Rezound or GN more for me?

[Apav]

Hey guys,

New to the forums here, I just wanted to ask a community of Android enthusiasts about which phone would be better for me. Here are my thoughts for each phone.

I'm coming from a Droid Incredible that I feel the touch screen wasn't very accurate for my big hands. I would intermittently get SD card errors where it thought I removed my SD card and it couldn't read it, and constant messages that would say vital apps like Touch Screen or Google services have stopped. I think it's time for a change.

I'm a basic user that needs a good smartphone to text without problems (a sleek feel and accurate input with typing-it always annoyed me on my Inc), to take pictures with, check facebook and browse the web without problems (Inc was unresponsive at times, and when I would try to type something in a box it would force scroll down and not go up to let me see what I am typing), check my personal and school email/documents, watch HD videos with netflix, a decent battery life to get me through the day and a good multimedia player so I can carry all my music on.



Galaxy Nexus vs. HTC Rezound
==========================
OS/Features: LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of the Galaxy Nexus OS. Not even so much ICS, but the Samsung Skin looks amazing! I'm tired of Sense, even though it is stable (well mostly- on my Inc facebook pictures wouldn't update in my contacts. I think the problem has something to do with syncing not working), it just looks so much more modern and sleek. I was at the VZW store today and the guy told me that it has a lot of issues with app compatibility, so that may be a problem. I know the Rezound's processor is faster, but I'm not sure if I'll see a difference in terms of responsiveness and that snappy feel. I'd like to think so however.

Build/Screen quality: I'm so indecisive with this one. Both feel right to me, the light feel of the GN or the sturdy and heavy feel of the Rezound, I'm not sure what to think. Also I kind of like the flimsy plastic on the GN, I often find myself taking off the back cover on my Incredible for no reason, bad habit I guess. I also like the rubberized feel of the Rezound as well. For the screen, I like the GN in the sense that it is bigger, but in terms of quality hands down goes to the Rezound. I heard that it was the first 720p screen of its kind. I guess 1080p videos and movies would shine there.

Camera: Rezound without a doubt. Theres no comparison there, with both a back and front facing camera with astounding quality. Movies just look so much better on the Rezound. I also heard surprisingly the mic is fantastic as well.

Music: Rezound as well. Its main selling point is the Beats audio integration, and the free $100 Beats headphones. Since I haven't experienced the 'Beats' difference, I'm not sure what to think of it. However I trust that they really went all out with the whole audio aspect, since it is their main selling point.

Call quality: I heard the GN has very low call volume and there is a large occurrence of signal problems. Is this true for most GN users? I heard the Rezound is fine though.

Battery life: I heard the Rezound has shorter life than what was expected of it, and that the Galaxy wins in this aspect. As long as I can get through a day of moderate texting/web browsing/some video to charge it at night, I should be fine.

Text input: Do you guys mind giving me a comparison about how you feel about each touch screen?

Basically, I like the Galaxy Nexus for its sleek OS/skin and hey, maybe it's good to change to something new (I have only had HTC phones in the past). However, besides the OS and skin, the better battery life (I think) and being unsure about which build quality is better, I feel that the Rezound is better at everything else. Whether or not the OS in the GN is important enough for me to decide over the Rezound, I'm not sure, but I'd like to hear your input guys.

Thanks for reading this long and I hope this was descriptive enough for my needs. Happy New Year everyone!

 

[yapkuen]

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of the Galaxy Nexus OS. Not even so much ICS, but the Samsung Skin looks amazing!

The Galaxy Nexus isn't skinned. What you see on the GN is stock ICS. If what you refer to as the "Samsung Skin" is what you've seen on other Samsung phones, you won't get that on the Galaxy Nexus.

 

[Apav]

The Galaxy Nexus isn't skinned. What you see on the GN is stock ICS. If what you refer to as the "Samsung Skin" is what you've seen on other Samsung phones, you won't get that on the Galaxy Nexus.

I just mean how the on screen visuals look:

I'm just tired of seeing this:

Not the phone itself of course, just the display on the screen.

 

[Apav]

I am pretty sure ICS on the Rezound won't look like how it does on the Galaxy Nexus at all. They'll still keep Sense, so it will still have that similar HTC look.

At least I think it is. If the Rezound is getting a whole makeover with ICS I know for sure what I'm getting then.

