The end of the year is upon us, and if any Android phone is most thought about at the close of this year, it is the Galaxy Nexus. This phone has LTE 4G, a 720p resolution screen, and if the first phone to have Google’s Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. So if we were going to close out the year with any phone review, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus would be the one. But does this phone deserve the hype or is it just another Android phone? Let’s have a look below.
Style
While the Samsung Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have that much of a unique look to, it is a nice looking phone. With no physical buttons on the phone, the front is all screen, which adds to it sleekness. On the back, the Galaxy Nexus has a textured back cover which looks and feels nice. The Galaxy Nexus is really clean in its design and very minimal on buttons which looks really good.
Coming in all Black, again while it one stand out from any other Android device, at the very least it is still a looker among the crowd.
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Normally wouldn’t single out the operating system of a phone beyond saying what it was, but seeing as how this is the first device with Android 4.0, we felt we should talk about it a little bit.
First off the bat, I like the look and feel of Ice Cream Sandwich. I will say as an existing user of Android, it does take a little getting use to since they decided to change how some functions and menus work in ICS, but after a day or so you should sail away just fine.
While the core experience using ICS was good, some items I want to highlight negative and positive. On the positive side I really like the UI of ICS, the menus animation are excellent. Also I really like the look and feel of the Gmail and Calendar app. The People (contacts) app is also good, but unless maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet, I wish it could pull more than just Google+ info. Now on the negative side would be the Face unlocked and the recent app features. I like both of these features, but didn’t they just didn’t vibe with me completely. With Face unlock, that is very cool when it works. But I found I spent more time doing the back up pattern unlock than Face. And don’t expect to use that feature at all during the night. And as far as recent apps, I like the idea, but it doesn’t seem like it closes any apps you are use. When I hit the home button, I would like the app to close. When I close an app, I expect to close it, not have a long list of recent apps unless I actually choose to have them in this list.
Other than those there are so many features, that I won’t list them all here.
Experience
I like the Galaxy Nexus, really I do. But I did find myself not enjoying it as much because of the size and weight. My current phone is the HTC Vivid. It’s screen size is 4.5 inches. With the Galaxy Nexus screen size at 4.65, that extra 1.65 inches in height made it difficult for me to reach the top right corner of the screens with one hand when I needed to.
I also had a issue with the weight. Typically a light phone would be appreciated by me, but because of the height, I rarely had a good grip on the phone. Then when you add in its lightness, I constantly felt like I was going to drop. With such a nice looking and expensive device, that isn’t the feeling I want on mind while using it.
Other than using the phone was great. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a great phone and Android Ice Cream Sandwich was a pleasure to use.
Overall
I really think this phone is hot, but I don’t think it is enough to prompt you to go all out to get it. I have to agree with Peter Rojas on his thoughts about why you may not need to purchase a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I wrote this on his site GDGT. Check out his thoughts here.
Of course if you are on Verizon Wireless and up for update, I say go for it. But that is the only situation in which I would recommend that purchase. Unless maybe if your contract was up with your current carrier, and you was thinking of coming to Verizon anyway, then sure go for it as well.
