Welcome to the http://indrayan-infogadget.blogspot.com/ review of the Samsung Google Nexus S! As you know, we’ve been on the Nexus S case since the device first leaked several months ago, so it is gratifying to finally see what all the fuss has been about.
Starting up
To kick things off, let’s start at the beginning: the unboxing. Inside the fancy white box with Google-coloured highlights, we find the following:
- Health & Safety Warranty Guide
- Terms and Conditions, Return Policy, Limited Warranty booklet
- Charger
- Micro-USB cable
- Headset
- Samsung Google Nexus S phone
Hardware
Taking a look at Nexus S itself, we immediately notice the subtle but unmistakable ‘contour display’, that curvy signature feature that distinguishes the design from other Samsung devices of its Galaxy line. Below the screen, there’s the touch sensitive back, menu, search and home buttons that seem to integrate really well into the overall interface experience, particularly because of the curved design.
At the bottom of the Nexus S are the Micro-USB port for data connections and charging, and the 3.5 millimetre headphone jack. The power button is located on the top right side of the phone and the volume rocker on the left side. On the backside we find the 5 megapixel camera, which is of course complemented by a lower quality front facing camera on the, well, front. Next to the camera is the LED flash, which is nice for shooting pictures, but is particularly handy as a flashlight when you can’t find your keys in the dark.
The back cover can be removed, revealing the slot for your SIM card and the battery. Since the Nexus S comes with 16 GB of internal flash memory, no slot for SD memory can be found here. The overall build quality of the phone is comparable to that of Samsung Galaxy devices. The body is made out of hard plastics, making the phone surprisingly light, compared to, for example HTC phones. You might want to pick up some casing to wrap around the Nexus S, although experience with other Samsung handsets shows them to be quite robust. The weak point of any modern smartphone still is the display, no matter how much metal the body contains.
The SuperAMOLED display looks good, particularly with some dark, preferably black, wallpaper, blending the hardware buttons and the phone’s body nicely in with the display. We are curious, however, how this will look on some of the later Nexus S models that are supposed to be shipped with LCD display instead of SuperAMOLED.
But no matter the display, the screen is perhaps the most responsive that we’ve seen so far. Because of Samsung’s tweaks and Google’s Gingerbread improvements, the phone responds to a touch blazing fast. Apart from when something big is being installed from the Android Market, the Nexus S does not lag.
Memory
We always love to use our phone as an extended memory stick, so we’re happy Samsung and Google put 16 GB of internal flash memory in it. It takes a while to fill this space, but we admit we hardly ever carry several full HD movies around on it. But we do know some people for who the lack of SD card slot might, in the long run, present an issue.
Battery
A major point that must be mentioned here is battery life. It seems like the Nexus S drains its battery slower than most smartphones we’ve recently used. Though it’s still a long way from the oldschool recharge-your-phone-twice-a-week, it actually is a big improvement to know you’ll make it through the day no matter if you check email, do some browsing, listen to music and make quite a few calls.
Android Gingerbread
Which brings us to the Nexus S’ biggest selling point, apart from its overall high-techness: Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Our first impression is that the interface has not merely been updated slightly, but it has matured. The slightly incoherent graphical experience of earlier Android versions is slowly making way for what looks like an actual, coherent user interface. Still, it is of course very much up to the user to turn the device into whatever it should be – both in terms of looks as well as in terms of functionality.A quick overview of the most important ‘stock’ apps that come with the Samsung Google Nexus S reveals two major overhauls: the YouTube app and Google Maps with navigation. YouTube may have gotten a new look, but it’s the Maps that blew us away, with its new vector graphics and nicely three dimensional rendering of our surroundings. Add to that the navigation experience, and you got yourself a device that makes sure you’ll never be lost. Well, at least geographically speaking.
Also every Android version sees its spectrum of voice related software expand. In the Nexus S we find Google Voice and Voice Actions. It may just be us, but apart from the fact that voice driven electronic always sparks some basic fascination, we still have a hard time talking to our phone in any other way than during an actual call.
