Samsung Galaxy Nexus - The Next King

The Planets Have Aligned

It's the time of the year for the Nexus smartphone - and similar to last year, Samsung takes the lead with a brand new Galaxy Nexus smartphone. It's been a pretty excruciating wait for us folks in Singapore; while most major markets have already been selling the Galaxy Nexus since late year, local telcos have only started stocking them up since Feburary 2012.



Nonetheless, the long-awaited device not only ranks high in terms of hardware specs - 4.65-inch HD AMOLED Plus screen, 1GB RAM, dual-core 1.2GHz processor - but comes with an OS update that every Android fan has been hawking for: Google's latest dessert-themed iteration, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system (OS). Will the Galaxy Nexus be as popular as Samsung's other smartphones in the Samsung Galaxy S series? Or will the phone only attract Android purists who are interested in the phone solely for the OS?

 

Right off the bat, the Galaxy Nexus' 4.65-inch Super AMOLED screen with HD resolution takes center stage on the phone. Like how most phones are designed these days, the device sports a minimalist look from the front. This is more pronounced on the Galaxy Nexus however - as you will notice, there are no hardware buttons to be seen - as the Android 4.0 OS is designed as an on-screen-button system.

The Galaxy Nexus is not a diminutive phone by nature; in fact, with measurements like 135.5 by 67.9 by 8.9mm, it lords over most of its peers out in the market. Fortunately, these figures don't reflect in its girth and weight. The phone is comfortably slim and light at 135g, making it comfortable to hold and easy to slide into your pockets. Like its predecessors, the Nexus is slightly curved at its end at the bottom for a firmer grip.



While the smartphone is predominantly plastic, it is still extremely well constructed and sturdy. Most importantly, it keeps the weight in check, which is a plus in everyone's books. Overall, our contact with the Galaxy Nexus has been a positive one, despite its gargantuan touchscreen.

Thawing the Ice (Cream)

One of the major selling points of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is undoubtedly the ICS Android 4.0 OS. The presence of Google’s newest update not only serves as a cornerstone for the introduction of new technologies (facial recognition, NFC-based Android Beam), but more importantly, as a platform that bridges the differences between Android smartphones and tablets. The Android OS is infamously known for its fragmentation and we see this as a positive step taken to make the user experience as seamless as possible.



Hence, it is unsurprising to see traces of the Honeycomb 3.0 OS in Android 4.0 operating system. The smartphone experience slightly differs from the one on a tablet, so head down here if you are interested to know how the OS works on a slate. For those looking for a short overview on the different OS and what they offer, do take the time to check out our breakdown here.

Similar to HTC Sense 3.0, the new lockscreen allows users to do two things - unlock your phone or start up your camera by sliding to the appropriate icon. The new Face Unlock feature lets users unlock their devices with their faces and the team took a quick shot at the Face Unlock feature when we first got our hands on the smartphone.

We found that while the Face Unlock process was extremely speedy and fuss-free, it was easily bypassed by using a picture (printed or on a screen). Our advice is to turn off the Face Unlock feature; if you are looking to secure your phone with a screen lock mode, select Pattern, Pin or Password instead.

The row at the bottom is reserved for three on-screen buttons - Back, Home and the Recent apps. A Menu icon button (in the form of a small tab on the right with three dots) will make an appearance, but only in apps that require it. On top of it is a dock that's coined as the Favorites tray.

There are four shortcuts that you can customize here (you can add or remove them just like the regular shortcuts) and you can also add folders here. Folders are simple to create - simply drop another shortcut on top of another. You can name the folder by editing the "Unnamed folder" label. Then tap on it to take a look at the folder's contents.

The main page now has two tabs - Apps and Widgets, allowing users to easily access and place widgets on the homescreen, just like how it is in the Honeycomb OS. Press on them to place it on the homescreen. Android widgets can be resized in the Ice Cream Sandwich OS, though some phone manufacturers have already implemented this in their user interfaces. Simply long press on the widget and release it. You can usually resize them both vertically and horizontally. Want to remove an app shortcut or folder? Simply long press the object and drag it to the dustbin icon at the top.

Earlier Android versions require you to perform multiple steps to access the task manager within settings. The Recent apps list, however, trims this down to one step: simply kill apps by swiping it to either side. It looks similar to the Honeycomb's own apps list, where thumbnails of running apps are shown in a vertical scrollable list.

To do a screen capture, simply long press the power and volume down buttons together. After capturing it, you can easily access the image from the notification bar. The screenshots are saved in a folder that's easily accessible from the Gallery App.

Benchmarking the Samsung Galaxy Nexus

To give readers a gauge of what to expect in terms of performance from the Galaxy Nexus, we'll be using Quadrant, which is downloadable via the Android Market, to measure the device's performance based on its CPU, I/O and GPU. Simply put, Quadrant is a benchmark that gives you a general idea of how your device performs against other Android devices. Do note that the benchmark is not absolute in measuring performance, but it gives you a rough estimate of where the device stands against the competition.

Our tests were conducted on devices from a fresh reboot on their respective stock firmwares. To show how the Galaxy Nexus performed against similar smartphones, we compared its results against the following high-end Android devices - Motorola Razr, HTC Sensation XE, and Samsung Galaxy S II.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus comes equipped with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, which puts it on par with the Motorola Razr and the Samsung Galaxy S II in these two aspects. Typically, dual-core devices tend towards a score of over 2000 points on Quadrant and manage an average of 60fps for Neocore benchmark results. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, however, scores a relatively low 2048 with its predecessor scoring almost twice of that.

