***Official G-Nex first impressions thread*** Love it? Hate it?

[offanairplane]

Traded in my Thunderbolt for the Gnex Friday.

Pros:
Awesome screen, makes watching Netflix movies a pleasure.
Not that they weren't also nice on the TBolt, but they are definitely better. I can see this screen outdoors much more easily than the Bolt. AMOLED is awesome!

ICS is pretty nice. I thought Gingerbread was completely awesome, so it's hard to improve on what's nearly perfect, but ICS I can honestly say is an improvement, though not a huge one.

I rooted and rommed mine yesterday, and I am running Liquid 1.1 Rom. I was running Liquid 3.2 on my Thunderbolt, and I am a big fan of those roms. This one didn't disappoint at all!

Has a nice feel in my hand now that I have a case on it. (Seidio Active with kickstand.)

Battery life is wonderful compared to my Thunderbolt. So I can't complain there.

Cons:
Not as strong of a 4G or 3G signal as my Thunderbolt had in the same areas. It's not a huge problem since when I'm home i have wifi and when I am at work I have wifi, it's only on my commute that I need a good 4G signal and I have a good signal there. Mainly at home, before I would have 3 or 4 bars and now I have 1 or none.

Power button on the side is annoying. I had the Eris then the Incredible and then the Thunderbolt all with the power button on top, and so it just is really awkwad having it on the side now. I guess that's not a huge problem.

USB port on the bottom to me is dumb. It's a problem when my phone is on it's cradle on my desk at work unless I turn it on it's side and use the cases' built-in kickstand. But I don't like using my phone in landscape, never have. So that is annoying.

No kickstand versus my thunderbolt. I resolved this by getting a case with a built-in kickstand as I said.

No menu button by default and no option to add one without installing a 3rd party launcher or a Rom with one built-in.

Feel in my hand is thin and lightweight compared to the Thunderbolt which was thick and heavy. I had ordered my case from Amazon.com and I couldn't wait for it to arrive, because I kept worrying I was gonna drop my phone. It feels great now with the case.

Overall impression:
Great phone. I'll be happy with it for a long time.
Hopefully they will address the signal issues, and when they do I'll really have no complaints at all.

 

[replica9000]

Battery life is wonderful compared to my Thunderbolt. So I can't complain there.

One of the reasons I returned mine was because of bad battery life. It would only last me 12 hours maybe a couple more. I can't imagine the tbolt being worse. My DInc and Rezound last about 2 days for me.

 

[offanairplane]

One of the reasons I returned mine was because of bad battery life. It would only last me 12 hours maybe a couple more. I can't imagine the tbolt being worse. My DInc and Rezound last about 2 days for me.

The Gnex battery is considerably bigger than the Tbolt's so believe me it is better. I would've killed for 12 hours of use when I first got my Tbolt. lol
I had bought a Rezound battery for my Tbolt, since it was 1600mah and the Tbolts stock battery was something like 1400mah. I think the Gnex is 1850mah right?

When I am at work my phone is plugged in, and when I'm in the car it's plugged in, and I plug it in every night when I go to bed as well. So really I am only relying on the battery in the evenings after work and on the weekends.

I have come to the conclusion that smartphones just don't have a lot of battery life, and I am ok with that.

 

[replica9000]

The Gnex battery is considerably bigger than the Tbolt's so believe me it is better. I would've killed for 12 hours of use when I first got my Tbolt. lol
I had bought a Rezound battery for my Tbolt, since it was 1600mah and the Tbolts stock battery was something like 1400mah. I think the Gnex is 1850mah right?

When I am at work my phone is plugged in, and when I'm in the car it's plugged in, and I plug it in every night when I go to bed as well. So really I am only relying on the battery in the evenings after work and on the weekends.

I have come to the conclusion that smartphones just don't have a lot of battery life, and I am ok with that.

I know there is an extended battery for the GNex, I think it's about 2200mah.

I guess it all depends on the phone for battery life. My first smartphone was a MotoQ. I was lucky to get 6 hours out of it. I had to put it on the charger any chance I could. Being my first smartphone, I thought that was normal lol. I'm glad newer smartphones are much better on life while getting more powerful.

 

[offanairplane]

You know what else rocks about the Gnex?
The camera!
I have no idea why people complain about it, but I think it's the best on any phone I've ever had.

A: The picture quality is perfectly adequate.
B: You can snap like 10 pictures in 5 seconds. I love how fast you snap a pic. Maybe that's ICS, maybe it's the hardware, I don't know but it's awesome! When I'm taking pix of my kids and trying to get them to look my way and smile for two seconds, it's nice to be able to snap 4 or 5 pix in a row quickly, and there's a good chance one of them will be good.

 

[dalesponyrider]

You know what else rocks about the Gnex?
The camera!
I have no idea why people complain about it, but I think it's the best on any phone I've ever had.

