For those on the fence about getting a Nexus and to generate a bit of discussion, I wanted to give my thoughts about the Nexus (plus ICS and Verizon for good measure 
). I've only had it for about 3 weeks, but I think I have a pretty decent handle on the phone. For context, I'm upgrading from a Droid Incredible, which brings me to my first point, mostly about the Incredible...
It is SO great to not have to worry about the obnoxious low space warning that plagued the Incredible if you installed "too many" apps on it (where too many wasn't really that many) or if you actually used your phone for email and MMS. I can't believe that HTC never fixed that bug, it totally killed my experience with the phone. But I digress. Onto the Nexus
Hardware:
When I first got it, my reaction was, oh my gosh, this thing is enormous! But in the past couple of weeks, I've really gotten used to it. I wish these darn things weren't so expensive so I didn't feel the need to put it in a case which makes it even bigger. But when I went to use my incredible a few days ago to prep it for selling it, I realized that I had gotten used to my enormous screen and no way am I going back.
Screen. I love the screen. I know its pentile and that bugs some people, but I honestly can't tell. Maybe someday when I get an even better screen I won't be able to go back, but honestly, the screen is beautiful.
Battery. My first major gripe. I know that a huge screen and LTE do not make for a battery friendly phone and I knew that going in. But I was still surprised by exactly how bad it is. Basically, if you use your phone for anything at all--not heavy use, just making calls, occasional browsing, etc--it will not make it an entire day on one charge. If you can't be around a charger occasionally, this phone really won't work for you unless you carry around a bunch of batteries. Using LTE a lot? Be prepared to be plugged in A LOT.
My biggest gripe is illustrated by this experience: I used the phone in my car the other day as a navigation device on a 1hr ish drive. It was connected to a strong LTE signal the entire time, but I wasn't using the phone for anything other than GPS. I had it plugged into a 2.1A car charger so it was getting as much juice as it can draw (and checked that it was in AC not USB mode -- side note: maybe they should change that to DC to be more precise and include wall/car charging). At the end of the drive, my battery had dropped ~10%! The inability to keep up with the power demands of a phone WHEN PLUGGED IN is just unacceptable. This means that if I want to use my phone as a GPS device for an extended period of time, I have to bring extra batteries with me, even if I AM PLUGGED IN THE ENTIRE TIME! I saw this in one review before buying the phone but figured it was a fluke. In my experience, it's not and should absolutely be called out more in the press.
Camera. Sorry folks, no excuses, the camera is subpar. Coming from an Incredible and comparing to my wife's iPhone 4, the pictures are much, much noisier, the colors aren't as good, and the picture quality overall is much lower (despite having the same number of MPs as the 4). I know there are a lot of camera apologists on here saying, "yeah, but in the right light..." and sure, my 1.3mp camera on my 5yr old dumbphone took decent pictures with tons of light. But a flagship phone should have a better camera and Samsung/Google dropped the ball on this one. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial. Is it passable? Yes. Good? Absolutely not. I'm not a professional photographer and am not expecting DSLR results from this camera, but its not up to par with similar offerings from the same manufacturer and is, in my opinion, the single biggest drawback of this phone.
LTE. Awesome. I work in an area where I get 4bars of LTE signal (clear lake area south of Houston, TX) and the speeds are incredible. It's amazing to get a faster connection on my phone than on my cable modem. My one complaint in this department is with Verizon (aside from the battery issues of course). Evidently, Verizons coverage maps show where coverage is or will be by the end of the current quarter (so they claim). I checked the coverage map before buying the phone and live well within the normal 4G coverage area. Get my phone, turn it on. WTH? No 4G. Call local Verizon store that is also shown to be in 4G coverage area. They say, oh yeah, we definitely don't get 4G down here and give me the story about it being accurate for where service will be by the end of the current quarter. Dial *611 and another dude confirms the story (though he might have just been trying to get rid of me). If this is true, Verizon needs to be much more up front about this. It's pretty ridiculous to a show a map of where coverage is "going to be", not where it is. Totally false advertising. And they better have me covered by the end of the quarter (end of March)!
