9.5
Screen & Responsiveness
Developer: Google/Samsung
Platform: Android 4.0 (ICS )
Release date: Q1 2012
Genre: Android smartphone
After much speculation and even some
incorrect naming, the
Samsung Galaxy Nexus is finally here.
What’s more, it’s not only a new piece of hardware, but also comes with the latest version of
Android version – Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0).
Does it measure up, or should it be filed under “meh”? Read on to find out!
Design and build quality
The front of the Galaxy Nexus, with the screen turned off, is almost
featureless. The only things detracting from the smooth black surface
are the earpiece and front-facing camera.
There’s also a notification light at the bottom, below the screen,
but you don’t know it until it starts pulsing. There are no hardware
buttons on the front, as Android 4.0 makes provision for devices without
them (though it doesn’t restrict manufacturers from using them).
On the left side is the volume rocker, while the right side holds the
power/wake button and three pins for, presumably, connecting to a dock.
The latter is positioned to be within easy reach of your thumb, and
both protrude just enough to be easily found by touch alone, while not
distracting much from the overall appearance.
The top is bare, while the bottom is home for the microUSB
charging/data transfer port, as well as the 3.5mm jack. Most OEMs place
the 3.5mm jack at the top of their smartphones, but I’ve always
preferred having it on the bottom. Your phone might go into your pocket
upside-down this way, but it comes out the right way up without any
fumbling (and it’s not like your pocket cares how the phone is
oriented).
The back is also fairly uneventful, except for the 5MP camera at the
top-middle, with the single LED flash below it, a speaker at the bottom,
along with some logos from Google and Samsung between them. The camera
and LED are surrounded by a thin metal trim, highlighting them without
crossing the gaudy line.
Galaxy Nexus
The casing of the Galaxy Nexus is plastic, but not the cheap kind. It
feels solid and there were no strange creaks or squeaks. Overall, it
feels like it can take some damage without snapping in half.
The back plate is also plastic, though it feels thinner and more
flexible than the casing. It’s slightly textured, making it easier to
grip, and it also doesn’t pick up fingerprints. It’s very easy to remove
(there’s a small hole at the top for a fingernail and from there you
essentially just peel it off), though it can be tricky to put back
correctly.
The Galaxy Nexus measures at 135.5 x 67.9 x 8.9mm, and weighs just
135 grams – just 6g more than the Nexus S, but almost 20g more than the
Samsung Galaxy S2.
Overall, the design is excellent. It’s clear that a lot of effort
went into making the external hardware as unobtrusive as possible. The
build quality is also quite good, though some may consider the back
plate to be somewhat flimsy.
Internals
At the heart of the Galaxy Nexus is a TI OMAP 4460 chipset with a
1.2GHz dual-core CPU paired with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. The latter is the
same one found in the Nexus S and it is slightly puzzling why this has
not received an upgrade.
There’s 1GB RAM to fill your memory needs, along with 16GB or 32GB of
internal storage. The Galaxy Nexus does not have an SD card, though
there are reasons for this. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only say that
including an SD card introduces a lot of tricky problems (for those
interested, this
Reddit comment explains it).
For connectivity, the Galaxy Nexus supports WiFi a/b/g/n,
HSPA+ (up to 21Mbps down and 5.76Mbps up), Bluetooth (version 3.0), as well as NFC – more on the NFC later.
AnTuTu Benchmarks gave the the Galaxy Nexus a score of 5,299
(averaged over 5 tests), placing it behind the Samsung Galaxy Note,
Motorola Razr, and Samsung Galaxy S2, but way ahead of the HTC Evo 3D, Sensation and Motorola Atrix.
Galaxy Nexus
The Galaxy Nexus screen
The first thing you’ll notice about the screen is that it’s big. At
4.65 inches, it’s definitely in the “large” category. It’s also worth
noting that a part of the bottom of the screen will almost always
display the on-screen Android buttons, so the amount left for viewing is
probably closer to 4.5 inches.
The display is absolutely gorgeous. It’s a Super AMOLED display with a
resolution of 1280×720, which means that it has a pixel density of
~316PPI (close to, but not quite besting the ~330PPI of the iPhone 4 and
4S). It is a little sad that it’s not a Super AMOLED Plus display, but
the extra room and resolution more than make up for it.
