| − | I recently found myslef the owner of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google's hero device for Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest iteration of Android). What you'll find in this review are comments both about the device itself and the software found upon it. But first, a quick recap. The Nexus One debuted in early 2010, the first of the Nexus line, and was designed to become a benchmark that all other Android phones are to live up to. Later that year, the Nexus S was released to champion Android 2.3 Gingerbread and also be the first of it's kind to support NFC. Now we see the third in the Nexus line, the Galaxy Nexus. Manufactured by Samsung (like the Nexus S), the Galaxy Nexus finds itself on par with current smartphone offerings, but sporting a couple of unique features including the OS.Hardware:The first thing you notice about the Galaxy Nexus is the size of it. I've been used to a 4.3 Desire HD for the past 12 months and thought that was giant, but this is on another level. The 4.65 screen makes it large indeed, not Galaxy Note large, and not even HTC Titan large, but definitely up there as one of the more monstrous handsets. To look at the shape of the Galaxy Nexus is to almost see the result of a Nexus S and a Galaxy SII having a child with a recessive gene coming out to make it larger than both. The Galaxy Nexus comes out at a smidgen under 9mm in thickness and 135g in weight. The thinness mitigates some of the lateral size to the phone and the weight means it doesn't drag down on your pockets much. The colour is a satiny grey that leans over towards a gun-metal hue. The removable back panel is the same shade with a diamond textured feel to add to the grip on the back.The front sees complete coverage by an unknown type of reinforced glass (most top end handsets use Cornings ubiquitous Gorilla Glass). Samsung explained that Gorilla Glass was not used as GG could not achieve the very slight curvature the fascia has to it, creating a concave effect. There was much backlash at this revelation by the consumer technology community (especially among fans of the fruity cult who would see this as a huge threat); however a key scratch test proved that this unnamed glass was every bit as good as Cornings offering. Physical and capacitive buttons are conspicuously absent, see the software section of the review for further delineation. Just below the bottom of the screen is a notification light. The rear facing camera is a 5MP unit with an LED flash in the center-top portion of the rear of the device. The front facing shooter resides about a centimeter to the right of the earpiece at the top of the front fascia.Connections are fairly par for the course. There is nothing on the top of the device, the right edge plays home to the power button and an unknown 3-pin connector, presumably for some sort of proprietary charging or car connection (Nexus One owners will be able to draw a parallel here). The bottom edge houses a 3.5mm audio jack on the right hand and a Micro-USB connection in the center. The left edge has the volume rocker on it, the top edge of which is roughly in line with the bottom edge of the power button on the opposite side. Removing the textured back panel reveals a 1750mAH battery that is also (and interestingly) NFC enabled. The standard size SIM card slot is located on the right side above the battery section.The GN can be described in a few words. Understated, demure, modest (save for the size, perhaps). The whole aura about the GN is one of sleek sophistication that ultimately says it all because it's design doesn't really say anything at all (yes, I am aware of the very loose Ronan Keating reference there). This, however, is while the screen isn't on. You see, the GN with the screen off is like a beautiful tulip on the cusp of flowering. And when the screen turns on, that little tulip flowers like an utter boss. Sporting a 1280 x 720 resolution Super AMOLED display, this screen is undoubtedly the best screen on a phone to date. Colours are vibrant, fonts crisp, blacks deep, viewing angles wide and aliasing is all but gone. There is only one display that may currently match this one in beauty and that is the one found on the 4.3 HTC Rezound sporting a 720p TFT display, but Super AMOLED just snatches the biscuit in vibrancy.As far as internals go, we've got a strange one here. Being a Samsung creation, you'd expect there to be an Exynos SoC in there like that of the Galaxy SII. Instead we find a Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 dual core processor clocked at 1.2GHz (downclocked from 1.5GHz). On the graphics side, we have an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Both of these are paired to 1GB of RAM and are supported by 16GB of in-built storage. Unfortunately for any of those used to removable storage in the form of Micro SD, there is no slot for it here, you've got what you've got here. As a side note, and in a rather weird
| + | (Wireless Phone Accessory) I uhgbot it just 2 weeks ago. I uhgbot it especially for its Super AMOLED screen. But you should know that before buying: There is actually 2 kinds of Nexus S: i9020 (i9020a i9020t) and i9023 i9023 is the european version or non-USA/UK version. It has S-LCD screen. Worse colors, worse black. google it and check example photos (I found some on flickr) Super LCD variant is unable to display black color, it's just dark grey. More vivid colors are provided by Super AMOLED screen of i9020 variant. As far as I know, this is the only difference. If you want to root your phone, it is important again. Apart that, This is another perfect phone by Google (despite Samsung). |
