Alright Mike, any smartphone will always have apps running in the background, these are due to the apps permissions, like for instance a CNN App with a breaking news or live news feature will always need a data connection and a location connection, you can turn these off in the settings which will limit the apps ability to use this function, it will ask you to turn these on when you enter the app but as soon as you're done you can turn them off. Using just WiFi and Mobile Network Location should be enough for most apps, and it uses much less battery power than using the phones GPS satellites. The issue you described about your battery charging indicator could be a hardware or software issue, I have a LG Nexus 4, which is the next step up from your Samsung Galaxy Nexus and I had the same problem with my old Nexus 4 until it got to the point where I was rebooting like 5 times a day to get the correct battery reading. I just sent it back to Google and I recieved a new device. You can return yours to wherever you bought it from and say it is defective. Before returning though, try doing a complete factory data reset, then check for a new system update. You should have Android 4.2.2 since it is a Nexus device. You can check this by going to settings>about phone> then the last 2 or 3 options should show which version of Android you are running, there should also be an option for system update checking. If you have the most recent version of Android (4.2.2) then it is most likely a software or hardware issue with that particular phone, (they happen sometimes), just return it and get a new device since it is defective. All of this "tweaking" you've been reading about is not necessary, people do it as a hobby and to make their phone "theirs", you're phone is just an unlucky one out of the bunch and might need to be replaced, but when you do have a good working one then it will be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Committing to a data plan is not necessary, just turn off your data connection to your carriers network and no app will be able to use it until you get onto WiFi, but remember for Google Maps, or any maps app you MUST have data for it to work, so if you don't need maps, and already have a GPS or something of sorts you'll be fine with turning data off in the settings and just connecting to WiFi.
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