Android Forums - View Single Post - calling former og owners

Okay, well, here we go. I've had the Galaxy Nexus for about a week now. I'll be breaking it down for clarity and all that.

First off, I want to preface this by listing a few problems I had, not necessarily with the device, but with my setup.
First, a clint eastwood moment.

The Bad.
1. MTP.

This is the replacement for USB mode, it allows a file transfer without mounting the filesystem. This means no corruption and all that jazz - which is nice. Unfortunately - it also means that you need special software for it to work. I guess Mac gets a special utility from android... windows has native support due to media player... linux however is zip. You have to download and install a boat load of packages (okay, eight or so) to get it working. And then, it's still sketchy.

I'm running Debian, no support. I also have dial up that debian cannot access... so no downloading. This means grabbing the files online and usb drive them over there. Painful, but it works. Kinda. Eventually, the packages were all right, but not quite. So I went with a ubuntu install on a flash drive and used my packages to get gMTP working. The usb install isn't very stable, I get lots of errors and all that, but it works for my purposes.

2. Weaker cell coverage.

Not sure if the Nexus has worse reception than the Evo, but it appears to. Now, my Evo had flashed radios, and the nexus has the stock radios at this point. So I'll be trying that tomorrow.

3. Force Closes

I also had some force closes with the stock rom before I rooted - I think this was related to weak signal as it only happened when I would try to access Maps or Play Store when I had lousy coverage.

The Good.
1. AOSP goodness.

Okay, let's face it. The device is kickass. It looks great, functions great and is pure Android. No sprint bloat, no samsung bloat. No sense, no touchwiz, just cool things like Analog clock and gtalk.

2. Phone.

Okay, this is dual core, 32 gb internal, and pretty damn snappy. I'm talking stock here. Pre-root. It also looks slick, you could (IMO) flaunt this to iphone users and not feel like they are laughing at your weird looking phone (okay, the evo looked cool too - and lets face it, the iphone users will laugh at it anyways

)
It is an all around cool phone.

3. Jelly. Bean.

Okay, you root it and put on some JB. It rocks even more. I'm not sure how, but it's nicer. Google now is fun. Thanks for telling me what the weather is like, I was *just* about to ask that.

I know that there are more JB features, but this is the one that I like best. And I just put JB on today, so I'm still learning all it does

The Ugly.

Okay, by ugly, I mean awesome. This phone has a great overall aesthetic quality. Not much more to say. 5/5 in the looks department. The menus and apps all align nicely - +1 google.

Second, my thoughts.

Okay, I was a bit unsure with this phone. After settling on it, and finally getting it - I, again, was unsure. I could have gotten the G3 which is much newer and has a lot of better features. The camera is quite nice. But, spec wise, they really are not that different. A bit here and there, but it's not like comparing the evo to the nexus, its more like the evo to the photon or something. I never looked into that phone too much myself... >.>

Okay, so I've now rooted my phone, sitting here with CM10 on it, stock kernel still, and sure it's awesome. It's an excellent device, that being said the G3 is still something I think about from time to time. Mainly because at the time, the evo was the top of the line phone. The Nexus is not top of the line right now. Probably the g3 is. That's fine though, look who's rocking JB.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if it comes down to these two phones, you win. The nexus is great. I love it. I'm always playing with it, just like when I got the evo initially. The G3 will be more current for a longer time, but no phone lasts forever. I think the nexus will be fine for quite a while. In all honesty, the evo would be fine for some time yet.

I apologize- this isn't my best worded post (but probably my longest) so I want to sum it up a bit... The nexus is great. Rooting it is easy. I think two commands, maybe three. The hardest part for me was dealing with MTP - which for many won't be an issue. I know it sounds a bit negative at times, but it shouldn't. I'm trying to be honest and objective. I still think this phone is awesome. And with ICS/JB, you have a very modern device. Just know that it isn't the 'best' on the market. But, if you are looking for an AOSP phone, this is clearly it.

TL;DR
5/5
Though not perfect, close enough.