Fortunately, its actual performance isn't reflected by the scores. Overall, the Galaxy Nexus performed admirably when it came down to real life usage such as surfing the web or running apps, be it apps like Facebook or games like Angry Birds, Clouds and Sheep and the 3D-rendered Dungeons Defenders. However, the user experience is bogged down by frequent sudden closing of apps. We hope it's just a matter of small bugs, an issue that often comes hand-in-hand with a new OS.

Multimedia Performance

There's no questioning it - the Samsung Galaxy Nexus's 4.65-inch Super AMOLED screen with HD resolution is gorgeous and it's no exaggeration when we say that it's unrivaled. It comes with excellent colorful reproduction, contrast and good viewing angles under the sunlight. Samsung phones have traditionally been outfitted with AMOLED screens and they have contributed positively to battery optimization with their higher level of power efficiency.

The other notable feature of the phone is that the phone is one of the first in the market to come with a screen resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. We do have a slight complaint here though - on the highest brightness level, the screen is a tad too bright; conversely, it comes across as extremely dim to a point of absurdity when the brightness is entirely turned off. 

We were pleased with the overall photographic competency for the Galaxy Nexus; that's not to say that there weren't any flaws. For starters, we found that colors could get a tad over-saturated; some photos turned out too 'soft-focused'; shots taken in low light could get overly noisy; photos sometimes ended up flat with less details. Our suspicion is on the aggressive built-in image stabilizer software.

On the other hand, its super-fast auto focus and zero shutter lag were welcomed features, allowing us to take accurately focused shots that we might have otherwise missed. Generally, the Galaxy Nexus displays bipolar tendencies when it comes to camera performance; sometimes, we found ourselves with pretty bad shots. Thankfully, most of the time that was not the case.

Battery Life Performance

Our final performance benchmark is our regular battery test. This consists of comparing the smartphone to a select group of devices chosen based on their similarities across battery capacities, display sizes, resolutions and processing power. Our testing methodology involves testing a video with a 480 x 800 pixels resolution looping under the following conditions:

• Screen brightness and volume at 100%

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections active

• Constant data stream via email and Twitter

We compared the phone based on primarily two sets of attributes: processing power and screen size. The devices in question include the Motorola RAZR, iPhone 4S, HTC Sensation XE, and Samsung Galaxy S II.

If there's one area that we weren't impressed with, it's in the Galaxy Nexus' battery life. It is the second to last in the group with 329 minutes, about 170 minutes lesser than its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S II. Naturally, its power consumption is the second highest out of the group at 1.18, losing to all contenders except for the HTC Sensation XE (1.56).

Perhaps the Android 4.0 OS is not as battery optimized as we would like to think. The large 4.65-inch full HD screen is probably the other reason so as to why the Nexus didn't perform as well as we thought it would.

Needless to say, its battery life to (weight x volume) ratio had been severely handicapped by its mediocre battery life despite its relatively slim proportions and light weight. The battery performance is a far cry from the Samsung Galaxy S II; a shame since the latter was released about a year ago. It is only natural to expect the Galaxy Nexus to supersede it in this aspect.

To give you a real-world gauge, we observed that the phone could last for at least a full working day, with emails and Twitter feeds pushed constantly to it. Other activities included occasional web surfing and calls.

In With the Stars... Or Not Quite

There's plenty to like about the Samsung Galaxy Nexus: its gorgeous and spacious 4.65-inch AMOLED Plus 720p screen, speedy navigation, and last but not least, the fact that it's armed with the long-awaited ICS OS. While its design is nothing to shout about, the smartphone itself is thin, light and well-constructed. These factors contribute to an overall pleasant usage experience.



On the other hand, there were things we didn't quite like about the device. Given the fact that it is one of the newest smartphones in town, we expected better battery mileage and superior camera performance. In these two areas, it is defeated by quite a fair amount by the Samsung Galaxy S II, a phone that was released about a year ago.

However, the main factor that would deter potential buyers from purchasing it is its delayed availability in Singapore. Users could only get them with bundled plans from telcos in February this year, a full three months after its launch in other parts of the world. By then, news of existing Android devices getting the ICS treatment had already started filtering in (HTC, Motorola, Sony Mobile, LG, Samsung).

Rumors and allegations of powerful Android 4.0 quad-core smartphones making their presence known at MWC 2012 in late February have probably also cast a shadow over the Galaxy Nexus. To further add fuel to the fire, articles about the have been circulating on the Internet.

If you already own an Android phone that's on the waiting list for the ICS upgrade, we suggest for you to hold your horses on the Nexus purchase; chances are, you will not see a marked improvement in your mobile experience. If you are not hard-pressed to get a smartphone, the best thing is do is to wait up a couple of months for more powerful Android 4.0 smartphones.

Otherwise, the Galaxy Nexus is good enough for day-to-day use if you have the extra cash to splurge; the more affordable option for those who need a smartphone right now is the slightly dated but highly functional Samsung Galaxy S II (chances are, you'll save at least a couple of hundred bucks). Best yet, the smartphone is slated for an upgrade to ICS in March.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.