So our office manager just got a Gnex and let me play with it yesterday. This inspired me to leave early from work so I could spend some time with it at the Verizon store before I had to pick up my kid. Now I'd say I spent about 15 minutes with my coworker's and about 30 minutes at Verizon, so take my experience for what it's worth.
I was looking for reasons to use my upgrade on the Nexus and have been following the forum for the last month or so. I have to say I was thoroughly unimpressed. I know there is a lot of extreme fanboyism going on in the Nexus forum, but I think some people are fooling themselves.
My first impression was the phone is very cheaply made. The back cover must have popped off three times while I was at the store. It was so week that every time you pulled it a little from the display tether it would just fly off. It also doesn't fit snugly at the crease points in the back. As someone who uses two spare batteries and almost never actually recharges my phone, I honestly don't think it would stand up to being removed and replace once a day for a year or more. Definitely wouldn't fit flush after that. The buttons, vibration, the sound--everything felt extremely cheap that me. It seriously had more the feel of a cheap toy to me than the flagship of phones.
As equally disappointing as the build was the performance. I tried scrolling, opening apps, running benchmarks, running speedtests, going deep into apps and then backing out to the home screen as quickly as possible. I could not make it go faster than my rooted tbolt. AT ANYTHING! And in most cases it wasn't even close. Now, I am overlooked to 1.4ghz, maybe I have underestimated the effect of that. But I assumed the stock 1.2ghz dual core would either be comparable or better. If it can't back out from My Apps in the market to the homescreen even close to as fast as my tbolt, though, then what exactly can it do faster?
I also ran speedtest over 3g many times holding the phones side by side. Now the store was getting terrible 3g speeds from where I was. The Nexus was averaging about 0.17mbs while my phone was about 0.46mbs. So about a third of the connection speed. My phone seemed a hell of a lot cooler to me after I left the Verizon store than when I got there.
Now maybe the Nexus performs better at some of those things after it's updated and rooted with some good kernels and roms, but if you have already unlocked your tbolt's bootloader, I see almost no reason to go to the Nexus. I honestly consider it a downgrade at this point. Maybe if my bootloader was locked I'd feel differently. I just figured the better specs would put the stock Nexus way closer to my rooted tbolt than it does.
I really wanted to be a Nexus fanboy but it was just not there for me. I will be playing with my coworker's phone much more in the coming weeks though. But not a good first impression on me.
I was looking for reasons to use my upgrade on the Nexus and have been following the forum for the last month or so. I have to say I was thoroughly unimpressed. I know there is a lot of extreme fanboyism going on in the Nexus forum, but I think some people are fooling themselves.
My first impression was the phone is very cheaply made. The back cover must have popped off three times while I was at the store. It was so week that every time you pulled it a little from the display tether it would just fly off. It also doesn't fit snugly at the crease points in the back. As someone who uses two spare batteries and almost never actually recharges my phone, I honestly don't think it would stand up to being removed and replace once a day for a year or more. Definitely wouldn't fit flush after that. The buttons, vibration, the sound--everything felt extremely cheap that me. It seriously had more the feel of a cheap toy to me than the flagship of phones.
As equally disappointing as the build was the performance. I tried scrolling, opening apps, running benchmarks, running speedtests, going deep into apps and then backing out to the home screen as quickly as possible. I could not make it go faster than my rooted tbolt. AT ANYTHING! And in most cases it wasn't even close. Now, I am overlooked to 1.4ghz, maybe I have underestimated the effect of that. But I assumed the stock 1.2ghz dual core would either be comparable or better. If it can't back out from My Apps in the market to the homescreen even close to as fast as my tbolt, though, then what exactly can it do faster?
I also ran speedtest over 3g many times holding the phones side by side. Now the store was getting terrible 3g speeds from where I was. The Nexus was averaging about 0.17mbs while my phone was about 0.46mbs. So about a third of the connection speed. My phone seemed a hell of a lot cooler to me after I left the Verizon store than when I got there.
Now maybe the Nexus performs better at some of those things after it's updated and rooted with some good kernels and roms, but if you have already unlocked your tbolt's bootloader, I see almost no reason to go to the Nexus. I honestly consider it a downgrade at this point. Maybe if my bootloader was locked I'd feel differently. I just figured the better specs would put the stock Nexus way closer to my rooted tbolt than it does.
I really wanted to be a Nexus fanboy but it was just not there for me. I will be playing with my coworker's phone much more in the coming weeks though. But not a good first impression on me.
