with pictures or music, get an iPod or a regular digital camera. Also, you can easily access Google music on this device, so load your music onto that and you should be just fine since you won't use up space on your phone and you'll still be able to access all your music!

The phone can get hot at times. I've found this is only when I have just pulled it off the charger and start using it immediately and frequently. Otherwise, I haven't had any problems with this.
Update 1/9/12: Ok so this does get hot when using it for a while (i.e. the screen is on and at a somewhat high level of brightness). I am not sure what this will do to the stability of the hardware in the future, but this is definitely a slight concern of mine.

Hopefully if you read this you found this helpful. I can easily say this is an amazing phone and I am glad I waited for this phone instead of settling for the RAZR or iPhone