Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone The much-anticipated new Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first phone to feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – or ICS if you’re being very 'now' – the latest version of Google’s mobile OS. It also includes one of Samsung’s top of the range HD screens, a dual core processor and 1080p HD video recording – not too aspirational then …
The consumer electronics companies have worked out that smart phones is the best market to be in at the moment; the consumer is able to get a high priced handset on contract for £30 per month rather than having to swallow the real £400+ price in one go, so it's less price sensitive than other sectors, like TV sets, and there's a fashion-factor that drives consumers to replace perfectly usable handsets every couple of years.
Compare the total spend on mobile phones per household with other consumer electronics and you can see why Apple have got where they are today (whether by luck or judgement I couldn't comment).
A quick shufti at three.co.uk says free on a two year contract.
Pity about only 16Gb though. I'm in the market for a new phone -- my iphone 3GS having not recovered from an impromptu trip down the toilet -- but half the memory and no SD slot on which to store music or videos is not an upgrade, particularly when a screen like that is provided.
I have a Samsung GS2 and I've barely used the internal memory. All my music is streamed (either from internet or from my NAS box) Yes I'm on a 2gb internet plan from 3 which costs me £19 per month and most months I've used around 1-1.2GB.
I take loads of video but that wirelessly syncs up to G+ and I make a backup copy to my NAS box (over wi-fi)
Some music I cache locally for times I'm on the underground but generally, my internal memory is just for apps.
That assumes good coverage and a decent download speed. Try doing something like that on a commute to work in the morning in the train and see how far you get.
Plus 3 appear to share all your browsing habits with Bluecoat in much the same way the Vodafone do.
If you value your privacy then avoid 3.
I do - do this on the commute to work. I have a high cache set up for the odd time network coverage goes. XiiaLive does this very well.
If you think 3 are somehow the only ones who can tell what you're browsing, then I've got news for ya....
Besides they'd be able to tell I've been to Ikea, BBC, Android Authority, Pulse, Checking my shares... whoopy-do!
3 aren't angels - don't get me wrong, their tech support is abysmal. But from the stories I hear from friends about data on o2 and Vodaphone, I'll stick to 3 for the time being.... until that new disruptive 4g entrant comes along ;-)
3 clearly aren't the only ones that watch what you're doing - in all liklihood illegally incidentally - but they are together with Vodafone the only ones that appear to be illegally sharing information with a company half was around the world and completely outside any sort of control the authorities here.
The reason I decided to go for the S2 instead. I carry about 20GB of "toons" as I have better things to do ( too much Skyrim to play! ) than keep messing about with syncing different sets of music. The 3G coverage on my commute is absolute shite, add to that the 40 mins down the underground on my journey and streaming is a no-no for me I'm afraid.
If it does then there's a good chance that you could plug in memory card readers into it and use them instead if you really want to carry around a media collection. Plus it would be interesting to see if an old ipod classic with 160GB can be used as an external HDD for that sort of thing. That should be more than enough space for TV programs and films for long trips.
Finally an option for view desktop site!
Notice this more on the tablets (honeycomb) but getting the often non-fully-functioning mobile edition of websiteswhilst on the move is a real pain in the ass. So thanks to google for sorting that out.
Now just proxy authentication without rooting would be nice :)
...................no expandable storage? On the flagship *Android* phone? We expect that from "Another Company" but not on the phone that is meant to be the lead device/showcase for the latest iteration of Android and Google's first "trans-platform" effort at that. Particularly not at over half a k.
Though, seriously, I don't think the 16gb limit is much of a problem — if anything it's a win for the consumer if it removes the distinction between internal and removable storage, making app management that little bit easier. I'll bet that most people don't use their phones for watching video that they've stored locally and 16gb is more than sufficient for a decent amount of music and photos with enough spare to take a few photos and videos while out and about.
.................."Got to love it, no expansion on a 32GB iPhone and it's a big problem. But 16GB and no expansion is okay because you "don't really need much more"."
IE. That it is obvious from this thread that a fair number of "Droidheads" (myself included) are making it clear that we are *not* impressed with the lack of storage expansion on this device. Just how did you *miss* that?