A: The picture quality is perfectly adequate.
B: You can snap like 10 pictures in 5 seconds. I love how fast you snap a pic. Maybe that's ICS, maybe it's the hardware, I don't know but it's awesome! When I'm taking pix of my kids and trying to get them to look my way and smile for two seconds, it's nice to be able to snap 4 or 5 pix in a row quickly, and there's a good chance one of them will be good.

I agree, the camera is awesome. I have Dales ponies and when taking photos of them in action, it has been very difficult getting a photo at just the right phase of trot to show off their wonderful action. We've got a posh digital camera that is not a patch on my GNex for this! I can also crop the photos quite a bit without losing too much quality. I'm impressed!

 

[wedgemoose]

Thats funny because I have been thinking the same exact thing....... I think the camera is perfect, actually better than perfect because of the speed thing. when i look at all my saved "phone pictures" on my computer i can't tell one differnce between my Gnex ones and my high MP HTC phone pics. the only thing that was different about the HTC pics was pressing the button and waiting almost 4 seconds for it to snap. My Gnex pics are perfect.

It just shows how advanced some people are. An idiot like me can't even tell the difference.....

 

[rlh445]

I just bought the Gnex, and will be receiving it tomorrow afternoon. YAY! Impressions forthcoming!

SO. I know I've only had it for a little less than a day, but I have to say that my first impression = orgasm. I'm coming from the Incredible and loved that phone like it was family. I owned the Dinc longer than any other cell I've ever had, dating back to the old blue Nokia phone I started out on. I'd call the Dinc pretty much 98% perfect (low space error, I'm looking at you!). So when I say I think the Gnex is 99% perfect, I mean it. I guess it could start to go wonky on me here in a couple of days or weeks (knock on wood) but I don't think it's going to (see: hope not!). The size is astounding. My speakers don't seem to have the problems others have. So far (only made two calls) neither call has dropped, sound quality is superb and the handoff from 3G/Wifi hasn't been nearly as noticeable as it was with my Incredible. I've experienced lag when going from making Panorama pictures to actually looking at the finished product in the Gallery, but that's about it. Overall after about nine hours use, I'll never go back to a phone with less than 4.65 inches of glorious screen and ICS.

 

[viebroccoli]

I think the camera is fantastic. I'm coming from a Droid X, which has an 8 MP camera. The 5 MP camera on the Galaxy Nexus is far more superior than my Droid X's camera, for a couple reasons.

• Zero shutter lag
• More vibrant pictures
• Focus

The focus on the camera is my favorite part. I now love to take very close up pictures, and focus the camera on the element I am trying to capture. Obviously, the background is blurred, which is a very cool look IMO.

I wanted to say though, the zero shutter lag is a love hate relationship. It's great not having to wait for the camera to take the picture, but zero shutter lag introduces a huge issue: blur. When I took pictures with my Droid X, I would hold the camera very steady during the shutter lag, to get the sharpest picture possible. With zero shutter lag, I have to touch the screen VERY lightly in order to reduce the blur from me slightly moving the phone from touching it. IMO, I think it would've been better to have 1/2 second shutter lag than whatever it is now.

 

[Matt08642]

Love:

The screen (for the most part)
the device itself (very solidly built, love that it has a removable battery)
sound quality for music playback seems to be quite good
camera seems excellent in decently lit situations

Hate:

Not much, but off the top of my head I don't like the 4 or so different "versions" of Android (yakju, yakjuux, yakjuxw, whatever)
Screen (when on low brightness, banding and ghosting are common on uniform backgrounds)
BATTERY. this thing gets quite awful battery life for a flagship device. Look at this benchmark . How the phone manages to get killed by web browsing over wifi while the SGSII and iPhone get double the time is beyond me.

 

[julianne791]

I've only had it a day but already loving it, having previously owned a HTC Desire Z before this phone is a dream. Only downside is battery but hey what smartphone is perfect right

 

[Homan13PSU]

My wife although not sure how she feels about the screen size is considering moving up from her Incredible to a Nexus.

 

[replica9000]

My wife although not sure how she feels about the screen size is considering moving up from her Incredible to a Nexus.

I originally went from the Incredible to the Nexus. I had a protective case on both. When I pulled the Nexus out of my pocket, I felt like I was pulling out a small tablet sometimes. I now have the Rezound, the screen is big without feeling too big. I know it's only a difference of a few millimeters, but it made a big difference for me.

 

[JE78]

I've been using my GNex for about 3 weeks now. I was using an iPhone 4 but got bored with it so I decided to try something else and the GNex was it. I'm using the Verizon version as well in case someone finds my review useful. This isn't my first Android phone, I used to have a HTC Incredible and a Samsung Fascinate.

My first week with the phone was kind of discouraging. When I had my previous Android phones I fought the same issue.....poor battery life. I bought the 2100 mAH extended battery and was hoping for better results but they just didn't happen. I'm a UPS driver so i'm on the road all day, no WiFi access and no place to charge my phone so my battery has to last me all day on a single charge atleast until I get home. The first week I played around with different configurations with screen brightness, 3G/4G on/off and a few other tips and tricks i've read but nothing seemed to work, one day I'd come home with 60% battery, the next day 40% battery with about the same usage. Finally after reading I decided to ROOT the phone and load a custom ROM. What a difference. I've had the phone ROOTED for about a week and have came home with 70% battery about every night. I'm also using Liquidsmooth 1.25 ROM.

