Samsung Nexus S - Branded Gingerbread

Editor's note: The following review is mostly adapted from the earlier reviewed Google Nexus S. With an almost identical set of hardware specifications, we focused on the battery tests and its related performance since the Samsung Nexus S uses a 4-inch S-LCD instead of Super AMOLED display on Google's iteration. For those who've read the previous Nexus S article, you may jump to the battery performance page here and an updated conclusion here.

The (S)uccessor

Super phone. Smartphone. Call it what you will, the Google-branded phones have made a huge impact in the mobile arena over the last two years. Every year, Google makes a show of its Android improvements with an actual device, starting with the T-Mobile G1 (otherwise known as the ), followed by its very own (made by HTC again).

By the end of 2010, Google has formed numerous alliances and partnerships, forged through the need for its ever growing Android platform and its hardware partners to enjoy mutual gain. This is duly reflected in its market share, growing leaps and bounds to attain second placing, challenging the once dominant Symbian OS. Within the same year, we've seen a multitude of Android devices, but only a select few such as the got us excited at how the hardware and software alliance is finally showing tangible results.

With all the players gathered together, Google proceeded with its next act in the Android showcase. Aided by Samsung's manufacturing arm, the Google / Samsung Nexus S was borne, bearing a striking resemblance to the Galaxy S, in and out. This should mean a similar handling experience as what we got from the Galaxy S, right up to the backwards curved chin at the bottom.

A 4-inch screen is likewise found on the Samsung Nexus S. Instead of the same Super AMOLED technology that was implemented on the Google Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S, the Samsung Nexus S opts for an S-LCD display. This puts the Samsung Nexus S with an even thicker profile at 11.5mm, whereas the Google Nexus S came in at 10.88mm thick and the Samsung Galaxy S came in thinner at a mere 9.9mm. In reality, the difference is too negligible for one to even discern. The same can be said for the additional weight, which doesn't feel exceptionally heavier (140g) compared to the Google counterpart (129g) and the Samsung Galaxy S (118g).

Do not mistake the Nexus S as a direct clone of the Galaxy S, because there are some minute differences involved. One of the more obvious changes can be seen on the crown, which is now smooth and lacks any 3.5mm or microUSB ports. It has instead been shifted to the bottom, and the microUSB port lacks a slider cover to protect it like the Galaxy S did.

The glossy nature of the Galaxy S makes a return on the Nexus S. As such, fingerprint smudges will be a familiar sight across the device, made more prominent at the back. Removing the casing to reveal the battery is easily achieved once your fingers get a grip and hook onto the groove at the top to pry it open. Once we did, the noticeable missing element here is a microSD card slot. Fret not, because the Nexus S still comes with 16GB of internal storage, which should suffice to store your apps.

And that wraps up the aesthetic portion of the Nexus S. Given how similar it looks and feels against the Galaxy S, the burning question is – why not just purchase the Galaxy S? This is aptly answered with what you'll find underneath the device - Google Android 2.3 operating system. The details of this upgraded mobile OS can be found in the following Features page.

Baking the Gingerbread Android

As we've mentioned earlier, the Nexus S is a showcase of Google's latest mobile operating system. Officially known as Google Android 2.3, and dubbed as Gingerbread along its dessert naming line, it's just a few slight updates from its earlier Android 2.2 variant. As expected, existing features on Android 2.2 will be available on version 2.3, which includes wireless tethering and Adobe Flash 10.1 player support on the Nexus S.

To be honest, Android 2.3 is more of an answer to the needs of the developers, notably for game developers with the opening up of various APIs. To put it simply, developers now have a wider access to design their games, through various motion gestures via gyroscope and better graphics rendering with updated video drivers from the 2.3 update.

As a user, will the above updates matter to you? It does, when you look at the potential apps that'll pop up on the Android Market with these new features. Speaking of which, Android users might have noticed a distinct change in the Android Market layout. This is also true for the Android 2.3 platform, which gives you a better view of the featured and popular apps in the Android Market.

Independent of the app, the changes that will directly affect your user experience are still quite noticeable. On the home page, the immediate differences aren't apparent. Perhaps you might notice the slight change in its live wallpapers, and a black background for its notifications and home page against its apps will be more apparent. Once you click on the main menu, you'll see the same stock user interface as Android 2.2, including a scrolling menu with apps at the top and bottom edges just slightly visible. We spotted a slight change in the secondary menu, with a Manage Apps option now available.

Apps management aside, Android 2.3 brings some minor upgrades to the user experience. According to Google, the soft keyboard has been redesigned to optimize typing speeds and accuracy. For the former, we can't really agree. Accuracy, however, is more towards the auto-correct programming, which managed to rectify most of our spelling errors.

Multi-touch also plays an important role in the new keyboard. For one, you can simply hold the Caps or Symbol key and type the alternative key, and it'll revert to its original state. This is also aptly used for word selection, when a cursor is used to drag across a range of words to copy or paste.

