So, I upgraded from the Droid Incredible by HTC into the Galaxy Nexus and these are my thoughts and experiences after a week with the Nexus. Really this shouldn't be a fair experience- The DINC is 2+ years old with a lot of miles on it. P.S. I am on Verizon- in an area that has fantastic 3g coverage and no 4g. I got the new phone and thought that it would be bigger, but I was happy with the size. It fits in my hands well (I have large hands) and I can use it with ease. I was very happy with my Dinc, it served me very well and even though I had an upgrade available for almost a year I kept waiting. I saw new phones, but none seemed to be really that much better so i kept rocking the Dinc. When I heard about the Nexus I decided I would give it a go. First of all, i use my phone as a phone. I make calls on it on a regular basis. This seems silly to say, but a lot of people don't care about the phone part. I have a 45 minute commute to work, and I regularly use my phone to call my wife or a friend during the drive to alleviate the boredom, its a straight road with nothing to see and almost no other cars. I use a car dock, and have it plugged into my cars speakers with an AUX cable. I was using a universal vent based mount on the Dinc, which I didn't love but it worked. With the nexus I got the crappy Verizon official samsung mount (crappy because it doesn't have the 3 pins to charge). With the new mount on my windsheild, its in a great position, but no one can hear me on speakerphone unless I yell at the TOP of my lungs (I'm already considered a super loud person). Phone in hand- Tie Phone in car- Dinc I listen to Pandora a lot (and now google music) on my phone. I have a pair of awesome X Mini II speakers that I rock when I'm getting ready, at work, or doing chores. I listen to music on my headphones when I am mowing the yard etc. It works fine for me, but for some reason the sound doesn't seem as loud when using the Nexus, however before on my Dinc it would make a weird sound on certain high notes, like it was straining or something. Music- Tie I am often taking pictures. I have a DSLR, and a handful of point and clicks, but I've used my phone as a camera for on the go. I also take a limited amount of video, but really I take a lot of pics. Most of the time I upload them to G+ and Facebook, and the software on the Nexus lets me do that a little faster than the Dinc. I like how fast the pictures take, but I've got over a 1000 pictures on my Dinc and about 200 on my Nexus so far. The Dinc Camera was simply better. It took much better pictures. You can argue that maybe the new camera requires a learning curve to figure out, but I won't. I've taken some amazing professional looking photos on the DINC, and I can't get even 1 out of 200 pictures on the Nexus to come out as clear, in focus, or color accurate as the DINC. Camera- DINC I also play games on my phone from time to time, when I'm stuck in the Dr. Office or somewhere boring where I can't listen to music. Before on the DINC I had a SNES emulator and every game ever... but I could hardly use it because the screen was too small to enjoy that. Also HTC phones wouldn't pair well with Bluetooth controllers so unlike my friends I couldn't use a PS3 or Wiimote. I ended up not playing that many games on it, Words with Friends, Peggle, Bridge building game, some old JRPGs on the SNES emulator. On the Nexus its a lot bigger so it really shines with games and it seems to be much more responsive to certain games. It could also be that with the .10 apps I bought more newer games with the Nexus, but overall it seems to work well. I have not tried to pair it with a bluetooth controller, but I assume I can (anyone done this yet?) Games- Nexus My Dinc would last about a day as long as i didn't over use it. If I played some games or did a lot of internet browsing, it would die pretty fast. I got used to this, and I have a car charger and one at work, so I had access to charge it whenever I needed to. However if I was out in the country, like at my in laws- my phone would end up dying pretty fast- really I could only get a few hours of heavy use. Same with the Nexus. I get maybe a little more use out of it. However, my DINC would stay charged when not being used where as the Nexus looses charge like mad even when I'm not using anything. I have wifi and 4g disabled. Today, I got my phone off the charger- no apps were running, and it was at 100%. I got into the car, plugged it into the charger, and put on Pandora. After a 45 minute car ride of nothing but Pandora the phone was at 79%. Even on the charger it lost 21% of the charge in 45 minutes. The screen was off, in case you were wondering. WTF. Now its been an hour since the phone was used, its been in my pocket with no apps running. Battery is at 75%. 4% lost to nothing in an Hour. Battery- Dinc The last thing I did with my phone on a regular basis was read google reader, look things up on the internet, etc but each does it just as well. Interwebs- Tie I never really even tried to watch movies or shows on my Dinc, the screen was too small and I almost always have access to a laptop or computer. However when my son was crying while getting his haircut or when he got bored when we went out, i could play some youtube videos of tractors or curious george and he really enjoyed it. However, we were out to eat the other night, and i played a video for him, and OMG it looked awesome. I realized I really could put movies on there and watch them and enjoy the experience, so I uploaded a few movies using airdroid and then had to find a player... but it worked pretty well. Screen/Videos- NEXUS TLR; The nexus is a good phone, but it doesn't blow my 2+ year old Dinc out of the water, which it rightly should. The camera is not only not better, its considerably worse. The battery is awful, but I feel like its possible that a software update will fix 90% of my problems.
