Verizon Galaxy Nexus First Impressions/Reviews

[biggles6]

I am coming from a DX. These are my first impressions.

Pros
ICS is very slick.
No preceptible delay.
Performance is snappy and smooth.
Display is simply gorgeous.
Phone is slick and thin and light.
No problem connecting the phone to my laptop via USB.

My negatives so far:
Give me the option to have more than 5 home screens.
Put the menu button in the same place in every application.
Give the menu button some more space. Make it bigger.
Speaker volume is weak. When I have the system volume cranked, it ought to wake the dead.
Notification sounds seem to be experiencing some lag.
Need a 4G / 3G toggle widget.
Phone is slick and thin. Gonna need a skin to keep hold of it.
Power button should have been placed on top.

What I havent been able to test
Battery Life
Camera Quality
GPS

Mind you none of this is making me regret this phone. I will have to play with it some more, but I think it's a keeper. Most of what I consider to be cons can probably be takencare of via an update. I will maintain an open mind. This is a phone, not a concubine afterall.

What have I done to the phone? Much of nothing. Put the extended battery into place. No launcher. I want to give the native launcher a bit. I have put beautiful widgets and Android Pro Widgets into place. Other than the lack of more than 5 home screens and sliding home bar at the bottom, I may not put a launcher on here.

 

[biggles6]

How do you load beautiful widget on a home screen?

 

[Johnly]

In the app/widget tray, longhold and place.

 

[bplewis24]

My Nexus was delivered today and all I have to say is WOW. I absolutely love it. The screen is beautiful and destroys that of my soon-to-be-on-ebay Bionic, IMHO. ICS is everything I had hoped and dreamed for. Haven't had time to mess with it too much and I'm not going to begin getting into any real customization until after I unlock the bootloader and root tonight. I couldn't be happier right now though. That is all.

Yeah, this phone really is incredible. I'm enjoying it more with each passing hour. I hope they do improve signal strength if possible, because I have a feeling it would improve battery life even more (not that I'm having battery issues).

Brandon

 

[Thor Odinson]

I love this phone for its display and ICS, but I sadly will be taking it back because it has a poor speaker phone, poor signal strength, and poor call quality for my other party.

I live in Phoenix (Gilbert/Mesa) where we have had 4G for a while. At my house I get one bar and sometimes lose 4G, then it has to change to 3G.

I cannot ignore the poor speakerphone as it makes it difficult for me to LISTEN & TALK on this PHONE. My wife also says that she hates my phone because I sound robotic and she hears random noises.

I need a phone to be a phone first. The Nexus is an awesome ICS device but a crappy phone.

 

[jwsnj3rd]

Love love love it so far. Was scared of the size but its comfy. I do keep hitting the home button when typing a text but so far that is the only hurdle!

I got a screen protector at vzw....not great. Makes the screen dull. I will have to look into another option. I went naked on my Dinc2 and was impressed but heard that Samsung doesn't use quite as quality glass? First Sammy phone so not sure ?

Do you need a screen protector

 

[racedog]

I had fully intended yesterday to post a full comprehensive review of the Nexus based on my experience with it so far. I have decided not to do that after reading the over the top vicious comments being made in another thread to anyone who had anything negative to say. But, I will post a few thoughts here about the GN.

I was concerned about the size of the phone when I saw it but I'm finding that while it is big and the size is a tad annoying it is in no way a deal breaker for me and I'm willing to make the tradeoff in convenience for the extra screen real estate and quality.

ICS is a huge improvement over previous versions of Android but it is still not without its quirks. The biggest issue that I've found is with app compatibility. That is an issue that I fully expected from day one and am willing to live with that until apps have time to get updated.

My major issue with the GN are the radios. Both the phone and wifi! Yesterday, at the start of a huge winter blizzard here I had no phone connectivity. We are always somewhat marginal where we are but I've never had a phone not be able to connect to the VZW network even during severe thunderstorms, but now this phone left me stranded. It happened while I was talking to a VZW CSR on a small account issue and I immediately notified her about it (we were talking on a VOIP line, not the phone).