The world isn't actually divided into one group of people that say only positive things about Google and negative things about Apple and another that do only the opposite. So trying to suggest that because you heard people complain about the fixed storage size of the iPhone and now you're hearing people say it's really not a problem concerning an Android then anyone who isn't critical of Android must be a hypocrite is unsupportable. All it means is that some people think fixed storage is a problem and some people don't.
One thing I love is listening to loads of music in my car over bluetooth audio. My car's head unit has seek controls that work over bluetooth for the next and previous song. So I load up loads of music on my old Nexus One with a 32Gb Micro SD card. My phone sits in my pocket and they connect completely automatically.
What do you mean I have to drop this bit of functionality to get the latest upgrade?
Streaming music on demand as I need it while driving? No, I want my music to play 100% of the time, not 90% of the time (I often stream podcasts live and it's never completely reliable, but much better with 3 than it was with Vodafone).
That android is available on a variety of phones isn't it.
The SGS II has been out for a while now so has come down in price, spec wise it's very similar to this - so perhaps the cheaper option would be to get the Samsung and wait for the ICS update (or root it and install a custom ROM sooner)
Having got a Galaxy Nexus as a dev phone from work coming from my own Samsung Galaxy S2 (an incredibly good phone in itself) I've got to say the Galaxy Nexus is fantastic, ICS is a really good update, I managed to get 2 days battery life out of one charge which I've never seen before on a smartphone.
The back button switching sides took a bit of getting used to and the camera is terrible compared to that in the S2. Face Unlock is very good and actually useful.
Not seen the volume bug occur on my handset.
Question, where do the Reg get their prices from? we got this for £430.
There are three simple rules that most technology literate smartphone users will stick to.
A smartphone MUST have;
1) A memory card slot - preferably MicroSD
2) A Proper SIM slot
3) A removable battery
So many of the flagship smartphones from ALL manufacturers seem to be breaking 1 or 2 of these rules just recently and without any consistency. Manufacturers seem to be sealing in the battery one week, then opening that back up but omitting the memory card slot the next. It doesn't seem to make any sense. They KNOW this pisses customers off and harms retention so why do it?
I have a feeling they are perceived requirements rather than actual requirements. I had a phone with all three (Nexus One) and, on reflection, never really worried about them after I'd stuck the sim, microSD and battery in for the first time. I occasionally swapped the sim for a local sim when travelling and that was about it.
Not yet anyway. As it stands, I have a Galaxy S with 16GB of (ok, partially usable) internal storage, and a lovely big 32gb sd card.
It just about holds my music, and I can stick decent selection of films on the internal storage. It made my ipod redundant. I really don't care if the 16gb is all usable on a shiny new phone, it's still significantly less than what I have available on an 18 month old phone.
Sticking a HD screen on a phone and then limiting the storage like this one does just seems like one step forwards and three back.
Isn't really a question of how many, its the inability to have all the music and videos I have on my current card. As this only has 16GB, I would not have enough room to store all my data on the phone plus the apps I use regularly. Since I can't do that, the phone is worthless to me. This is one of the bones I pick about the jesus phone all the time.
At least 4:
This year's prom concerts/ Choral Evensong / Beethoven / Handel etc.
Mark Kermode's film reviews/In Our Time/ 100 objects/Pienaar/Jodcast/Poetry Please etc.
Bellowhead/Spiers-Boden/Demon Barbers/Tull/Fairport/Carthy/Steeleye/Anahata etc.
Big Band/Swing/Jazz/Bepop/Glen Miller/Art Tatum etc.
and perhaps Manuals/IEC standards/Drawings/Customer config files for work.
And I change them in my sansa clip+ because you have to take the battery out of the phone to get to the slot & that looses date & time.
Having (at least) a slot is on my buying list for a phon
"One thing not mentioned is that the front facing camera is actually 720p so video calls shouls be well good."
Yeah good luck steaming 720p over a mobile or even a home broadband connection. You'd actually have more luck over 3G as most home Internet connections are limited to < 100Kb/s upload speed.
Can you get someone who knows something about the world of Android to review Android phones please? I've asked before...
Nothing about new built-in apps.
Nothing about the panoramic camera.
Nothing to say this isn't an evolution of the Galaxy S! It's based on the Nexus S, it's google's design, not Samsung.
Also the sound problem is expected, bugs are expected on Nexus phones, when you get a Nexus you get the latest Android features, not the best camera or reliability, but these bugs are also patched within days or weeks, not months.
El Reg, I used to respect you guys...