Reading, browsing, gaming, and viewing 720p videos on it were all a pleasure thanks to crisp text and bright, vibrant colours.
One of the things you might not actually notice about the screen is
that, similar to its predecessor the Nexus S, it has a slight curve.
While the benefits of this are up for debate, it certainly is a
distinctive feature for the Nexus line.
Also worth noting is that there is no Gorilla Glass on the Galaxy
Nexus. Not to worry though, as it can still take some punishment.
In terms of responsiveness, the Galaxy Nexus performed very well in
general use (browsing, typing messages, swiping, etc.). AnTuTu Tester
recognised up to 10 touch points on the screen, which is more than
enough.
Sound and call quality
Call quality was great with neither side reporting any problems.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the external speaker,
which was exceedingly soft. In a slightly noisy venue, you’d be hard
pressed to hear the phone ring.
Cameras
On the back of the Galaxy Nexus is a 5MP camera with a single LED
flash capable of 2592×1936 pixel shots and 1080p video recording. On
paper there’s nothing particularly remarkable about it, but paper only
tells half the story.
It’s touted as having “zero shutter lag” and it lived up to that. You
can take a horde of shots in seconds and they generally come out quite
well.
What’s more is that there’s a built-in panorama mode that just
requires you to tap a button to activate it and then pan your phone
across the scene.
Galaxy Nexus panoramic photo - click to enlarge
Sure, the 5MP sensor means that your photos aren’t quite as high in
detail as those phones with 8MP or 13MP sensors, but they’re still good
quality.
The front-facing camera was quite impressive when using Face Unlock,
and managed to recognise a face even in dim lighting conditions.
Video capture was great – it’s hard to argue with smooth 1080p. The
video camera app also has a nifty time-lapse option and the ability to
take a picture by tapping the screen.
Battery life
Battery life was excellent. Under heavy use (sending and receiving
messages and e-mails, browsing, using social networks, listening to
music, and even taking a few photos), you could easily get through a day
with upwards of 30% battery life remaining.
Under lighter use, you could go for two or three days without worrying.
Also worth noting is that the battery charges quite quickly. Using
the bundled charger had the battery from 15% to 100% in just under two
hours.
Galaxy Nexus panoramic photo - click to enlarge
Software
New Nexus hardware (historically) means that there’s a new version of
Android that it’s showcasing, and the Galaxy Nexus comes with Android
4.0, otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich (our review unit had 4.0.2).
Android 4.0 merges the tablet PC and phone builds of Android and brings a
multitude of updates with it.
The first new feature is one which seems to have divided both users
and onlookers – the new typeface, Roboto. I am no expert in this matter,
so I’ll rather just say that I found it quite pleasant to read. Matias
Duarte (senior director of Android UX) went into some
detail about it on Google+ and there’s a very nice article on
BoingBoing.
The lock-screen has received a new coat of paint. At the bottom
centre of the screen is a circular lock icon which can be swiped right
to unlock, and left to go directly to the camera. The notification bar
can also be pulled down in the lock-screen, provided that you don’t have
a lock-screen security mechanism set up.
Speaking of notifications: these can now be individually cancelled by
simply swiping it to the left or right. Notifications can also contain
richer elements – for instance, an audio player can display
play/pause/skip buttons along with song info and an album cover.
Galaxy Nexus ICS - home screen
Moving on to the home-screen, this has received some subtle tweaks.
There is now a persistent search field at the top of the screen, though
it doesn’t take take any widget space away from the user. There is a new
folder system which allows you to create a new folder by dragging one
app on top of another. The bottom shortcut bar now allows for four
shortcuts (excluding the launcher icon), and these can be changed by
users with other shortcuts or even folders. Scrollable widgets are now
properly supported.
The launcher is now horizontally paginated – paging right brings up
new pages from behind the current page, while paging left fades the
current page into the background. Widgets are now incorporated into the
launcher and are accessible via a tab at the top or by paging to the end
of the apps. I don’t particularly like this implementation – I think it
would have made more sense to have the swipe action switch between the
apps and widgets tabs while keeping the vertical scrolling in specific
sections.