We use one of our RV's as a combination guest house, work area etc. and I've always been able to connect to our home wireless inside the RV. However, with the Nexus I only get sporadic and weak connectivity but my Asus Transformer is connected and jamming away with no issues while the Nexus is unable to connect to our home wireless.

While I love the GN overall, the radios (both phone and wifi) pose a critical and deal breaking issue for me. I have read that the radios are being worked on for a possible upgrade/fix. Right now I'm going to keep the phone until January 14th to see if that actually happens. What I've read seems unclear as to whether they plan to fix the radios or just change the way they handle the "bars" on the phone. Right now, inside my house, my GN is showing a -130dbm signal and my wife's HTC Incredible is showing -90dbm. That's a 40dbm difference in signal sitting side by side. That is NOT an issue of the bars not showing correctly, that is an issue of extremely poor radios.

Well, this ended up being longer than planned but still not a comprehensive review. Whether or not I keep the Galaxy Nexus is squarely in the hands of Google/Samsung and them fixing the radios. I would like to keep this phone because I love ICS, the screen etc. but for people in marginal areas like myself the radios are a huge deal, and without a fix, a deal breaker.

 

[bplewis24]

I love this phone for its display and ICS, but I sadly will be taking it back because it has a poor speaker phone, poor signal strength, and poor call quality for my other party.

I live in Phoenix (Gilbert/Mesa) where we have had 4G for a while. At my house I get one bar and sometimes lose 4G, then it has to change to 3G.

I cannot ignore the poor speakerphone as it makes it difficult for me to LISTEN & TALK on this PHONE. My wife also says that she hates my phone because I sound robotic and she hears random noises.

I need a phone to be a phone first. The Nexus is an awesome ICS device but a crappy phone.

The speakerphone and the phone call quality has been fine for me so far. No worse than my Bionic or OG Droid.

Brandon

 

[SuX0rz]

Pros

- Screen. Just amazing. I find myself changing my wallpaper every ten minutes just to look at it some more.
- ICS. I'm an Apple guy. I own an iPad, Macbook Air, and iMac. And while I loved the customizability of Android, it has always been ugly to look at. ICS (thanks Matius Duarte) now is as pleasing to look at as it is to play with.

Cons

-My only real con so far is the camera. It's maddening that Samsung/Google didn't put a better sensor in this thing. While it takes pictures faster than my Droid Inc (much much faster), the quality is about the same, which is a let down. If this phone could have the iPhone 4S sensor, man, I think it would be the best phone ever made.

 

[Honky Kong 64]

Yeah the camera is crap but so was the one on my og droid...as long as it doesn't lag i'm good. Coming from an OG Droid to this is great. Of course besides the camera I'm not digging the speaker volume but that is by no means a deal breaker. T/he phone is fast.

 

[jwsnj3rd]

Yeah the camera is crap but so was the one on my og droid...as long as it doesn't lag i'm good. Coming from an OG Droid to this is great. Of course besides the camera I'm not digging the speaker volume but that is by no means a deal breaker. T/he phone is fast.

ive been hearing alot of bad stuff about the speaker volume, not being able to hear notifications or missing calls cause its so low. do you find this an issue ? people on here have been talking about an app called volume + have you tried that.
i havent got my GN yet im hoping tomarrow but well see..

 

[racedog]

ive been hearing alot of bad stuff about the speaker volume, not being able to hear notifications or missing calls cause its so low. do you find this an issue ? people on here have been talking about an app called volume + have you tried that.
i havent got my GN yet im hoping tomarrow but well see..

The volume is low on mine, but for me that's not an earth shattering problem. I found it when I missed two calls from my wife. I downloaded volume+ and it helped some. I think part of the problem are the tones that come with the phone. It's not tough to make your own ringtones of a louder volume and then add them to the phone. For me its a small issue and a fixable one.

 

[Spacemaker24]

After reading through multiple threads over the past few days I have decided I am going to hold of another month and see if they get the bugs worked out of this thing. It will be painful because my current phone is such a colossal POS. But I don't want to spend $250 on something that has so many potential issues.

 

[Johnly]

After reading through multiple threads over the past few days I have decided I am going to hold of another month and see if they get the bugs worked out of this thing. It will be painful because my current phone is such a colossal POS. But I don't want to spend $250 on something that has so many potential issues.

