Upgraded to a Nexus S. Comments, concerns, and general opinions

Aleko said:

How's everybody's battery life? I had my Nexus S charged to 100% yesterday afternoon, took it off the charger around 7PM last night and played with it for a couple of hours on and off. It was still at around 80% when I went to bed last night, but the phone was completely dead this morning, wouldn't even turn on without power plugged in. I didn't have 4G, Bluetooth or WiFi on, and no other programs were running (other than what came stock). I hope it's not indicative of its battery life moving forward, and it's just a matter of getting it "trained".

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My Nexus s (3G) has done that a few times but always when I accidentally left my "GPS" engaged, or the "Location" settings active. It will completely drain to zero. Other than that my battery life is great, especially since the most recent update to 2.3.4.

dh

bciernia said:

Also got one for the Mrs. A couple annoying things:

1. Can't sync facebook contacts to phone
2. Can't sync facebook calendar to phone
3. No visual voicemail

Has anyone found any workarounds for theses? I know there is syncmypix in the market, but i was hoping for something better. She really wanted the calendar to have events and birthdays synced from facebook like my EVO but guess thats a no go also?

Other than those, phone is awesome. Is fast and responsive and a million times better than her Hero. If anyone knows how to get around the above, let me know!

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This was one of the first things I noticed and so I did a little research and found out that google took away that option on all nexus s devices running 2.3. I loved being able to sync my facebook contacts pics and info with my contacts but since I couldn't do that I just went into my gmail on the computer and put pics in for all of my contacts. Unfortunately there's not other way around that because like I said they disabled the sync feature with facebook on nexus s 2.3 devices.

EgeBamyasi said:

Thinking about taking the plunge myself. Concerns that I've read on other forums:

Reports that WiFi is very weak. Anyone able to report on this?

Low audio. Is this on earpiece, speaker phone, or both?

Battery charge always says 95% when fully charged. Apparently it's suppose to work this way? something about shouldn't be fully charge to protect battery? couldn't they just make 95% read 100%? (Why not just make it louder at '10'!)

Bluetooth issues. Though someone here posted they had no issues syncing with their car BT. BT version causing the issue? Anyone else try BT yet?

Also, everyone says faster than EVO in comparison but I assume that's with months of EVO use and tons of apps loaded. Has anyone loaded many apps on it that would slow it down enough to notice?

Thanks!

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I downloaded all of the same apps onto my nexus that I had on my evo and it's still really fast.

dhend25 said:

My Nexus s (3G) has done that a few times but always when I accidentally left my "GPS" engaged, or the "Location" settings active. It will completely drain to zero. Other than that my battery life is great, especially since the most recent update to 2.3.4.

dh

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Thanks. I didn't have GPS on, but I did have the "location service" on, so maybe that was part of it. I turned it off and will see how it does tonight.

And people that said this phone takes forever to charge weren't kidding... I plugged it in at 8am this morning when it was completely dead and it took over 5 hours to fully charge it. I hope it can last more than a day now on this charge...

Aleko said:

Thanks. I didn't have GPS on, but I did have the "location service" on, so maybe that was part of it. I turned it off and will see how it does tonight.

And people that said this phone takes forever to charge weren't kidding... I plugged it in at 8am this morning when it was completely dead and it took over 5 hours to fully charge it. I hope it can last more than a day now on this charge...

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No problem!

I'm pretty sure that just leaving the "Location" setting active will do that.

It's a real shocker to wake up to a completely dead phone!

I came from an iphone 3G which can fully charge from dead to full in about 30 or 40 minutes to the nexus s which takes substantially longer. But I've sort of gotten use to it, and it doesn't bother me much now. I pay more attention to my battery and its charge status now. I try not to let it go below 50 or 60% w/o putting it back on the charger.

Good luck with your Nexus s! I really love mine, even with its little shortcomings. The recent upgrade to 2.3.4 from 2.3.1 has been spectacular. GPS is much better and battery life is greatly improved!

Best,

DH

I wonder if Facebook will give in and do their sync feature like every one else does...

I really miss the photos appearing on all my contacts in my contact lists. Feels weird when my Nexus One has them and the Nexus S don't...

psionix said:

I wonder if Facebook will give in and do their sync feature like every one else does...

I really miss the photos appearing on all my contacts in my contact lists. Feels weird when my Nexus One has them and the Nexus S don't...

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Syncmypix is a cool application that will sync your facebook contacts. I know b/c that's what I put on a friend's phone that did not sync the contacts w/facebook. It's a pain to have an additional app but it does the trick!

Two more Cons for me:
Speaker is not so good. Well not as good as the EVO.

There is something off about the colors. I was looking at a video and on my EVO it was a nice grayscale and on the N4G it was green.

I didn't get a good test of the hotspot as Sprint seemed to be having 3g issues today.