"Also the sound problem is expected, bugs are expected on Nexus phones, when you get a Nexus you get the latest Android features, not the best camera or reliability, but these bugs are also patched within days or weeks, not months."
This is rubbish, the Nexus phones are meant as the flagship Android phone to showcase the platform, it's capabilities and above all of that, to provide a pure Android developer phone - you know, a stable device on which to test applications and Android itself.
Yes, the Galaxy Nexus has a few bugs, as many newly released devices have, but those bugs aren't there because Google/Samsung thought "meh, they'll expect it, it's fine".
Felt the need to point you all in the direction of this article:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/11/18/impromptu-qa-session-with-android-engineer-dan-morrill-brings-to-light-reasons-behind-galaxy-nexus-lack-of-usb-mass-storage/
"ICS supports USB Mass Storage (UMS). The Galaxy Nexus does not. This is the same scenario as Honeycomb, as for instance HC supports USB Mass Storage while Xoom does not.
If a given device has a removable SD card it will support USB Mass Storage. If it has only built-in storage (like Xoom and Galaxy Nexus) it will (usually) support only MTP and PTP.
It isn't physically possible to support UMS on devices that don't have a dedicated partition for storage (like a removable SD card, or a separate partition like Nexus S.) This is because UMS is a block-level protocol that gives the host PC direct access to the physical blocks on the storage, so that Android cannot have it mounted at the same time.
With the unified storage model we introduced in Honeycomb, we share your full 32GB (or 16GB or whatever) between app data and media data. That is, no more staring sadly at your 5GB free on Nexus S when your internal app data partition has filled up -- it's all one big happy volume.
However the cost is that Android can no longer ever yield up the storage for the host PC to molest directly over USB. Instead we use MTP. On Windows (which the majority of users use), it has built-in MTP support in Explorer that makes it look exactly like a disk. On Linux and Mac it's sadly not as easy, but I have confidence that we'll see some work to make this better.
On the whole it's a much better experience on the phone."
"On Linux and Mac it's sadly not as easy, but I have confidence that we'll see some work to make this better."
I read that as a kick in the teeth : "Well Microsoft put it in OK! Apple Mac users probably have iPhones they won't be using Android. If bunch of FOSS devs can't be arsed, well bollocks to them they don't matter! We're putting this standard in the phones regardless. Get Windows or get lost!"
Sorry mate but I use only Mac and Linux, don't have any Windows kit and I have an Android as it's way better than iPhone cack. Samsung's Android connector is shit, it won't work above OSX 10.6, so Lion is knackered for connecting to Samsung phones. The Kies doodah is utter rank at best, it was left to me to use the old fallback of USB developement mode to get my S2 to work with my desktop kit.
So as I said before, basically the phone makers are saying, "Get Windows or get lost!".
There's no reason given whatsoever in that text for not having microSD.
It's just explaining why you will not be able to just plug the phone on a Linux/Mac system, mount it as a USB drive and drop files into it. You need to use that MTP stupidity, which only Windows supports.
Incidentally adding an SD card would be a great way around that problem, so just makes it extra dumb they didn't include it.
Quick thoughts:
1) Not too impressed with the lack of microSD, especially with the 32GB version not coming to the UK.
2) I have big hands, I can easily reach across the screen, but I can't do it without touching the other side of the screen with the base of my thumb at the same time. If the phone had a bit more of a lip, like the Sensation but more so (and less prone to registering key presses on the edge), I wouldn't have a problem with 4.65".
3) The screen is visibly PenTile. It's nothing like as distracting as the original Nexus, or a Galaxy Note, though. Side by side with a Sensation, the subpixels are comparable to the subpixel stripes on the Sensation. Viewing the same web page (the Register home page), there's *slightly* more clarity from the Galaxy Nexus, but possibly not as much extra as I might have hoped, or would expect from a 720p non-PenTile screen - the "grittiness" isn't distracting from a normal viewing distance, but if you're peering closely in order to take advantage of the pixel count, you can start seeing it.
That aside, it seems like a nice-enough device, although whether it's a massive advance over existing hardware is another matter. In the interests of prompt updates, a Nexus has quite an advantage over brand phones, otherwise I'd be dismissing it in favour of the Galaxy S3 and 720p HTC phones which are coming. Maybe I'll wait for the Jellybean launch device.
