c1rclez

I picked up my nexus s a little over a week ago from best buy as soon as they started selling the att 3g model. I had previously been an iOS user ever since the iPhone 3G, and boy do I have a lot to say about Android.

Starting off from a hardware standpoint, I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed with the Nexus S in terms of quality. I like the nice gorilla glass display on the front of the device, but the back is a totally different story. The cheap plastic drives me crazy. It is not only a finger print magnet, but it is also horribly scratched just after a week of use--mind you, I have never dropped the device. I think that the Nexus is just a little too cheaply made for my personal preference.

As far as the screen goes however, there is a much closer comparison between the retina display and the super amoled. The colors look fantastic on both devices, with the blacks being especially spectacular on the Nexus S. The display isn't quite as sharp as the apple device, but it makes up for that in terms of color output. Every other android device that I've ever used has looked washed out and grainy. (Don't even get me started on the atrix). I would point to the nexus s as the victor in this category.

Text input on both devices is something that I find to be highly variable on either device. To plainly say it, the autocorrect options on Android beat the iPhone hands down; the option to select a word from a list destroys the iOS keyboard. Especially the custom dictionary option. Something I did notice about android though is that despite autocorrect fixing most of my typing errors, I found that I made far fewer errors while typing on the iOS keyboard. I also can type considerably faster on an iPhone than my nexus s, despite the screen being larger. In my opinion, I am more comfortable typing out long bits of text on an iPhone than opposed to my Nexus. It just seems tthat sometimes the keyboard struggles to keep up with me. I will say that the voice to text option on android is like nothing I've ever used before, it really is quite sensational.

The web browser has a much more clear cut winner here in my opinion. I would have to say that safari destroys the stock Android browser, even without flash. The liquid smooth scrolling and zooming is really fantastic on the iPhone, simply blowing the Nexus away. I also like how the browser switches tabs better in safari compared to stock Android--I like the website preview.

Battery life between the two devices seems nearly identical to eachother. I can get about a day's worth of use out of each one. I was impressed that the Nexus S could pull that off. Every other android device that I have owned has had God awful battery life compared to my iPhone. (Still a farcry from webOS, though.)

The Widgets on Android in my.opinon are pretty overrated. I did just fine without them on iOS, and I honestly could go.without them. Personally, I don't need to constantly know the temperature outside or that so and so is getting geared up for the party on Friday night. If I wanted to get access to that information, I would just open up that particular application.

Something else I noticed was the fact that my iPhone would consistently get higher speed test results than my Nexus S. Over wifi I can max out at about 10mbs, where my iPhone would show 14 or more. 3G is also faster on the iPhone, where it is often considerably slower on the nexus s. Around 3mbs on the iPhone, and 1.5-2 mbs on the nexus s.

Notifications is an area that doesn't need to be reviewed, honestly. In iOS 4, they really are quite abysmal. I do miss however, when I'm on my nexus s' home screen the badge that sits on the icon of the app that tells me how many new messages I have. I've seen this on other Android devices, but its absent on the Nexus S.

Personally, I have been higly impressed with the experience of Android from the Nexus S. I had very sour experiences in the past with other devices. I have completely changed phone ecosystems here--and honestly I am really not looking back. This time, I'm sticking with Android.

quantumrand

Don't take any of this as a personal attack. I'd just like to offer a different viewpoint on your opinions.

The Nexus S actually doesn't have Gorilla Glass, but I do believe it's tempered similarly. As far as build materials go, I don't think the plastic is cheap. It's very light, but not too thin. I don't think it's as nice as the composite HTC uses, for example, but it gets the job done.

I'm not really sure how you treat your phones, but I have had my Nexus S for over 8 months now (the first 3 of which was with no case or screen protector). I seriously think if you put my phone next to a brand new one, it would be hard to tell which was which. There isn't a scratch on it.

I also think the Nexus S would stand up to a lot more punishment than the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4's glass back is notorious for shattering from the tiniest of things, such as a small pebble getting stuck in your protective case and rubbing against it.

As far as internal hardware is concerned, you should mention that the Nexus S has a similar chipset to the iPhone 4, except clocked much higher. The Nexus S' graphics core is also about twice as fast (SGX535 of the iP4 vs SGX540 of the Nexus S).

I've always wished the Nexus S had a higher resolution. A qHD display would have been nice. The iPhone 4 has a higher resolution, but it does it in an odd way. 960x640 is a wacky aspect ratio. The screen itself actually isn't all that spectacular, but its small size combined with the higher resolution makes it look nicer.

Your complaint here is that you're more comfortable using the iPhone keyboard (which you have used for years). I think if you had been using the Android keyboard for so long, you'd have the same complaint about the iPhone keyboard. You gain a lot of muscle memory over a period that long, and it takes a while to overcome it when switching to something new.

I agree, the default Android browser is a bit sub par, but there's nothing stopping you from hopping over to the Marketplace and grabbing Dolphin HD or Firefox. I think you'd find both of those more akin to your experience with Safari.

