[howarmat]

The camera is a zero shutter speed camera. You can click of pics in less than a second. I think the 8mp would be to costly and not perform as well as the 5 mp in this respect

[thebignewt]

OK I've had this phone for almost a week, time for Newt's mini-review. I came from an Incredible which I got the day it came out around April 2010. Wife and stepson just got Iphone 4S, so they were ragging me to join them. I have an iMac, Apple TV2, iTouch, and 50 shares of Apple stock, so I considered it. But I really wanted the big screen, the ability to make my own RTs on the phone, ability to use Zedge tones, and was cool with android OS. So that's where I came from in this thing.
First off, the screen rocks. It's the reason I wanted this phone and it's great. Way easier to see in sunlight compared to the HTC. Seeing my golf rangefinder was easy, I used to have to hide it in the shade.
I have no signal issues. I'm 3G only here in my AZ town (LTE supposedly coming 2nd quarter I'm not holding my breath). Same signal strenths I got with the Dinc. There's been some griping about this elsewhere, but I think it's probably partly from some bad handsets and partly from the LTE-3G handoffs in the growing LTE network they're building out.
I have no battery issues. Sure the sceen accounts for 50% of it, but I expected that. I'm not a big streamer, mostly messaging and browsing. I've got 50% left at the end of the day usually.
The ICS OS rocks too. Once you get used to the fact that the Menu is the 3 little dots on the page you're on (not one of the 4 homekeys like GB) you can operate it fast. In a way it's a little like OSx, pretty intuitive. The old menu key is now a list of 15 most recent apps with their page. Sweet. Just flick it away if you don't want it.
Browser rocks, tabs easy to find/add. The whole thing just looks more polished, and it is. I probably won't use Launcher Pro anymore (but I could).
Camera: haven't really gotten into it enough to comment on various shots, but it takes the shot fast. There's a pano mode added. Your albums (dl, camera, pics) have the little filmstrip along the bottom while viewing ala iPhoto (imagine that!). Gallery looks real slick overall.
One thing that needs work is the volume on the music player, it's a little weak. It could be the songs themselves, hard to tell because I generally use phones. I can hear calls with the speaker fine, and it rings/notifies fine. There's an app for that.
I won't bore you with my other impressions, just let me say so far the phone meets/exceeds expectations. The bigger/better quality screen is what differentiates it from the iPhone, and that's a pretty good screen too. IMO the new OS is a step up. This thing is worlds beyond my first smartphone, the BB 8100 Pearl (and that one was hot stuff when it came out in 2006). Well worth the $250 I paid, and the insurance is $6.99, less than the $10 for the iPhone. BTW Verizon offers 2 different policies now. Take the one that doesn't go on your VZN bill, it's the same price but the deductable is $130 (vs $180) and it covers water, loss, theft and the other one doesn't.

[Rickroller]

Nice review Newt. My provider is getting the GNexus on Friday..so i'm looking forward to making the drive from work to go pick one up.

[RNCCRN9706]

I got the Nexus on Dec 17th, tried to love it. I really did. The volume on it was very low. The camera stunk. I'm not big on customization....so yesterday I returned it along with the Rezound that I bought with my early upgrade as it was purchased after Nov 15th...paid $70 to try them out for a few weeks. I kept going back to my iPhone 4.

So on Friday I'm ordering a iPhone 4S 64 GB. I really like the camera on my iPhone 4 so I can only imagine how much better the pics will be on the 4S. Sorry Android, I tried to like you, really I did...but I just like the iOS much better.

[howarmat]

Quick shots from the panoramic mode. Pretty cool

[darreno1]

I got the Nexus on Dec 17th, tried to love it. I really did. The volume on it was very low. The camera stunk. I'm not big on customization....so yesterday I returned it along with the Rezound that I bought with my early upgrade as it was purchased after Nov 15th...paid $70 to try them out for a few weeks. I kept going back to my iPhone 4.

So on Friday I'm ordering a iPhone 4S 64 GB. I really like the camera on my iPhone 4 so I can only imagine how much better the pics will be on the 4S. Sorry Android, I tried to like you, really I did...but I just like the iOS much better.

You didn't really try it, you skimmed the surface. The camera is actually pretty good when there's enough light. I have a Nikon for when I need real pictures, sorry the iPhone 4 can't come even remotely close. Plus I've seen iPhone 4 low-light shots, and they're crap like every other cell phone. It's two different ecosystems, obviously IOS works better for you. For me, using IOS is like trying to get to the North Pole by way of the Equator.

[thebignewt]

I'm liking the ICS better by the day. I tried improving a photo or 2 using the Quick improve button (gee, that reminds my of the same feature in iPhoto on my iMac, imagine that....) and they look better. I tend to think the andoid people are quite familiar with OSx. I read the Steve Jobs biography and he was suing Google massively for stealing Apple's ideas, not in the search realm, but in copying the operating system. He told the head dude that he'd spend every dime of Apple's 80 billion cash suing them and would never settle until they stopped. I don't think they did!