Call quality. I'm really impressed with the quality of the headset and the in-call quality is great. I'm even convinced I'm hearing feedback (my own voice) in the speaker when I talk, which I was told wasn't done on mobile phones. It really helps you know how loud you should be talking. I'm also very impressed with the noise cancellation. As an anecdote, I was setting up a new VoiP solution in my house and was testing the new phones. When I called the phones from my Nexus, I realized that I couldn't hear myself talking when I had both phones up to my head and thought that my service was screwed up somehow. The next day when I was troubleshooting, I had an idea and hit mute on the Nexus. Instantly, I could hear myself talking into the other phone. The Nexus had been comparing what it was getting from the mic and what it was getting in the speaker, saw they were the same, and perfectly cancelled it out to the point where I thought something was broken. Go Physics!
As others have mentioned, the speaker for speaker phone/listening to music/etc. is much too quiet. Hopefully that's addressed in a future software update. If you're not in a quiet room, it's basically unusable.
Software:
I am loving Android 4.0. There's nothing huge that I could mention, but there are so many small tweaks that make android better that I shudder even considering going back to gingerbread. The settings are much better organized, I love being able to uninstall an app from the app drawer, and the overall fit and finish of the OS is much better. As a side note, I really dig the new roboto font and hope other developers start to use it more.
Couple of app-specific gripes. Mostly about one app in fact. I may need some advice on where to provide this feedback, because it's got to change! I use google reader a lot (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). The stars drive me nuts. First off, why are they so darn hard to hit!? This was true on my incredible and I hoped the size of the Nexus would help, but it hasn't really. And I actually have pretty small hands. Can we please make the target area for the star bigger? Please? And second, this is just a weird UI thing. In the list view for RSS items, a grey star means the item is not starred and blue fill means it is (if I can ever select it
). When you click on an article to bring it up, an open star (grey outline, no fill) means it is not starred, and a filled grey star means it is starred. So in one screen, a filled grey star means it is starred and on the previous screen it means it is not. Small thing, but confusing, and really should be selected.
Keyboard. Thus far, I've been extremely impressed with the typing experience on the Nexus. I've been able to type on the standard keyboard much more quickly and accurately than was possible on the incredible. I'm not going to write a novel on it (like this
) anytime soon, but tapping out a couple sentence email is no problem at all. And I really like the way suggestions work, particularly punctuation. I like having the option to add a comma or question mark in the suggestion bar after I add a space when typing. Very convenient. And the corrections for contractions are much, much better. On the Incredible, you almost always had to type the contraction you wanted exactly as it wouldn't suggest similar words with contractions (with a few examples). This was extremely annoying and is thankfully not an issue at all with the Nexus.
App switcher. I really think WebOS does this better. The recent app switcher is kind of nice, but its one of my android annoyances that they don't "freeze" apps or whatever you want to call it, meaning that if you're out of resources, android closes the app and the next time you want to access it you start from scratch. And why can you swipe an app off the screen if that doesn't really do anything? It would be nice to have persisent apps that don't require a stupid little notification icon on the screen at all times. The larger screen mitigates this issue somewhat, but it's still annoying.
Soft keys. I wasn't sure I would, but I also really like the software home, back, and recent apps keys. It's great that they can go away and make the screen that much bigger when they're not needed. Small thing, but very nice.
Input lag/problems. One of my most frequent issues with my phone is that it misses touches. Hit the screen. Nothing. Hit it again. Nothing. WTH? Hit it again, app opens or home button is pushed. Touched it the same way all three times, what was wrong the first two? Is this a widespread problem or is it just me. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's pretty consistent and pretty annoying when it happens.
It's a Nexus. This was one of the major selling points for me. It was so obnoxious to wait for a year for HTC to update the OS on the Incredible (and never fix a phone-ruining bug. grr.). This alone almost makes up for any of the Nexus' shortcomings and I hope they keep the updates coming (seem to be a bit slow on some at the moment).
Bottom Line:
Only the seriously devoted reader will have made it this far, but if you have, thanks for your time! My verdict is this: this is the best android phone out there right now. But there is no way that I will be hanging onto this phone for two years, the poor camera guarantees that and the battery life clinches it. With MWC in full swing, the only contender I see is the HTC One X, but us poor Verizonites are out of luck. But that does mean that we'll have the best Verizon android phone for that much longer I suppose.
If you're in the market for a new phone, live in an LTE market, have frequent access to a charger (seriously, you'll need it), and aren't opposed to upgrading w/in your 2 year contract, get this phone, you'll like it. But I'm guessing that quite a few of us will be looking to unload it when another phone comes along with all of its pluses and fewer minuses (and it will before the end of the year, mark my words).