With that said, for the first time, I don’t feel the need to replace the homescreen/launcher with a 3rd-party one.
Galaxy Nexus ICS - New app drawer
One change that’s been somewhat controversial is the inclusion of
on-screen software buttons instead of dedicated hardware buttons. At
this point, it’s worth noting that software buttons are not intended to
replace hardware buttons, but to offer OEMs the option to include either
one.
At the bottom of the screen, no matter where you are in Android, are 3
buttons: “Back”, “Home”, and “Recent apps”. “Search” and “Menu” buttons
now need to be implemented by app developers, which makes sense as not
all apps make use of them.
However the “Menu” button is currently a bit of a mess. Depending on
the app, it can be in one of three places: in the top right corner of
the top action bar, in the bottom right corner of the bottom action bar,
or (if the app has not been optimised for Android 4.0) in the bottom
right corner next to the recent apps button. The first two locations are
acceptable – app developers need the flexibility for their apps – the
last location is just silly.
“Recent apps” isn’t technically new – it used to be a long press
function of the “Home” button – but the UI for it is much different from
previous phone versions. As in Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), apps are now in
a scrollable list with their name and a shot of their current state.
Swiping left or right removes the app from that list. It is not a “task
killer” in the traditional sense, nor does it need to be.
The last new button to be introduced, is the optional “Up” button,
located in the top left corner. This has caused some confusion, but
hopefully the new
Android Design website
will clarify its use. Essentially, the “Up” button is for in-app
navigation, while the traditional “Back” button generally takes you back
to the previous screen viewed (though it can and does get more
complicated than that).
Galaxy Nexus ICS - Disabling apps
The keyboard and text input in general have been upgraded. Word
prediction is truly excellent and if it can’t find a correction, the
word is underlined. Simply tapping on a word will select it, bringing up
a list of suggestions along with the option to put the word in your
dictionary. A feature that I find outrageously useful is that if a word
gets wrongfully corrected, simply hitting backspace will revert it to
what it was before correction.
Naturally, the browser gets a bump up. Bookmarks can now be synced
with Chrome, pages can be saved for use offline, and tab management has
never been easier (two taps creates a new tab and a tap and a swipe
removes a tab).
There’s a new security feature that had some people (including me)
chuckling when they figured out it could be fooled with a photograph,
namely Face Unlock. It’s easy to configure, and during the set-up you
are required to choose a secondary pin/password/pattern for when it
can’t recognise your face. While Face Unlock is probably the least
secure of all the mechanisms available, it’s the first one I can see
myself using for an extended period of time without getting frustrated.
Galaxy Nexus ICS - New browser main window
Weird PINs, convoluted passwords, and patterns that require all sorts
of finger acrobatics make me want to throw my phone into a pool of
lava, while Face Unlock is rather unobtrusive and even a little personal
– your phone recognises you.
Next, there’s “People” – a new app that serves as a central location
for contact information. Google+ ties in with it quite nicely, though it
remains to be seen if other social networks will do something similar.
One problem with it is that contacts aren’t merged, so you can end up
with multiple copies of the same contact because of multiple accounts
and/or Google+.
Of course, there are lots of other additions and improvements. Most
of the Google apps and widgets have been updated; taking screenshots on
the device is now possible (hold power + volume down); there’s a data
usage monitor that allows you to limit mobile data usage; Android beam
works really well – just hold two capable devices back-to-back and tap
the screen to share; and many more that there’s simply not space to
discuss.
Galaxy Nexus ICS - New browser tab interface
Conclusion
If someone were to ask me which phone they should get for their next
upgrade, I would have very little hesitation in recommending the Galaxy
Nexus as one of their top considerations. It is a remarkable device into
which a lot of care and attention has gone.
However, the RRP of R6,999 – R7,299 can be a killjoy to some, but hopefully contract pricing will be more agreeable.
The Galaxy Nexus is the standard by which Android phones will be
measured for the next year, and it has set the bar high. I’m quite
excited to see what device manufacturers can come up with.
Galaxy Nexus