I think you're missing the point of the widgets. The idea is that you can have access to portions of an app without having to open the whole app. For example, you don't have to open the Facebook app wait that moment while it loads all the new updates before posting a status update of your own; you can simply do that from the widget. Another example is music widgets. If I remember correctly, iOS gives you basic Play/Pause/Next/Back controls, but you have to open iTunes to change shuffle settings or jump to a different playlist. In Android, music widgets can let you do this without having to launch the full app.

This one is difficult to comment on. Some people have complained that the Nexus S has poor Wifi reception, which could be causing the slower speeds. Other reports claim that Apple devices play unfairly with wireless networks, hogging bandwidth that can potentially kick other devices off (it's supposedly one of the reasons many routers/configurations aren't compatible with iOS devices).

EDIT: I actually think this is a limitation by the Speedtest.net Android app. Trying going to http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ on your Nexus S and iPhone 4 and compare your Wifi results. On my Nexus S, I get about 9Mbps with the Speedtest.net app (even though my internet is capable of 25Mbps). Going to Speakeasy on my Nexus S, I've been getting ~23Mbps.

EDIT EDIT: Sorry, just realized Speakeasy uses Flash, so it won't work on your iPhone 4. Just compare it to your other iPhone 4 Wifi speed tests.

As for the cell data speeds, there have been reports that AT&T is purposefully limiting Nexus S data speeds. Others say that it's a firmware issue that can be resolved with an update.

Glad you're enjoying it! Things should only get better from here, thought I'm not liking this trend towards 4.5+ inch phones.

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Last edited by quantumrand; August 12th, 2011 at 07:33 PM.

OnlySkillz

^ I agree with you on the last point.

Honestly, a 4 inch screen is PERFECT for a phone, of which Nexus S has.

3.5 inch on iPhone is too small.

Anything above 4.5 inch is too big, particularly the reason why I didn't choose the Galaxy S2 (the second reason being the samsung-based Android OS).


And to the OP, the iPhone and Nexus S are close competitors. I honestly, think they are the two best phones out right now, beating the S2 (far-fetched specs/unneeded, too large & samsung-android-os), and out of those two, I have to say the Nexus S beats it.

This is why I think the Nexus S is the best phone out right now. The AMOLED display will beat any LCD display, knocking HTC off the list, and only the retina competes with it. But overall, I have to claim the Nexus S to be the winner - not being biased, I just got mine a couple days ago, but I'm loving it. Yes, a tiny bit of extra resolution would have done it and made it just as clear as the retina display, but it's still perfect.

c1rclez

Honestly the only thing that I miss with my iPhone is the browser. Everything else it seems android has it beaten. I haven't given any of the other browsers a shot, but I will.

jamiedolan

I am extremely impressed with the phone over all and am finding few limitations.

I've had a 3rd and 4th generation ipod extensively. There keyboard is different, but there is some program I downloaded from the android store that let me customize the keyboard and make it more like the apple one, which I found helpful just because that is what I have been used to. (my old android was a HTC HERO and I didn't type much on there).

The speed is impressive, I am rarely waiting for much to open or process. Once in a while, there will be something that seems odd that it keeps me waiting for like zooming in on a photo that is already displaying on the screen. But the majority of the time it is very quick.

Once in a while it seems that it doesn't recognize a tap on the screen. I'm not sure why this is, but for example, it often seem like I have to try and tap the speakerphone button a couple times before I get it. Kind of odd, but isn't proving to be a huge problem.

Battery Life: I think it is about as good as it can be with current technology. I have it set to check mail frequently, check for updates on things, stuff that all sucks battery. I like the screen bright and use it a fair amount. I'll likely always have heavy use days that it needs a in day charge. Though the charge time while I am using it seems very very slow.

I'm finding the flexibility of the android operating system very nice compared to apple. I can make so many adjustments, like the custom keyboard that you can do nothing about on an apple product.

I'm finding it user friendly and get few errors.

Physically I found the phone easy to hold and comfortable. I did talk on it for a little over 4 hours the other day and it worked well. It gets a good signal in my house and connects well to wifi.

My only complaint about the Internet Access is carrier related, Sprint, They have a $10 per month surcharge for Internet Access on this phone because of the additional resources it uses (that did not apply to my old HTC Hera). This isn't any faster on their network than my HERO was. The device is much faster, but the Internet speeds are the same. Maybe a couple times faster than a modem at best. I'm totally unimpressed with sprints promise that Internet Access would run much faster on this phone.

Jamie

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dario3040

Once ICS comes with hardware acceleration you probably won't have any more complaints.
But if you really like the iOS leyboard, you can always download some keyboard replacement app.

halfasleep

Skyfire is a faster better browser than what comes stock on the Nexus S. I wish battery life would last longer but other than that, I love my Nexus S

razvan06

Come on man...you can't compare IOS to Android yet ,IOS is at v5 or whatever and Android is just at v2 .
And i don't think that anyone can deny that there is still much to be done for Android ..don't get me wrong ,i love Android and i tryed them all ,but it's still young .
As for the wi-fi speeds ...i think you have an issue ,i just got 9.21mb/s using a 2 bar connection from work using the speedtest that QUANTUMRAND pointed out on the NY server ...and i live in Romania ,so there is a bit of distance between..