As for the rest of the phone a few of the CONS for me would be the size of the phone. For me 4.6" screen is too much, I think for me the 4" screen the Samsung Fascinate has is the best size screen for me, this is just a preference though. The camera doesn't take the greatest quality pictures but its can take pictures fast. The speaker is very quiet so I use Volume+ and battery life. Like I said, I had bad luck with the extended battery, I can't imagine how bad the stock battery on a unrooted phone would be.

A few PRO's, it has Android 4.0 on it, ICS is great, the ear piece volume is nice an loud, phone feels good in your hand, phone will last days if connected to wifi.

Overall after rooting the phone I really enjoy it and will probably keep it around for a while. If your in the market for a new phone I'd put this on the top of your list.

 

[tdevaughn]

Gnex beats the Thunderbolt hands down... much better battery life and easy root make it a WIN

 

[caseybea]

My "old" phone was a standard International Galaxy S. Just picked up my Gnex via Google's sale offer via the Play Store.

So, impressions of the gnex: wow. The display is incredible. ICS takes a little while getting used to coming from Gingerbread-- but overall, I'm impressed and I think I'm going to like it. "How" to do some things has changed of course.

The biggest thing for me is the placement of the "back" button on the bottom of the phone. (The virtual buttons on the bottom of the phone are actually pretty cool, look and feel like the original permanent ones!). On the Galaxy S, the "back" was on the right. Now it's on the left. I *like* not having a dedicated search button, that always drove me mad. "back", "home", "tasks". I like it.

To me, the speakerphone volume *seems* OK. Perhaps it was fixed in 4.0.4? Not sure.

Seeing stock android versus Samsung's touchwiz is interesting. I am not sure if I will want a new launcher or not. Stock ICS seems to be ok for me thus far. I may download and try out Nova just to see.....

Speed: The speed of data (yay! no more EDGE ONLY) is incredible. I had no issues pairing the phone with my laptop - both via bluetooth and wifi. Tethering is awesome when you have real data speeds. The speed of the UI is also incredible. Snappy. Fast. Smooth.

The phone is big, of course. One-handed use is... a little tricky.

OVERALL: I give the phone a huge thumbs up.

 

[ritchea]

Speed: The speed of data (yay! no more EDGE ONLY) is incredible. I had no issues pairing the phone with my laptop - both via bluetooth and wifi. Tethering is awesome when you have real data speeds. The speed of the UI is also incredible. Snappy. Fast. Smooth.

The phone is big, of course. One-handed use is... a little tricky.

OVERALL: I give the phone a huge thumbs up.

Thanks for your review. I'm on the verge of buying this Google Play version. If you don't mind saying, what service are you using? This will be my first "unlocked" and sim card phone. (Goodbye Sprint after 10+ years!)
EDIT: Also, what is the model number on the Google phone?

 

[wrecklass]

Wife and I upgraded from EVO 4G to Gnex's a couple of weeks ago. We are on Sprint, and we preordered.

First impression was how light the Gnex is. With a Cruzerlite case it is a full ounce lighter than the EVO without a case. That's 20% lighter! Given the Gnex is longer than the EVO, that was a real surprise. But that is also because the Gnex is thinner than the EVO.

The AMOLED display is great, I keep it at 18% while indoors which looks fantastic. It's also much easier to read outside than the EVO, with the brightness turned up of course.

ICS is fantastic. Took some getting used to, but I installed Nova Launcher and got back some of the features I missed. Like previews and long pressing to install widgets and apps.

Battery Life has been no problem for me. I work from home and am always on WiFi. With few phone calls I end up with around 75% battery at the end of the day. If I spend a lot of time on the phone, I plug into a charger. Even when I have left the phone off of the charger on busy call days it finishes with over 40% charge.

I experimented with the battery and found I get an alert when the battery hits 14%. Then again around 6%. I was browsing and reading on Tapatalk to keep the battery going down. From 14 to 6% took nearly an hour of continuous use. From the 6% warning to the phones automatic shutdown on low battery took another 30 minutes.

So I think people worry far too much about hitting 40 or 50% at the end of a day.

Of course Sprint delivers the phone with 4.0.4, which I hear Verizon has had problems getting their QA guy to test Perhaps that is hurting the VZW Gnex performance.

I never rooted the EVO, but I may try a different ROM on the Gnex just to see how I like it.

 

[ricksievers]

I was at Verizon yesterday and they said the Nexus was a piece of crap. I keep hearing this lately and will listen to them and not get this one.

 

[wrecklass]

Sounds like someone should report those Verizon employees to Google. I suspect the problem getting Verizon to upgrade the phones the way they had promised is causing their employees to spout off fibs like that.

 

[ricksievers]

So how is the Nexus, really?