Just picked one up at noon today. First impression: I'd like the ringer volume to be louder. Even at max, it seems a little quiet.

curtisdr said:

Just picked one up at noon today. First impression: I'd like the ringer volume to be louder. Even at max, it seems a little quiet.

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I created for myself some ring tones that really cut through the noise. Try some ring tones with more oooomph to them.

Music as a ring tone seems like a guaranteed missed call to me.

What would any of you say the main pros and cons are of the nexus s when compared to other phones?

** removed **

viber said:

48hrs after getting the Nexus S 4G:

In terms of raw speed and responsiveness the user experience is very high.

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Can you make phone calls reliably with the phone?

Is the transmit and receive audio loud and clear?

There is a reported problem with long SMS text messages getting garbled, have you experienced that?

Lighting fast screen updates are nice, but sooner or later you have to use the thing to communicate, and there's where the rub comes.

Finally got my own today. Lemme tell you right out of the box the phone gave me a solid 4hours of life with me downloading all the apps that i use to have on my Moment.

I was thrilled when i noticed that my Moment battery is the same model for the Nexus so i have a spare battery.

The phone is extra sleek and responsive. I thought i was going to have issues texting with this phone since im so used to a physical qwerty but to my amazement the onscreen keyboard (native) is very accurate. It makes the EVO's keyboard feel clumsy

the application menu is a bit tricky, can't aim too high on the screen or too low because then it wont really do anything. you have to hit it smack dab in the middle to get it to tick up or down. (I assume since the edges simulate a corner.... well... you'll see when you play with it..)

I do REALLY MISS Visual Voicemail. Regardless it doesnt change my feelings on this phone.

Calls sound crisp the FFC while using tango looks better than 1.3mp (or whatever the resolution it actually has) the camera on the back takes good pictures (i mean its a phone im happy that they look good.. if i want great i'll just fling out my actual camera)

its awesome to have USB and wireless tethering/hotspot right out of the box and no sprint breathing down your back for the extra 29.99 plan to do so (this is still under debate in a different area of the forum)

so far im pretty stoked about my phone...

My Moment is still an awesome phone FOR ME but i just really disliked having to be constantly rooting it and tinkering with it to stay up to date with the android OS. The Nexus S gives me that without having to root.

I do have a gripe tho, my moment has a better speaker for music than the Nexus, ergo it doesnt sound loud even when its at maximum.

I recommend upgrading or just joining sprint if you want to truly enjoy the android OS as it was meant to be enjoyed.

use google voice to get vvm back

I'm loving the Nexus S 4G but I'm already having an issue with the keyboard. Over 3 days, my keyboard has froze on me and I got a message that said google.android.keyboard has stopped working unexpectedly (I can't remember the exact message) and it gives me the option to either force close or to report to google. This only happens with I'm texting. When I text, I can see the letters popping up when I hit them but NOTHING is showing in the text box until after I hit send. Right now I'm using Go SMS Pro (normal mode).

Could it be the Go SMS Pro app or the keyboard itself? Any one experiencing the same? Any tips on how to get this to STOP! (It's very annoying)

boteman said:

There is a reported problem with long SMS text messages getting garbled, have you experienced that?

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Yes, I've experienced that twice.

bellesorrisa said:

I'm loving the Nexus S 4G but I'm already having an issue with the keyboard. Over 3 days, my keyboard has froze on me and I got a message that said google.android.keyboard has stopped working unexpectedly ...

Could it be the Go SMS Pro app or the keyboard itself?

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That message definitely looks like it was generated by the keyboard subsystem. I have no idea if it's caused by software interactions or hardware, although I don't see how the touch screen could cause that.

Maybe it's time to call Sprint and see about a replacement?

~Cha~ said:

the application menu is a bit tricky, can't aim too high on the screen or too low because then it wont really do anything. you have to hit it smack dab in the middle to get it to tick up or down. (I assume since the edges simulate a corner.... well... you'll see when you play with it..)

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I didn't have any issue scrolling top-down, only bottom-up. And it was a very annoying. I installed LauncherPro, and it made things much better in that area.

~Cha~ said:

I do have a gripe tho, my moment has a better speaker for music than the Nexus, ergo it doesnt sound loud even when its at maximum.

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The speaker volume is bad. That's my only other gripe so far.

boteman said:

That message definitely looks like it was generated by the keyboard subsystem. I have no idea if it's caused by software interactions or hardware, although I don't see how the touch screen could cause that.

Maybe it's time to call Sprint and see about a replacement?

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I removed the Go SMS Pro app and went back to stock SMS app that came with the device. If the problem still persists then I'll contact Sprint. I noticed it happens when I'm switching between letters and numbers - then it freezes.

viber said:

As of right now, the Nexus S is performing it's core function of being a phone perfectly well.

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it's a phone too???