 

[yapkuen]

Ah, got it. Just wanted to make sure you weren't expecting to see TouchWiz if you unboxed a Galaxy Nexus and fired it up.

 

[Apav]

Ah, got it. Just wanted to make sure you weren't expecting to see TouchWiz if you unboxed a Galaxy Nexus and fired it up.

Is TouchWiz the OS?

I'm really not that savy with phones at all. I've been looking at many comparisons and a lot of people are talking about rooting and app launchers like LauncherPro, I have really no idea what that means.

I mean as far as I'm concerned I know rooting is like jailbreaking, but app launchers I have no clue what it does.

My needs are very consumer level, you could say.

 

[yapkuen]

Is TouchWiz the OS?

I'm really not that savy with phones at all. I've been looking at many comparisons and a lot of people are talking about rooting and app launchers like LauncherPro, I have really no idea what that means.

I mean as far as I'm concerned I know rooting is like jailbreaking, but app launchers I have no clue what it does.

My needs are very consumer level, you could say.

TouchWiz is the skin that Samsung applies to most of its Android phones, just as Sense (what you see on the HTC Rezound) is the skin that HTC applies to most of its Android phones. This is TouchWiz:

 

[budmonster]

I had a Galaxy Nexus for a week and a half, took it back a few days ago for the Rezound. I like my desicison so far. Some people are more picky than others, I'm extremely picky.

The volume on the Nexus was horrible to me, I missed phone calls all the time and could never hear when I received a text or message due to the low notification tones. I mean they are SILENT! There are apps out there to fix this, but you have to tinker around with settings to get your phone to where you want it. I didn't want to download a new app for every problem the Nexus had. I like my phone to be ready out of the box.

Camera on Nexus is manageable, but if your like me and use your camera a lot than I'd say go w/ the Rezound. I have a 2 year old and I don't have time to carry my real camera with me, LOL, so my phone's camera is important. Some say they don't care but thats BS. The Nexus take pictures extremely fast, I mean it's insane, one after another, bam bam bam. That was hard for me to say good bye too. But with my Nexus, if I didn't have good lighting my picture was horrible at night, even with the flash. Rezound's camera is simply better in the end.

The phones size was good and bad. Excellent for videos, etc. But people with smaller hands it's awkward to hold. I thought the Nexus had a better screen but that was me looking for things to complain about. Most people can't even tell, it's hard to notice a difference, you can't go wrong with either. I just like the size of the Rezound. When is a phone too big? Those are what tablets are for. Volume rocker and buttons are different on this phone so you constantly turning the volume up instead of locking the phone. That was a pain in the ass to me, picky I know. The Rezound's volume rocker/power button are hard to access sometimes also, there so level with the phone you can't find them quickly as you would like.

ICS is a great UI, but I think it got too much hype. I don't look at and say wow, this is a game changer for me, I must have ICS! It's really nice and some of the new features are awesome. But the Rezound is getting ICS soon, I heard end of Jan to mid Feb. Just a matter of time, I can wait. If you like ICS so much you can pretty much make your Rezound look just like a Nexus, easily theme your Rezound. Keyboard down to the clock. So if you don't like Sense or you think it's slowing your phone down, you can get rid of it completely. There are ROMs out already, called "Senseless". And there are devs working on ICS roms.

I mainly got the Nexus first because I didn't know if the Rezound would ever get root. Now the Rezound can be rooted, so the ROMs will be coming out very soon, some are out already but people are just starting to get on board. There should be a lot of development for the Rezound now since we are UNLOCKED.

HTC is known to have better built phones than Samsung, better call quaility, etc. I have several dropped calls on my Nexus, with my Rezound I was able to make calls in places I usually couldn't get a signal at. I don't know how much signal strength really matters but on my Nexus I averaged about -108 and on my Rezound I average -82. Lower number is better signal from what I've been reading. I do get around the same LTE speeds from both phones, but the Speedtest.net app isn't really trustworthy. But I can't really see a difference in 4G speeds.

The Rezound simple has the better hardware, you can use this phone for a long time, it'll still be considered fast a year from now. The Nexus is more of a "modder/hackers" phone, someone who is constantly switching ROMs, updating kernels and I have no clue about. Rezound is for an everyday user, can accommodate anyone really, but still has the specs/hardware/community to allow you too still root. Honestly, since the Rezound has root now, I feel it's the better phone at the moment, but not by much, barely...