I'm also coming from a Dinc and will be getting my Nexus today, and I sure hope that many of the flaws can be fixed with updates.
WOW I went Eris > Incredible > Thunderbolt > Rezound > GNexus and the part where you give the camera nod to the Incredible is crazy IMO , The Nexus isn't as good as the Rezound but it is much better then the Thunderbolt which was insanely better then the Incredible. I had to return my Rezound and use my Incredible for 3 days before I got the Nexus (gave the Thunderbolt to my Mom to replace her Incredible) took it out and used the camera a bunch and couldn't believe that at one point I thought the Incredible had a great camera Now the Incredible is an awesome phone which is why I kept it all this time as a backup but other then getting better battery life ( usually got 25-30hrs out of the Incredible currently getting about 15-18hrs out of the Nexus 2100battery with 4G I iimagine the Nexus would get 24hrs with 3g only) and being smaller the Nexus is 50x better in every category , especially the camera
I also upgraded from the Dinc. I just received the Nexus yesterday afternoon so I am still playing around with it.
you completely lost all credibility with me when you said the incredible has better battery life. that's so incorrect it's laughable. my incredible with normal use lasted me 3-4 hours before exhaustion. my nexus is going 13-17 hours with the same normal usage.
same here, came from an incredible. i can tell you with my normal days usage i would get about 12hrs out of the incredible (be down to 15% battery). the nexus with 4g and all the same apps and set up i was at 56% yesterday after 12hrs. and i would consider yesterday a little heavier than normal usage day for me. now that i have gotten over the playing around with stage with the nexus and am using it like a tool to get things done (like i did my incredible) i can really start comparing the two. as for the camera i disagree as well, i take alot of pictures of my dogs and stuff, not only is the nexus picture sharper than my incredible ones but they aren't blurry because it doesn't take 3 seconds to take the picture which is way to long for something like a dog to sit still.
actually i completely disagree with your entire post. i have no idea what droid incredible you were using, but for me the nexus destroys that phone (which i loved) phone in hand - dinc feels better because its more compact phone in car - nexus. far superior screen music - seems similar camera - nexus hands down. zero shutter is a massive improvement and the pic quality is outstanding. also, zero problems uploading pics, which was a major headache on the incredible with constant timeouts games - haven't tried any yet, but hardware wise the nexus should trounce incredible due to superior hw battery - discussed already. nexus has a good 3x battery life compared to incredible internet - tie? i don't see that either. nexus has far better screen, renders much faster, has superior browser tech and has 4g. add wifi direct, nfc and a host of other gee wiz tech that the incredible has no knowledge of and i'd say your analysis is just wrong. no sane person who has used both phones for more than 10 minutes could conclude that the nexus doesn't blow the incredible completely out of the water
I think I might have battery issues, like MANY other people on these forums, I conceded that the battery is sucking but it seems like a bug rather than the battery. Let me link you some pictures I've taken on the Nexus and on the Dinc- These aren't side by sides of the same shot because I don't have them, but just look at some of the differences. DINC Photos I've taken- not the best pics, just a random sampling. Nexus- I will admit i've not taken but around 200 photos with it, but these are the BEST I have from it. I'm sure I can muster some better ones if I really try.
I loved my Inc. A LOT. It was a great phone. It's still sad for me to see it sitting on my desk, unused. I tend to agree with the reponders here that the GNex really does blow it away in just about every aspect. Do we have to be rude to the OP in saying we disagree with him?
Rooted Droid Incredible with CM7 and custom kernels seriously improved battery life. I got a full day of use out of my Dinc with moderate to heavy use, so you can't say its not a credible comparison.
How are all of you upgrading to the Gnex coming from an Inc? I preordered my incredible and got it a day before release and I'm not eligible to upgrade until next Wednesday. My fiance got a Gnex last week, and I think I'm going to wait and see how ICS runs on the inc before I get rid of it.
Just to update my battery life issue... Charged to 100%, took off charger put in car on car charger- listened to Pandora for 45 minutes- Battery down to 79%. Took it inside, and wrote my wife 3-4 text messages, read a couple emails. In 3 hours it went from 79% to 62%. This is with me not doing much of anything on it. I'm inclined to think I either have a bad battery, or a faulty Gnex. I got an early upgrade- I had to pay $20.