So that is your review? ha ha, I kid! I had a droid eris, and every smart phone from the sgs2, Bionic, whatever... This device is set for the future. Android will never go back to hardware buttons. I for one like that this device has the hardware to support Androids bleeding edge OS in its correct form. I would decide for yourself. Haters would have me pass too, they say the sgs2 is better and whatever....I tried that, this nexus has great balls of fire.

 

[ManBearPig618]

Thought of the day: Youtube HD videos are unbelievable on this thing. I'm blown away.

 

[Bob Smugs]

I was missing calls while it was on my belt while driving in my car. Can't hear it ring, can't feel it vibrate. Voice quality was not on par with the rest of the device. After 2 days I returned it. I couldn't rely on the device to function properly as a phone.

 

[Johnly]

Thought of the day: Youtube HD videos are unbelievable on this thing. I'm blown away.

You are not even kidding. The display is so incredible........drooling.....cuz bush "sound of winter" kills on it.

 

[bplewis24]

Thought of the day: Youtube HD videos are unbelievable on this thing. I'm blown away.

Man, I can't believe I waited a full two days after owning this thing to watch Youtube HD videos. But yesterday a co-worker was asking to look at my phone and so I decided to show her some random Youtube vids, and my jaw dropped.

After that split second delay where the menu-controls go away and it goes to full screen, you can really see some quality detail. It's borderline amazing.

Brandon

 

[dsignori]

The volume is low on mine, but for me that's not an earth shattering problem. I found it when I missed two calls from my wife. I downloaded volume+ and it helped some. I think part of the problem are the tones that come with the phone. It's not tough to make your own ringtones of a louder volume and then add them to the phone. For me its a small issue and a fixable one.

This was a small issue for me as well, but Volume+ helped tremendously. I first tried around a +6 and it was just a bit better. I now use +10 and it is more than loud enough. I guess you are not having the same experience? I set it, then held the volume up key and it clicked in very loud. No problems since at all with volume ..

Overall, tremendously happy with this device. It is so rare that a device with such buildup can exceed expectations, but it did for me. I am overwhelmingly happy with ICS and this device ..

 

[MRW1215]

Okay, so I got my Galaxy Nexus yesterday, and spent pretty much the entire day setting it up and tweaking it to my liking. Today, I had my first day of actual use, and I think it did pretty well.

First and foremost, the battery life held up pretty well. I keep 4G on, use auto-brightness, turn off syncing (I'm perfectly fine with apps updating when I open them), and also use Juice Defender Ultimate. I had the phone off the charger for about six hours, with 20-30 minutes of web browsing, e-mail, etc. By the end of that six hours, I was only down to 90%. Pretty much the same kind of battery life I was getting out of my rooted Thunderbolt, so I can't complain. There will be days when my actual usage is a bit higher, but I suspect battery life will still hold up pretty well.

The stock launcher is pretty solid. I don't mind the permanent search bar, nor do I mind the lack of a scrolling dock. The only thing that kind of irks me is that folders limit the amount of items you can put in there. I suppose I've been spoiled by Go Launcher and their much higher folder size. I have tons of games, and I was hoping to make one "games" folder with all of them in it, but now I have to make a "Games 1", "Games 2", etc. setup. I also wish they'd allow you to use custom icons for apps, but I guess I can understand why they wouldn't allow that in stock.

Thus far, I haven't made or received any calls, so I don't know how well that works. I also haven't done much to use the speaker to have a valid opinion on that.

My biggest negative is the amount of trouble I'm having with connecting it to my computer to transfer media files to it. I managed to transfer over 50+ custom ringtones, but every time I try to transfer pictures to the appropriate folder, the transfer process just hangs and crashes my Windows Explorer. I did manage to also get 200+ wallpapers transferred over fine, but I can't seem to get my pictures from my old Thunderbolt to copy over to my Pictures folder on my Nexus.

One thing that has surprised me is that wifi seems to be much faster on my Nexus than it was on my Thunderbolt. I don't quite understand why that seems to be the case, though. For instance, I have a selection of songs in Google Music downloading to my phone over wifi (about two gigs worth). When I did this on my Thunderbolt, the download took over six hours. On my Nexus, it's only taken about half that.