). I've only had it for about 3 weeks, but I think I have a pretty decent handle on the phone. For context, I'm upgrading from a Droid Incredible, which brings me to my first point, mostly about the Incredible...It is SO great to not have to worry about the obnoxious low space warning that plagued the Incredible if you installed "too many" apps on it (where too many wasn't really that many) or if you actually used your phone for email and MMS. I can't believe that HTC never fixed that bug, it totally killed my experience with the phone. But I digress. Onto the Nexus
Hardware:
When I first got it, my reaction was, oh my gosh, this thing is enormous! But in the past couple of weeks, I've really gotten used to it. I wish these darn things weren't so expensive so I didn't feel the need to put it in a case which makes it even bigger. But when I went to use my incredible a few days ago to prep it for selling it, I realized that I had gotten used to my enormous screen and no way am I going back.
Screen. I love the screen. I know its pentile and that bugs some people, but I honestly can't tell. Maybe someday when I get an even better screen I won't be able to go back, but honestly, the screen is beautiful.
Battery. My first major gripe. I know that a huge screen and LTE do not make for a battery friendly phone and I knew that going in. But I was still surprised by exactly how bad it is. Basically, if you use your phone for anything at all--not heavy use, just making calls, occasional browsing, etc--it will not make it an entire day on one charge. If you can't be around a charger occasionally, this phone really won't work for you unless you carry around a bunch of batteries. Using LTE a lot? Be prepared to be plugged in A LOT.
My biggest gripe is illustrated by this experience: I used the phone in my car the other day as a navigation device on a 1hr ish drive. It was connected to a strong LTE signal the entire time, but I wasn't using the phone for anything other than GPS. I had it plugged into a 2.1A car charger so it was getting as much juice as it can draw (and checked that it was in AC not USB mode -- side note: maybe they should change that to DC to be more precise and include wall/car charging). At the end of the drive, my battery had dropped ~10%! The inability to keep up with the power demands of a phone WHEN PLUGGED IN is just unacceptable. This means that if I want to use my phone as a GPS device for an extended period of time, I have to bring extra batteries with me, even if I AM PLUGGED IN THE ENTIRE TIME! I saw this in one review before buying the phone but figured it was a fluke. In my experience, it's not and should absolutely be called out more in the press.
Camera. Sorry folks, no excuses, the camera is subpar. Coming from an Incredible and comparing to my wife's iPhone 4, the pictures are much, much noisier, the colors aren't as good, and the picture quality overall is much lower (despite having the same number of MPs as the 4). I know there are a lot of camera apologists on here saying, "yeah, but in the right light..." and sure, my 1.3mp camera on my 5yr old dumbphone took decent pictures with tons of light. But a flagship phone should have a better camera and Samsung/Google dropped the ball on this one. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial. Is it passable? Yes. Good? Absolutely not. I'm not a professional photographer and am not expecting DSLR results from this camera, but its not up to par with similar offerings from the same manufacturer and is, in my opinion, the single biggest drawback of this phone.
LTE. Awesome. I work in an area where I get 4bars of LTE signal (clear lake area south of Houston, TX) and the speeds are incredible. It's amazing to get a faster connection on my phone than on my cable modem. My one complaint in this department is with Verizon (aside from the battery issues of course). Evidently, Verizons coverage maps show where coverage is or will be by the end of the current quarter (so they claim). I checked the coverage map before buying the phone and live well within the normal 4G coverage area. Get my phone, turn it on. WTH? No 4G. Call local Verizon store that is also shown to be in 4G coverage area. They say, oh yeah, we definitely don't get 4G down here and give me the story about it being accurate for where service will be by the end of the current quarter. Dial *611 and another dude confirms the story (though he might have just been trying to get rid of me). If this is true, Verizon needs to be much more up front about this. It's pretty ridiculous to a show a map of where coverage is "going to be", not where it is. Totally false advertising. And they better have me covered by the end of the quarter (end of March)!
Call quality. I'm really impressed with the quality of the headset and the in-call quality is great. I'm even convinced I'm hearing feedback (my own voice) in the speaker when I talk, which I was told wasn't done on mobile phones. It really helps you know how loud you should be talking. I'm also very impressed with the noise cancellation. As an anecdote, I was setting up a new VoiP solution in my house and was testing the new phones. When I called the phones from my Nexus, I realized that I couldn't hear myself talking when I had both phones up to my head and thought that my service was screwed up somehow. The next day when I was troubleshooting, I had an idea and hit mute on the Nexus. Instantly, I could hear myself talking into the other phone. The Nexus had been comparing what it was getting from the mic and what it was getting in the speaker, saw they were the same, and perfectly cancelled it out to the point where I thought something was broken. Go Physics!