Android Gingerbread brings some other updates as well, such as a new virtual keyboard with improved copy-paste function. And while virtual keyboards remain somewhat of a matter of taste, the one in the Nexus S works rather well, especially since multitouch has now finally been implemented all the way.
The five megapixel camera does what a five megapixel camera on a phone does: it takes pictures at a resolution of 2560×1920. Does it compete with dedicated cameras? Of course not. Does it compete with other phonecameras? Sure. In fact, in daylight conditions, it makes some pretty decent pictures. When it gets darker however, picture quality quickly deteriorates. We recommend using the LED flash only at extremely short distances, or as a torch when you’re looking for stuff in the dark. The same pretty much applies to capturing video (at a 720 x 480 resolution): daylight, yes, otherwise no.
Media
We’re always a bit surprised by phones that are advertised as if they are cinemas. They are not, and will never be. They also do not need to be a cinema, because even if we like a nicely sized screen, everyone knows the IMAX experience must be had somewhere else. The Nexus S 4 inch display offers enough space to view pictures, clips, and even the occasional movie if you’re waiting at an airport. It’s even big enough to do some reading, though we would not recommend going through hundreds of pages. For browsing it is excellent, and Flash works like a charm, unlike in some other high end phones.
Samsung and Google have not forgotten that a good smartphone also carries your favourite music around. Not some much because of the software – you can get any kind of music player that suits your needs from the Android Market – but they’ve actually included a surprisingly decent headset with the Nexus S. Volume is good, though you will not make your ears bleed. We leave it up to you to decide if that is positive or not.
Social
Perhaps the most important function of a phone nowadays is integration of various social platforms. We know people who look strange at the suggestions that their phone can actually make voice calls, and is not just a Twitter and Facebook machine. Needless to say that for any social network, the Nexus S either comes with an app, or can be fitted with one from the Android Market.
Games
Just like any more or less practical application can be installed from the Market, you may as well stuff the phone with games. Actually, gaming on phones is set to be the next step in handset technology, and to keep up with this, the Google Nexus S comes with a three axis gyroscope, along with more standard sensors like an accelerometer or a compass. We may still be somewhat reluctant to run around town behaving like a maniac, just because we’re playing a game on our Nexus S, but that’s just us. And the phone gives us no reasons not to do this.
Let’s face it. The Nexus S is one hell of a phone. It is several steps ahead of the extremely successful Galaxy line of phones by the same manufacturer. Also, it is far from cheap. However, we think it is definitely worth the cash, perhaps even because of one thing we have not mentioned until now: timely updates, directly from Google. Forget waiting half a year to receive an old version of Android, forget strange update software that doesn’t do what you want it to do: when Android moves ahead, the Nexus S moves ahead. And let’s face it: most manufacturers that have tampered with Android – Samsung’s TouchWiz, HTC’s Sense, etc. – have merely screwed it up. Phones get slower than they are, have less memory than they have, and do things they shouldn’t e doing, all because hardware experts can wait to mess up what the software specialists have done. Of course, we’re exaggerating a bit – but not much. The promise of up-to-date-ness and of the unspoilt, flexible, customizable Android experience is what makes the Samsung Google Nexus S an essential phone.
As far as the drawbacks are concerned – no expandable memory, no even-faster- processor, no heavy metal body – we realize that those may be deal breakers. As we’ve stated here on SamsungNexusS.com before, the Nexus S is not designed to orbit the outer regions of our technological galaxy (although, funny enough it just may be in a real sense). It is supposed to be an advanced, all round phone. We think it is. Some think the Nexus S should take on the iPhone. We think it shouldn’t. Android and Apple are two different entities that can live together happily ever after, but the Nexus S does bring some serious mass appeal to the Android smartphone game.
http://www.samsungnexuss.com/nexus-s-review/