I posted the "Had a quick look at one..." post. A quick follow-up:
PhilW: Some people are bothered by the PenTile sub-pixel arrangement, some aren't. If you *are* bothered, you won't like the original Nexus or HTC Desire, you probably won't like the Galaxy Note, and you *may* not like the screen on the Galaxy Nexus. Personally, PenTile displays do bother me, because I read a lot of very small text on my phone, and the sub-pixels are visible if you're peering closely enough to read very small text. If you don't do this, or if you can blot out the PenTile arrangement, I'm sure the display on the Galaxy Note is fine (I've heard good reviews, but wasn't impressed when I saw one) and the display on the Galaxy Nexus is even better. My issue was that I wanted a high-resolution screen for the purposes of peering closely at it, and that aim is incompatible with PenTile. Or at least, the screen doesn't help as much as I was hoping compared with the 960x540 Sensation. Caveat emptor.
AC: A quick translation:
The Galaxy Nexus doesn't let you add additional storage with micro-SD cards, unlike some other phones. The phone itself comes in several versions with different amounts of internal storage, but the largest (32GB) is, I believe, not coming to the UK.
The Galaxy Nexus uses a "PenTile" screen arrangement which shares red and blue sub-pixels between adjacent addressable pixels (compared with the conventional arrangement of one red, one green, and one blue sub-pixel for each "pixel" on the screen). Using this arrangement allows the Galaxy Nexus to have better life from the organic LED screen at this resolution - or, depending on how you look at it, lets them get organic LED up to a 1280x720 resolution in a 4.65" screen, which they couldn't otherwise. However, it's not as sharp as an LCD that's 1280x720 pixels and 4.65" - or an organic LED which doesn't use the PenTile arrangement - would be, because of the larger and shared red and blue sub-pixels. It's a lovely screen, but compromised if you look at it closely.
If you hold a phone in your hand and try to reach across the screen with your thumb, there comes a point at which the pudgy bit at the base of your thumb will touch the screen. For me, the Galaxy Nexus is wide enough that this happens when I try to touch the side of the screen nearest my fingertips. The HTC Sensation has a ridge around the edge of the screen which slightly helps with this problem. I mention it in the hope that a future phone manufacturer might use a similar solution.
The Galaxy Nexus is a fast phone, but not, I believe, *much* faster than, say, a Galaxy SII. The next generation of phones to be launched with Ice Cream Sandwich (the new OS launched with the Galaxy Nexus) are rumoured to be appreciably more powerful. However, phones other than the Nexus series have to wait for the manufacturer to release operating system updates, whereas the Nexus series are Google's development phones and therefore get prompt updates. I was pointing out my dilemma between the Galaxy Nexus not quite being all I want, and that any alternative coming soon would not have the software advantage of being a Nexus phone.
I would expect a new phone to be launched with the next Google operating system revision, code named Jellybean (in the way that the just-launched one is Ice Cream Sandwich and the previous version was Honeycomb for tablets and Gingerbread for mobiles) and for it to be a further advance over the Galaxy Nexus. I might therefore wait and see what this future phone might be, rather than compromising. (Or at least, my compromise would be delaying an upgrade.)
I hope that translation helps anyone failing to follow these discussions.
"The Galaxy Nexus is a fast phone, but not, I believe, *much* faster than, say, a Galaxy SII."
According to the posted benchmarks so far, it's not *any* faster. They're just about identical in performance.
as various people have noted, the galaxy nexus isn't really the Next Gen flagship, or anything. it's just the next nexus. In hardware terms it's in exactly the same class as the GSII, Sensation, etc, with the exception of the screen.
By far the best phone on the market, well ahead of the iPhone in every respect and STILL The Register wont rate it as high as the iPhone which it always gives 90% even when the fucking antenna didn't even work right and when they've never fixed the overheating batterys that cause case cracks?
Paid reviews much?
"By far the best phone on the market, well ahead of the iPhone in every respect ..."
Including internal storage? Actually, that’s a cheap joke, what I was going to ask is, what in the review did you think was unfair or not playing cricket? Forget the scoring, was there anything in the review itself?
If there was, then there's cause for complaint, but if not how many people do you suppose are going to think 'Well, it sounds great but.... it didn't get a higher mark than the iPhone, so that's a deal breaker and I'll get that the iPhone instead."?