This isn't the extent of the updates that are available on the Gingerbread platform. Some features, such as internet calling, isn't exactly a new feature that we are too impressed by. Others, like near-field communications (NFC), does have some potential if the right players are involved in your respective cities. NFC basically acts as a tag collector, and should you be in the vicinity of one, the tag will be fed into your phone, and with it, information about, for example, a shop's specialty or discount of the day. On the flipside, should this be viewed negatively, it could act as an avenue to infect your Android device. Nonetheless, we believe if you exercise due caution, this should pose minimal risk.

As we've mentioned, the Gingerbread updates aren't a huge leap from its earlier versions. Yet, you cannot discount the fact that every little bit counts, such as a Downloads app that lets you look through all your downloads via the browser, email or any application with one easy glance. Further to that, one of the main grouses we had with earlier Android versions was the lack of support for front-facing video cameras. This has been addressed earlier on, and the Gingerbread update gives its camera app the ability to swap between the various cameras on the device.

Powering the Nexus

The Nexus S essentially retains the same hardware specifications as the earlier Galaxy S. As such, you can expect a similar performance from its 1GHz processor. Over the past few months, the Android portfolio has grown significantly, and with it, a few standard benchmark tests have been established to give us a gauge of a device's performance.

Within this page, we'll be looking at two specific benchmarks, both of which are downloadable via the Android Market. The first of which is Quadrant, which measures 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.

The second benchmark, NeoCore, is targeted towards the device's GPU's performance. Though Quadrant does factor in GPU performance towards its final score, a separate graphics benchmark is especially crucial to assess the device's capabilities. This is especially important given how smartphones of today have evolved into an alternative, high-powered device that dabbles in heavy graphical interfaces and gaming. Similarly, NeoCore can be found on the Android Market. This particular benchmark targets the OpenGL-ES API to measure the device's capabilities in graphical rendering.

Do note that the above two benchmarks are not absolute in performance measuring, giving you a rough estimate of how the device performs. Our tests were conducted on devices from a fresh reboot, on a stock firmware. Depending on how you customize your device, you might get different numbers on different runs. With these results in place, we compared the scores against the Google Nexus One, its HTC counterpart, the HTC Desire, and the counterpart to the Nexus S, the Galaxy S.

There are two aspects to compare against when we look at the above scores. The Quadrant scores for both the Nexus One and Nexus S were slightly higher than its branded counterparts, the HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy S. Our money is on the use of a stock user interface for both Google phones. With the absence of a second layer of user interface enhancements, this could give its performance a slight boost.

The NeoCore results are a close match between the Google Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S, returning similar scores for the pair of devices. Looking at both the Nexus S and Nexus One, it's apparent that you would go for the former based on its higher scores for processor and graphics performance.

Numbers aside, we also considered how the device performed as we utilized its various features. Apps loading and multi-tasking are one of the main considerations, and the Nexus S did not fail to impress us with its capable multi-tasking. With no sluggish performance noted, what impressed us further was how smooth the screen transitions felt. This was especially noticeable when we accessed the menu, which was blazingly fast at the flick of our fingers. This is definitely in line with what we experienced with the earlier Galaxy S, thanks to the Hummingbird 1GHz processor within. In fact, the experience is much faster than before, which is likely attributed to the refinements brought along by the Android 2.3 OS.

The Gingerbread Man Show

Like all smartphones, the Nexus S is armed to impress with its variety of features. We take a more detailed approach towards it multimedia delivery to determine its capabilities as an all-rounded device. Though it has adopted an S-LCD panel instead of the Super AMOLED display used on the Google version and Samsung's earlier Galaxy S, we were still impressed by its richness and vivid colors. This is evident from the images that were displayed through the 4-inch display, making the viewing experience pleasant and easy on the eyes.

Video and audio playback from the Nexus S were a delight. We were able to view smooth video clips with decent frame rates even at awkward angles which would normally reduce the clarity of the screen. Its audio delivery did not have the kind of impact that matches its video performance, but that's not to say it is lacking in that aspect.

Equipped with a similar 5-megapixel camera as seen on the Galaxy S, we conducted our usual imaging tests to check on its resolution and color performance. Fortunately, we were greeted with impressive results that were also reported from the Galaxy S. On the resolution chart, both the horizontal and vertical LPH showed a reading of 1000, which is impressive considering its status as a mobile phone camera. Colors were well-balanced, with no oversaturation across the various hues, though it did look kind of subdued to our eyes.

Our final performance evaluation ends with the usual battery test, which pushes the Nexus S to its performance limit by looping a video at 240 x 320 pixels resolution with the screen brightness and volume at 100%. To simulate a heavy usage pattern, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection are active, while data is constantly streaming in via emails and Twitter feeds. The final results are compared against its predecessor, the Nexus One, with the Desire and Galaxy S tossed in due to their status as its counterparts.