As others have mentioned, the speaker for speaker phone/listening to music/etc. is much too quiet. Hopefully that's addressed in a future software update. If you're not in a quiet room, it's basically unusable.
Software:
I am loving Android 4.0. There's nothing huge that I could mention, but there are so many small tweaks that make android better that I shudder even considering going back to gingerbread. The settings are much better organized, I love being able to uninstall an app from the app drawer, and the overall fit and finish of the OS is much better. As a side note, I really dig the new roboto font and hope other developers start to use it more.
Couple of app-specific gripes. Mostly about one app in fact. I may need some advice on where to provide this feedback, because it's got to change! I use google reader a lot (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). The stars drive me nuts. First off, why are they so darn hard to hit!? This was true on my incredible and I hoped the size of the Nexus would help, but it hasn't really. And I actually have pretty small hands. Can we please make the target area for the star bigger? Please? And second, this is just a weird UI thing. In the list view for RSS items, a grey star means the item is not starred and blue fill means it is (if I can ever select it
). When you click on an article to bring it up, an open star (grey outline, no fill) means it is not starred, and a filled grey star means it is starred. So in one screen, a filled grey star means it is starred and on the previous screen it means it is not. Small thing, but confusing, and really should be selected.Keyboard. Thus far, I've been extremely impressed with the typing experience on the Nexus. I've been able to type on the standard keyboard much more quickly and accurately than was possible on the incredible. I'm not going to write a novel on it (like this
) anytime soon, but tapping out a couple sentence email is no problem at all. And I really like the way suggestions work, particularly punctuation. I like having the option to add a comma or question mark in the suggestion bar after I add a space when typing. Very convenient. And the corrections for contractions are much, much better. On the Incredible, you almost always had to type the contraction you wanted exactly as it wouldn't suggest similar words with contractions (with a few examples). This was extremely annoying and is thankfully not an issue at all with the Nexus.App switcher. I really think WebOS does this better. The recent app switcher is kind of nice, but its one of my android annoyances that they don't "freeze" apps or whatever you want to call it, meaning that if you're out of resources, android closes the app and the next time you want to access it you start from scratch. And why can you swipe an app off the screen if that doesn't really do anything? It would be nice to have persisent apps that don't require a stupid little notification icon on the screen at all times. The larger screen mitigates this issue somewhat, but it's still annoying.
Soft keys. I wasn't sure I would, but I also really like the software home, back, and recent apps keys. It's great that they can go away and make the screen that much bigger when they're not needed. Small thing, but very nice.
Input lag/problems. One of my most frequent issues with my phone is that it misses touches. Hit the screen. Nothing. Hit it again. Nothing. WTH? Hit it again, app opens or home button is pushed. Touched it the same way all three times, what was wrong the first two? Is this a widespread problem or is it just me. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's pretty consistent and pretty annoying when it happens.
It's a Nexus. This was one of the major selling points for me. It was so obnoxious to wait for a year for HTC to update the OS on the Incredible (and never fix a phone-ruining bug. grr.). This alone almost makes up for any of the Nexus' shortcomings and I hope they keep the updates coming (seem to be a bit slow on some at the moment).
Bottom Line:
Only the seriously devoted reader will have made it this far, but if you have, thanks for your time! My verdict is this: this is the best android phone out there right now. But there is no way that I will be hanging onto this phone for two years, the poor camera guarantees that and the battery life clinches it. With MWC in full swing, the only contender I see is the HTC One X, but us poor Verizonites are out of luck. But that does mean that we'll have the best Verizon android phone for that much longer I suppose.
If you're in the market for a new phone, live in an LTE market, have frequent access to a charger (seriously, you'll need it), and aren't opposed to upgrading w/in your 2 year contract, get this phone, you'll like it. But I'm guessing that quite a few of us will be looking to unload it when another phone comes along with all of its pluses and fewer minuses (and it will before the end of the year, mark my words).
with my NEXUS, the camera is great looking over the incredible, my battery life is around 20 to 30+ hours with moderate use through the day, and love 4.03 ICS..
) but the battery demands can't keep up if the manufacturers keep trying to make the thinnest and lightest phones.