Scoring, even at the best of times, has an element of subjectivity – when you have different people reviewing different products (as is the case with this phone, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S reviews on El Reg), it’s larger. Personally, I like to read what a reviewer has to say, rather than think ‘sod it, I’ll skip that and look at the score to make an informed decision about my purchasing instead’ – I think that’s safer, but perhaps I should be using another tact and working my blood pressure up about scoring methods, instead.
Incidentally, what problem with the antenna? There was a problem with the one on the iPhone 4 that a lot of users complained about and El Reg scored that 75%. The iPhone 4S scored 90% and that’s had no such problems, according to all the *very* in-depth reviews I’ve seen (e.g. Anandtech), the problem is no longer there.
And Apple refuse to invite El Reg to free press conferences but are paying them for reviews?
The iPhone 4S has no known antenna problems. The iPhone 4 had antenna problems and when reviewed on this site those problems were cited and it received only 75%. See here: http://www.reghardware.com/2010/07/02/review_smartphone_apple_iphone_4/
So your allegation is trivially false on the facts. It probably also says something about your level of paranoia that you've imagined a conspiracy out of thin air.
I was about to commit to a Nexus when I saw it only had 16GB onboard, no SD slot and ICS doesn't yet have flash support. Decided to go with the Galaxy S2 instead and I'll wait for a settled version of ICS as promised by Samsung in the new year.
S2 may a little old in mobile terms but it'll do me for the next year or two.
picked on up in a shop the day it released.. after fending off the pouncing sales droid.. and had a look at it. Nice interface .. the phone is a bit plasticy for my lights, someting that size (and it feels huge.. note: i currently have an old SE 905 candybar).. should wiegh a little more and feel a lot more sturdy.. especially for the money..
ICS looked like android. nothing more/nothing less.. but then, i've not had to deal with it on a daily basis.. but it did seem better than the other versions i've seen on these phoneslabs.
i might wait for ICS on something like the SE Xp Ark - hopefully Sony don't cripple it with bloatware.. i know.. i know..
I may be barking up the wrong tree, but would the lack of SD card slot effectively mean no need to support FAT in the device itself, therefore an attempt to subvert the MS license?
Since all SD cards come with FAT, then any Joe the Plumber attempting to plug it in would immediately complain when it wasn't recognised, or that their card was reformatted and would no longer work in their Winblows. Not providing a slot simply avoids that confusion.
I hardly use direct connection to PC now for my phone and tablet - I find QuickSSH or dropbox more convenient - I usually stream music and movies.
Tech-head because would be nice to hear from someone with knowledge of the patent issues around FAT.
I've been really excited about this phone. Those of us in the US are STILL waiting for it!
However, with the lack of microSD, the crappy camera, the use of a TI OMAP instead of a Samsung Exynos with a better GPU, a PenTile display, and Samsung's horrible track record on GPS, leaves me thinking maybe not.
I'm seriously thinking of going with the HTC Vigor/Rezound at this time. While I'm a HUGE fan of Samsung's Super AMOLED screens, I'd much prefer a "Plus" version w/ RGB instead of PenTile.
If the S3 is anywhere near the rumored specs (quad-core CPU, Super AMOLED HD Plus, etc), then I might be willing go to back to Samsung.
I have a Desire HD, and until now I've not seen anything in upcoming Android releases which I've thought 'yeah, I'll get that at upgrade time', even the Sensation was something of a let-down, specs wise. Not that I want the Nexus (limited storage, audio problems and generally, I don't want to pay £400 - £500 to be a beta tester for Google), but usually the release of the Google branded phone heralds the release of much better specced phones from other manufacturers.
Hopefully by the time my contract runs out in about a year, there will be something worth the effort of upgrading to!
My partner bought this phone yesterday but can't find a way to disable the keyboard input vibration. The vibrate when typing option makes no difference whether it's ticked or not ticked.
Has anyone else come across this bug or am I just looking in the wrong menu?
Doesn't make too much of a difference to me. I've managed happily with my ageing HTC Desire with 8gb card in for some time now, never getting close to filling it. I've uploaded all of my music to Google Music and stream it, all day at work and at home in the evening over wifi. All still happily backed up in multiple places of course. All of my photos are backed up automatically to G+.
I digress though, the requirement for me to have a memory card slot is becoming less and less.
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