Oh, if you get a Rezound make the buttons on your phone are RED, I got a Rezound with "pinkish" buttons. I don't know how common it is, some people have been complaining on XDA and other forums, but def check your phone out first and compare it with the demo units. I went to 2 corp Verizon stores and several phones where different colors. It really bothered me so I exchanged mine, which was a pain in the ass b/c most reps don't know anything about phones so they think your crazy, lol.

Good luck!

 

[Lodingi]

I had a Galaxy Nexus for a week and a half, took it back a few days ago for the Rezound. I like my desicison so far. Some people are more picky than others, I'm extremely picky.

The volume on the Nexus was horrible to me, I missed phone calls all the time and could never hear when I received a text or message due to the low notification tones. I mean they are SILENT! There are apps out there to fix this, but you have to tinker around with settings to get your phone to where you want it. I didn't want to download a new app for every problem the Nexus had. I like my phone to be ready out of the box.

Camera on Nexus is manageable, but if your like me and use your camera a lot than I'd say go w/ the Rezound. I have a 2 year old and I don't have time to carry my real camera with me, LOL, so my phone's camera is important. Some say they don't care but thats BS. The Nexus take pictures extremely fast, I mean it's insane, one after another, bam bam bam. That was hard for me to say good bye too. But with my Nexus, if I didn't have good lighting my picture was horrible at night, even with the flash. Rezound's camera is simply better in the end.

The phones size was good and bad. Excellent for videos, etc. But people with smaller hands it's awkward to hold. I thought the Nexus had a better screen but that was me looking for things to complain about. Most people can't even tell, it's hard to notice a difference, you can't go wrong with either. I just like the size of the Rezound. When is a phone too big? Those are what tablets are for. Volume rocker and buttons are different on this phone so you constantly turning the volume up instead of locking the phone. That was a pain in the ass to me, picky I know. The Rezound's volume rocker/power button are hard to access sometimes also, there so level with the phone you can't find them quickly as you would like.

ICS is a great UI, but I think it got too much hype. I don't look at and say wow, this is a game changer for me, I must have ICS! It's really nice and some of the new features are awesome. But the Rezound is getting ICS soon, I heard end of Jan to mid Feb. Just a matter of time, I can wait. If you like ICS so much you can pretty much make your Rezound look just like a Nexus, easily theme your Rezound. Keyboard down to the clock. So if you don't like Sense or you think it's slowing your phone down, you can get rid of it completely. There are ROMs out already, called "Senseless". And there are devs working on ICS roms.

I mainly got the Nexus first because I didn't know if the Rezound would ever get root. Now the Rezound can be rooted, so the ROMs will be coming out very soon, some are out already but people are just starting to get on board. There should be a lot of development for the Rezound now since we are UNLOCKED.

HTC is known to have better built phones than Samsung, better call quaility, etc. I have several dropped calls on my Nexus, with my Rezound I was able to make calls in places I usually couldn't get a signal at. I don't know how much signal strength really matters but on my Nexus I averaged about -108 and on my Rezound I average -82. Lower number is better signal from what I've been reading. I do get around the same LTE speeds from both phones, but the Speedtest.net app isn't really trustworthy. But I can't really see a difference in 4G speeds.

The Rezound simple has the better hardware, you can use this phone for a long time, it'll still be considered fast a year from now. The Nexus is more of a "modder/hackers" phone, someone who is constantly switching ROMs, updating kernels and I have no clue about. Rezound is for an everyday user, can accommodate anyone really, but still has the specs/hardware/community to allow you too still root. Honestly, since the Rezound has root now, I feel it's the better phone at the moment, but not by much, barely...

Oh, if you get a Rezound make the buttons on your phone are RED, I got a Rezound with "pinkish" buttons. I don't know how common it is, some people have been complaining on XDA and other forums, but def check your phone out first and compare it with the demo units. I went to 2 corp Verizon stores and several phones where different colors. It really bothered me so I exchanged mine, which was a pain in the ass b/c most reps don't know anything about phones so they think your crazy, lol.

Good luck!

Nice write up. Thank you for this information. I'm still on the fence. Love my Nexus, but the low signal & muffled call sound get annoying.