[lssanjose]

You didn't really try it, you skimmed the surface. The camera is actually pretty good when there's enough light. I have a Nikon for when I need real pictures, sorry the iPhone 4 can't come even remotely close. Plus I've seen iPhone 4 low-light shots, and they're crap like every other cell phone. It's two different ecosystems, obviously IOS works better for you. For me, using IOS is like trying to get to the North Pole by way of the Equator.

I have the same opinion. I'm not putting much stock into phone cameras for anything beyond quick snapshots

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[savagepagan]

Will this phone work on the 3G GSM network? I was looking at the verizon LTE verision of this phone on ebay. I appears as if it will work on a gsm 3g network fot T-Mo and at&t if you look at the network technology band. Might it work on the 4g gsm networks as well?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-Sa...#ht_793wt_1231

[howarmat]

that phone will not work on a 3G GSM network, only CDMA

[spotmark]

After having such an open phone, I can't imagine having anything other then a Nexus. I'm sure this is what Google envisioned when they came out with Android.

[lssanjose]

After having such an open phone, I can't imagine having anything other then a Nexus. I'm sure this is what Google envisioned when they came out with Android.

Agreed

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[howarmat]

Yep I agree, this is android at its best

[lssanjose]

Yep I agree, this is android at its best

I haven't even rooted, yet; I will soon, though!!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[big_time2]

Does anyone know how well this phone is selling?

I know the first two Nexus phones (One and S) were not on Verizon, so of course there were not as many potential customers and they were never promoted, but now that this one is available on Verizon as well as unlocked GSM version, and I've seen a ton of commercials for it.

I've had both the Nexus One and Nexus S and I had never seen (out in public) anyone else using one of those two phones, but now that I have Galaxy Nexus I've seen quite a few people using it.

[lssanjose]

Does anyone know how well this phone is selling?

I know the first two Nexus phones (One and S) were not on Verizon, so of course there were not as many potential customers and they were never promoted, but now that this one is available on Verizon as well as unlocked GSM version, and I've seen a ton of commercials for it.

I've had both the Nexus One and Nexus S and I had never seen (out in public) anyone else using one of those two phones, but now that I have Galaxy Nexus I've seen quite a few people using it.

I think at the time the N1 was released, T-Mobile didn't aggressively market it; the same can be said about the Nexus S

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[Rickroller]

I picked up my Nexus on Friday..but unfortunately mine seems to have some serious issues lol. I should've known when the sales rep had to do a battery pull to even get it to boot up initially that I was dealing with a lemon..but I figured I was good enough at installing software I needn't worry.

By the first evening the whole thing was acting janky..random reboots and whatnot..and I'd only installed a few apps. So the next day I rooted, unlocked bootloader, and installed CWM and got to work trying to get a custom ROM in hopes it fixed it. Needless to say nothing worked and the phone was rebooting more than any phone I'd ever had. On top of that..I'd get a white screen of death once in awhile..where it looked like the screen was malfunctioning.

So I finally reflashed some stock Google software in a last ditch effort..and it seemed like I had solved the problem. Once I was done patting myself on the back..I had to get some actual work done..and after a few hours I came back to a dead phone lol. So much for that!

Despite my bad luck thus far..I've got to say I'm very excited for ICS. I love what they've done with it and can't wait to get this thing traded in for a working model.

[howarmat]

yeah that sucks, i dont think mine has randomly rebooted yet even. It did yesterday when i clicked on something i knew wasnt going to work but that is it. There are so many great ROMs out there now too

[DenverRalphy]

I am SO liking the LED on this phone. Especially since it supports pretty much any color you can think of, and is very visible. Although I may have to install a 3rd party app to handle the notifications and their colors since some apps (cough! Gmail cough!) don't offer custom colors for notifications.


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[lssanjose]

I am SO liking the LED on this phone. Especially since it supports pretty much any color you can think of, and is very visible. Although I may have to install a 3rd party app to handle the notifications and their colors since some apps (cough! Gmail cough!) don't offer custom colors for notifications.


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

same here. I like where Google is going with the soft keys, and the use or software to drive what used to be hardware features

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[Rickroller]

Got my new Nexus on Thursday night, and so far very impressed! Spent Friday installing a custom ROM, and getting my phone set up accordingly, so it spent a lot of time on the computer that day, so I never got a true feel for battery life.

Today being the first true test of battery, I must say it's pretty good. Considering I installed a few new apps, and upgraded 32 of my current ones, here's what I got:



Over 4 hrs of display time, and 1 hr of voice calls. On a 4.6" screen. Nuff said.