After months of waiting for Verizon to launch the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, it finally landed last week (after a few delays). The internet hype for the Galaxy Nexus had basically made this device out to be the unicorn of Android, it would do and be everything that everyone could have ever wanted in a phone. Then when it launched, Verizon had staff that was not prepared, not enough inventory, and a few service hiccups to make things more difficult. But even with all of the challenges the device has made it's way into the hands of eager buyers, and bloggers and the reviews are starting to come in and everyone has their opinion. Some of those opinions are based on what buyers expected the device to be, some are based on what buyers wanted the device to be. After two weeks with the Galaxy Nexus as our daily driver we felt that it was finally time to throw our hat into the ring and let you know definitively what we our impression of the pure Google Galaxy Nexus phone is.
Unboxing:
The Verizon Galaxy Nexus comes in a plain white box (vanilla even). Inside the box itself is simple red lining, and of course the device itself. Accompanying the device is a 1850 batter, standard micro-usb charger, headphones, and of course instruction manual.
Initial Impressions:
Upon opening the box you see what you've been waiting for all these many months. The Verizon version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Just looking at the device your initial impression is WOW that screen is HUGE. You take it out of the box and feel it in your hands and just can't wait to see what's lurking underneath it's curved exterior.
Once you turn the device on you're greeted with a new boot sequence, that takes some of the queues from the Honeycomb boot sequence. The boot sequence itself shows off the capabilities of the Super Amoled Screen. The blacks are black, the colors are bright and vibrant. After the booting is completed you get your first taste of Ice Cream Sandwich and how the Android OS is going to handle your experience from now on.
Hardware:
After you get passed the screen size, and colors, the first thing you notice is just how light the Galaxy Nexus is in your hands. It's not light in a cheap feeling way, but in a I can't believe how light this is in my hands. The phone also fits in your hand better than you would expect, knowing that it has a 4.65" screen I was expecting it to feel large and awkward but, without having to have space for hard keys the phone isn't bigger than it needs to be and the curved design makes it feel just right in the hand.
The screen and weight of the phone are just two aspects of the phone that make up a device that feels like Samsungs designers went above and beyond to deliver a hardware experience that hasn't been seen or felt before.
The Frame:
There are two simple hard buttons on the sides of the device, on the left side the standard volume rocker, and the right has the power / standby button. The bottom of the device has the Micro-USB port and the headphone jack, other than that the device is clean lines all around the lining of the device.
The Back:
The back panel is something of a bit of debate right now. It's not a traditional hard plastic (or kevlar) shield piece, it's a flexible snap in piece that off the device feels almost flimsy. Once the SIM card and battery are in place and you snap the back in place, it feels more solid than you could imagine on its own. Also the back has slight diamond ridges in it that keep it from feeling slippery or week. Against the palm of your hand you know it's there, and in your fingers you know it's not going to slip or slide out like some of the "smooth" backs on phones like the Thunderbolt or the original Droid.
You also have the 5MP rear facing camera with LED flash, we'll do a full camera write up separately but suffice to say that coming from the 8MP shooter in the HTC Thunderbolt I was initially concerned with what my shots were going to look like, after a week with the phone, I have no reason to carry around a point and shoot camera anymore.
The Front:
The front of the Galaxy Nexus is dominated by its 4.65" curved glass screen. At the top of the device is the in call speaker (which is the only break in the smooth surface) the proximity sensor (below the glass) and the front facing camera. At the bottom of the face, hidden below the glass is a notification LED, which takes a bit of getting used to as it is a departure from the standard top right notification indicator. Right now it lights up white when you get any notification (e-mail, text, missed call, etc) but I can see developers tying their notifications to the led and hopefully changing the color, or the blink rate.
Over all the front just looks sleek and stylish and just showing it to people makes them stop and pay attention.
The Guts:
The Galaxy Nexus is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz, with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage. It does not feature an SD or Micro-SD card slot so there is no option for expandable memory. Google is betting that users will utilize cloud storage for a lot of their needs, and since the Galaxy Nexus syncs nicely with Google Music, Google Docs and Picasa, most of your high volume needs are covered.
The processor is snappy and performs tasks with seemingly little effort, switching through apps, screens, multitasking all function without any hiccups. Even running games like the newly released Modern Combat 3 doesn't take a toll on the devices performance.