Yep, I was a day one Incredible buyer. Had the same one the entire time, performed flawlessly. Beer Baron: Beg! My NE2 was up 12/29. I went in the store, they had me call *611. Long story short, they bumped me up. Edit: Storm 1 release day > Incredible release day > Galaxy Nexus release day.
I'll be converting from the Dinc as well. Will most likely get my GN this weekend Just subscribing to this thread.
I also preordered my DInc and got it the day before release. My official upgrade date wasn't until Dec 27th, but I called Verizon and laid on the charm and voila! Got my GNex yesterday
Storm 1 ?? ahh man i feel you, i remember going to verizon store with my with to look at the storm for her. she ended up getting an eris but after 5 minutes in the store playing with the storm i don't think i have ever seen her look at a device with so much hatred (and that is saying something considering we have a comcast cable box). between my work and my wife i have hit a few release days eris,incredible,droid X, thunderbolt, xoom, incredible2, galaxy nexus
i LOVED my DInc. Before that phone, I came from Winmo 6 phones and the DInc was a beast compared to those phones. the only problem i had with the DInc was battery and no front facing camera which the need became more apparent over the past year. the GNex is a significant upgrade. Battery is on par with my DInc or better. With my DInc i would unplug the charger and the battery would immediately drop to 87-89%. it was insane. So by the time i would get to work, it would be low 80's (mines wasn't rooted). the camera pics were nice on my DInc. definitely some of the best ive taken on a cam phone (next to my wifes iphone4 that is). but the GNex beast it. music sounds better on GNex for some reason but maybe thats just me. reception is DEFINITELY better. i would sometimes lose reception in certain rooms in my work building and with the GNex (with 1-2 bars), i still have reception. i still think my DInc is a great phone and maybe with an extended battery make somebody else happy especially coming from a non-smartphone. EDIT: oh and i have 3 lines so i get lots of upgrades throughout the year.
Hey beer, when I got my droid incredible they still had the 1 year early upgrade policy in force. When the change went through I called Verizon customer service and insisted they credited my account with the 1 year early upgrade since it was part of my original contract. When I went to pick up my G-Nex on release day the sales person tried to give me trouble and tell me I had to wait until about Christmas and I made them check the customer service notes and she authorized my early upgrade. Cost me 20 bucks, but I got a 50 dollar corporate discount so I still made out!
Idk, I chalk this up to the differences in humans. I have 2 Inc's (1 since launch) and there is nothing at all zero that favors it over the GN. It's a crazy world!
Coming from the Dinc myself and reading the initial experiences of Gnex owners myself, I have to think that there are some buggy phones out there. Some people have taken horrible pics with the Gnex and others have taken very nice looking pics. Some people are experiencing horrible battery life and others are getting a full days use. In my own experience, the Gnex has been the best phone I've owned hands down. I just took a bunch of pics and videos from a party last weekend and they turned out great. I definitely was not missing my Dinc camera. I am a moderate user and get a full days use out of the Gnex battery (I turn off 4g when not needed). I understand that the way each individual uses their phone will directly impact the overall experience, but I really do feel there are some bad Gnex's out there.
That makes sense. I went to the Inc from an LG Dare (what an awful, awful phone), and I was technically eligible to upgrade after a year, and I waited for months to come out because I didn't want an original Droid (or Eris) - definitely made the right choice there. There's really nothing I'm not happy with for now. I'm running MIUI and it's great. I'll probably check out CM9 if it becomes available, and I know MIUI is working on an ICS rom. By then we'll probably know what the next big deal phone is and when it'll be available so I can see if I should wait or jump on the Gnex.
I agree with the OP on the camera. I'm coming from a Dinc as well, and I have not been impressed by the Nexus's camera. The continual focus feature does not seem as good as focusing before taking each picture. I've got more blurry and red-eye shot with the Nexus than I ever did with the Dinc. However, i love the panoramic photo capability of the Nexus.
I got my Incredible two days before release. I've been eligible for annual upgrade for months now so I can order the GN online right now for $250 with my corporate discount. If I was six months off my NE2 date, I'd pull the trigger, but being my last benefit of the NE2 credit, I'm holding off until the 27th. At that point, it'll be $199 on contract. I know that third party retailers can honor upgrade pricing within a week of your upgrade date, so as of yesterday I could get it anywhere (Amazon, Letstalk, etc). Unfortunately, they're all now over $200 on contract. I would have pulled the trigger this past weekend for the $175 upgrade at Letstalk, but alas I missed it by a few days. Oh well. Reading all the stuff on here, I'm a bit worried that the wow factor won't be as good for me coming from the Droid Charge. I hated pentile on the Incredible and I have to say SA+ is phenomenal. I really wished they were able to get an HD resolution without using pentile on this phone.
