Review of Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Android Ice Cream Sandwich Revealed
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus features a wonderful 4.65 inch Super Amoled HD screen,
pumping out a resolution of 1280x 70. Under the bonnet is a dual core 1.2GHz
processor. You can get 1 GB of RAM with either a 16 GB or 32 GB internal storage
choice.The main camera is a 5 megapixel camera – with LED flash and apparently zero
shutter lag, but also on the front there is a 1.3 megapixel offering. You can
do full HD video recording, and a big 1,750 mAh battery keeps things running
nicely.As anticipated the inclusion of NFC (Near Field Communications) comes as
standard.
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| Samsung Galaxy Nexus |
However, the stand out aspect of all of this is the latest operating system
from Google – Ice Cream Sandwich.This features a new font design that works really well on HD optimised
displays, and the eradication of actual hard buttons for virtual ones. A lot of
the changes come from HTC Sense 3.0 interafce (which we love at Top 10 Android
Apps) which means you can access apps directly from a lock screen.
One of the killer USP’s is facial recognition that allows you to unlock the
screen using the Face Unlock app. How cool is that.Andy Rubin (VP of mobile at Google) said,“With Ice Cream Sandwich, our mission was to build a mobile OS that works on
both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and
intuitive.We also dramatically improved the keyboard, made notifications more
interactive and created resizable widgets”
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the world's first phone to run Android 4.0 (Ice
Cream Sandwich) and comes with a plethora of top end tech, including a huge but
still massively high resolution screen.
There are some gadgets in geek-world that are announced and we just cannot
wait to touch. Nokia's N95, the original iPhone, the T-Mobile G1 and Palm's
first Pre. And the Galaxy Nexus fits firmly in that category.
The big selling point here is not so much the handset – it's what powers the
Galaxy Nexus. Google has redrawn its Android OS in probably the biggest
overhaul since it launched exactly three years ago.
Ice Cream Sandwich fuses together last year's Gingerbread OS for phones and
Honeycomb for tablets and gives us a whole new, futuristic Android device to
get to grips with. On top of that, the specs include a fantastic Super AMOLED
HD screen, Dual-Core 1.2GHz processor, HSDPA, 5MP camera and NFC support, to
name a few.
The Nexus itself is fairly big. With dimensions of 135.5 x 67.9 x 8.9mm,
it's marginally bigger than Samsung's other flagship handset, the Galaxy
S2. It's also a little bit heavier at 135g compared to the latter's 116g.
Not that it feels larger although you can tell you are not using an iPhone
4S.The front is probably as minimalist as you can get. All black with no
buttons at all (we'll explain more in the interface section about that.) In
fact, all you have on the front is the screen, front facing camera and the
brightness sensor plus a cheeky little light beneath the screen that you don't
even know exists until you get an email and it begins to pulsate. The whole handset has a curved shape we last encountered on the Galaxy
S but it's not too severe.The rear takes its design cues from the S2 with a snap on cover that feels
slightly coarse to give a good grip. It has both Google and Samsung branding
on.The sides are fairly unremarkable with power/standby on the right, volume on
the left along with three charging pins (for a dock accessory), nothing up top
and the bottom housing the charge/sync socket and headphone jack.
There is no doubt about it – this is a premium handset and is up there with
the iPhone
4S and Nokia
Lumia 800 in terms of marketing position.
You won't find an SD slot on the outside. Or indeed, the inside.
Ridiculously, this – the flagship Google handset which is so set up as a media
device – has been crippled by having NO expandable memory. Words fail us. And
they may fail you when you realise that 16GB internal storage is your lot.
But the screen, when lit up, looks fantastic. Its 4.65-inches with a
resolution of 720 x 1280, giving a ppi of 316. It really is super sharp. We
would have expected nothing less with Samsung's mobile displays among the best
out there but it's cracking for video and internet.
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