One hardware feature in the device that has been getting a lot of press is the NFC chip. This is only the second phone in the US to have an NFC chip built in (the Sprint Galaxy S being the first). Unfortunately Google Wallet is not enabled on the device and other than Google Beam there isn't anything available to take advantage of this new addition. It is going to be some time before developers start building apps that make use of NFC due to the lack of devices supporting it right now but the possibilities for it are endless.
Software:
This is where the real beauty of the device starts to shine, with the first tast of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Everything feels like this is what Google intended when the initially launched Android. Gone are the greens that have accompanied Android since launch and in come the new softer blue that just makes it feel more inviting. The responsiveness of the software is unbelievable, some if this is thanks to the dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, but the software itself just feels more solid and more worked out than previous versions of Android even Honeycomb.
ICS has made the feel and use of Android more intuitive and cleaner, without taking away any of the abilities or "power" that users have had from the beginning. Switching through screens and apps are done by swiping. Moving and uninstalling apps works the same as on other Android versions, but now you can group apps together into folders by simply dropping them on top of one another. Within folders you can re-arrange apps as you would like and interact with apps, but the folder floats over the homescreen, you still know where you are and you don't feel like you're diving too deep to get to anything.
Individual apps open quickly and you can manage the apps that you have running at any time by clicking on the menu button. This pulls up a side bar that shows all of your recent and running applications similar to the experience on Honeycomb. From this sidebar you can switch between apps easily or close them by simply swiping them. The ability to close apps from within this sidebar is a new and very welcome addition to ICS, I can't tell you how many times on Honeycomb I saw an app and just wanted to close it, but couldn't.
Also knowing that your device is going to be pushed updates from Google so you're going to be on the latest and greatest builds for at least 12 months makes it that much sweeter.
Real World Usage:
What most people want to know is "should I buy the Verizon Galaxy Nexus" and one of the main questions they have is "what about the battery life" well I've been using the device as my daily driver for a week now and felt I could comfortably answer these questions. First and foremost if you're in the market for a new phone or upgrade eligible I recommend that you buy the Galaxy Nexus without even hesitating. This device is everything I was expecting and more, it has made me stop worrying if I was going to run out of battery life, or if I needed to uninstall apps or root my device to make it run smoother and faster.
Day 1:
Day 1 usage was pretty much standard for any new device, initial set up, downloading most used apps (Facebook, Social Scope, Reader etc.), setting up syncing and normal scheduled events. Like all new devices the battery came with a roughly 40% charge to get started, and you can see from the screen shots below how it performed.
Day 2:
Day 2 usage got a little more intense, a lot more app use, web browsing, basically putting the device through the paces to see what it could do. Battery usage was better than Day 1 but it still wasn't phenomenal.
Day 3:
Day 3 was more of standard usage, calls, emails, browsing, app use, downloading apps and more tweaks to settings. Battery use with the device switching automatically between 3G/4G and utilizing WiFi when needed was pretty impressive especially considering the screen and the processor.
Day 4:
Day 4 continued with standard use and no real changes to settings. Again utilizing standard 3G/4G setting with the device automatically detecting the strongest signal and utilizing WiFi when needed.
Day 5:
Day 5 we ran in to a bit of a hiccup with Google Currents, it was constantly running and constantly trying to sync and stay active, it used a lot of battery and put a big drain on the device. Once Currents was un-installed everything turned back to normal and we feel comfortable with the battery life. We're seeing 14 hours of battery life on a regular basis with standar d usage.
Overall Impressions:
My overall impression of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is that this is everything that Google intended Android to be. The hardware is great, light, and responsive. The OS, Ice Cream Sandwich is fluid and smooth it's intuitive and user friendly more consumer facing than any other version of Android to date and definitely takes the fight to Apple in terms of simplicity and "just working."
There are a few bugs to iron out and we'll get in to some of those in other posts but this device is a definite buy if you're in the market for a new smartphone. Even if you weren't on Android before this is a device that you should seriously consider switching for. Besides the bells and whistles of it being a pure Google experience device, you get the benefit of Verizons 4G network (where available) which is faster than anything on the market and makes living mobile an actual reality.
Ryan Carroll is a technology enthusiast interested who shares his opinions and insights of technology through his blog http://www.techstify.com/. He founded his blog after seeing other technology blogs and feeling that they did not provide the insight that he was looking for when it came to technology, video games and phones.
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