Update: Due to the difference in screen technology between the Samsung Nexus S and Google Nexus S, we've updated our battery test to reflect the stamina of the Samsung Nexus S and its 4-inch S-LCD display.

Unfortunately, the decision to swap in an S-LCD display has a huge impact on the stamina of the Samsung Nexus S. Against its Super AMOLED cousins, the Samsung variant was at a distinct disadvantage, clocking in at only 351 minutes of continuous video playback. Notice how the portability index of the Samsung Nexus is also much lower? If you refer to the above comparison table, you might have notice that the Samsung Nexus S is slightly heavier at 140g, not to mention it's not as thin as either the Samsung Galaxy S, or for that matter, even the Google Nexus S. The latter isn't surprising, since the Google Nexus S has the Super AMOLED display to thank for its reduced profile. For those who've forgotten how a Super AMOLED display helps in these aspects, here's an excerpt from an :-

In more technical terms, the new 0.001mm-thick capacitive touch sensors are deposited between the panel's substrate and the bottom polarizer film. This translates to the elimination of the glass display, thus giving way to less reflective displays, brighter and clearer images and most importantly, lighter devices.

The earlier Google Nexus S reported greater results against the Galaxy S, and we've attributed that to a possibly better power management scheme on Android 2.3. This wasn't the case for the Samsung Nexus S, which presented lower than expected results against its siblings. In addition to the screen difference, various factors such as a different kernel and build, could also affect the battery performance of the Samsung Nexus S. While the Samsung Nexus S did not perform well in our intensive battery test, it got around the same one whole day mileage when usage was mixed in with standby, calls, messages, web browsing and multimedia playback.

(S)ucceeding the Android Spirit

A new year brings with it a new Google Android device, i.e. the Google / Samsung Nexus S. While the "S" was never specifically named by Google, we think the word 'successor' is a perfect fit. Of course, it's also a nod back towards the Samsung Galaxy S, since it is nearly the same device that was introduced by Samsung back in 2010. The follow-up Samsung variant with the S-LCD display is a sure indication of Android's popularity and adoption in the mobile industry.

Subtle differences do exist between these two Android devices.The more obvious change comes from the relocation of its microUSB and 3.5mm ports from the crown to the bottom of the Nexus S. The handling feels very much as you would get from the Galaxy S, right up to the rear curved edge.

A 1GHz Hummingbird (yes, the same chip used by the Galaxy S) powers the Nexus S. Running the show for its interface is the latest Google Android 2.3, otherwise fondly known as Gingerbread. Retaining the benefits from its earlier version 2.2 such as Adobe Flash support and wireless tethering, minor and maybe not too obvious improvements are implemented across the board. These include a shortcut to manage your apps from the sub menu and a quick switch from your rear to front camera for imaging purposes.

What really impressed us, was the smooth and swift interface when we interacted with the Nexus S. Using Android-specific benchmark apps such as Quadrant and NeoCore, the Nexus S returned scores that were higher than its Galaxy S counterparts. While it was heavily loaded with apps in the background, video playback was exceedingly smooth and had no discernible frame losses.

On the same track, even with a swapped S-LCD display, its multimedia performance was fine and dandy, with some decent audio performance to go with it. The 5-megapixel camera completes the multimedia suite, with sharp images and well-balanced colors found on its images. The downside is apparent when we got only 5.3 hours off the Samsung variant. Should you consider it against its Google Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S siblings, the Samsung Nexus S isn't able to match up to their 7+ hours lifespan. Yet, we can't deny that there are worse examples out there, smartphones that aren't even able to sustain up to three hours in our grueling test with similar specifications to the Samsung Nexus S. Even so, its stamina is still very dependent on one's usage pattern. With a single charge, it held out for nearly a day mixed with spurts of intensive usage and idle standby.

With all the hype over upcoming dual-core smartphones, you might find yourself sitting on the fence for the Google / Samsung Nexus S. While we've seen a fair share of those prototypes in action, we've yet to encounter enough of these phones in retail to pass a verdict (the only one we've tested so far is the and that didn't hold out too well in battery life). Till then, the Google / Samsung Nexus S has shown us what it's capable of and we're overall pretty satisfied with the a proper implementation of the updated Andorid OS. 

If you prefer the Google Nexus S over its Samsung variant, getting your hands on it will be a tough affair. Unlike the earlier Nexus One which was available for purchase via the Google phone site, the Google Nexus S opts to take the retailer route. Retailing at US$529.99 in the United States, you can use that as an estimate to search through sites such as Ebay or Amazon for potential sellers of the device.

Fortunately, the Samsung Nexus S is an easier target. Retailing at S$828 without contract, the Samsung Nexus S is also available under a two-year contract with the Singapore telcos. With it, you'll also get Android 2.3 available immediately on the Samsung Nexus S. And if you're adamant about staying with the Samsung Galaxy S (seeing how both devices are so similar), you can consider that option, if you're willing to wait for the.

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