Verizon Galaxy Nexus First Impressions/Reviews

[guinnkevinr]

• Best android phone I've ever used
• I love how the screen is huge but the phone doesn't feel very large
• Wifi sucks down speeds like a champ
• LTE bars are low but the speeds are blazing fast
• Colors pop on the screen and everything looks beautiful
• My girlfriend is Jealous of all the attention I give my phone instead of her
• Music sounds great and Spotify runs like a dream
• Apps and Games load up super fast
• The browser is amazing
• ICS is amazing and a fresh take on Android
• Phone feels premium and not Plasticy like everyone is worrying about

 

[charveldude]

- Get beautiful widgets to replace the clock

- Dolphin browser for the browser

Thanks for the tips.

• 
  My girlfriend is Jealous of all the attention I give my phone instead of her

• 
  
  I suspect there's a lot of this going around right now.

 

[Jet300]

- Get beautiful widgets to replace the clock

- Dolphin browser for the browser

Dolphin hangs and force closes alot.

 

[Johnly]

Had mine off the charger for a little over 2 hours, almost time to charge it again. This should imorive with several cycles. The screen is organic, yes, imperfections do show throughout the OS. Camera isnt the best, and the speaker is underwhelming and crackles at times with certain sounds. Original droid and thr 4s sound twice as good and have better low sound production. I think the plastic is top notch, but it is still plastic, and I dont like plastic. I get lagg on certain apps like FB, but it is something i am used to with android. GPU is OLD. The phone is huge and a beast.
.
Now the good, ICS is an amazing OS. Multitasking on this is smooth. Thr OS is by far on to something great. I love the face unlock, and it actually works pretty darn well. Contrast ratio is out of this world good. None of that sells me, and the screen is controls are nice. What makes me want this phine is all the hacking roming rooting and code jamming that can be done, bar none that makes thisbphonrbthe "coolest" device out.

I am returning it, for 300 it just falls about 150 bucks short of what i will pay for it. It was fun though ooop, time to put it on the charger......

Update, swapped phones at verozon. Almost went back to apple. No way! My screen is perfect

 

[burwil]

One problem I never considered and I don't think has been discussed. Compared to my DroidX there is less screen real estate. When you consider that the google bar is atop of each page and the two rows of soft buttons on the bottom, the screen looks cramped. Side by side with the X, less screen real estate. This would be a bad.

 

[davey11]

I was thinking of taking the phone back mostly because I had probs with unlocking the bootloader.
It would just hang in the cmd screen when I entered the fastboot command. I had to manually install the driver in device manager as per Upstreammiami (sp?) advice.

Now that its rooted and cwmmed having just installed the Revolution rom, this is a keeper.

 

[wtherrell]

does anyone think the phone is hot? When im on a phone call I can feel the warmth of the phone on my whole face

Happens to me too. Feel like it is burning my ear.

 

[VickMackey#AC]

Re: Galaxy Nexus- First THoughts/ Opinions/Bugs

that is what vibrate is for. i havent had my volume past vibrate on my phone for 3 years. If you work in a professional environment this is key.

Your solution is to keep your phone on vibrate? Are ringtones the only use for speakerphone? What an apologist argument this is...

 

[VickMackey#AC]

Re: Galaxy Nexus- First THoughts/ Opinions/Bugs

I was just in the Verizon store and played around with the Nexus. The vibration is very weak. Rezound next to it was much better. Same with the speaker. Couldn't find a way to make notification light to light up, but has to be better than Rezound's pinhole sized one. Screen colors very good, but I can see dots, pixels, whatever on white pages. Must be Pentile effect. However, not nearly as annoying a Bionic Pentile effect. Photos looked good on screen and camera snappy like promised. ICS seems awesome. I'm bothered by vibration and speaker, but that may not be enough to stop me from getting this phone. I'd like Rezound if it were vanilla Android.

So the vibration is weak and so is the speaker? wth?? If it's one thing I love about htc phones is the massive vibration.

 

[politjunkie]

Love the phone, its a keeper but one thing I wish they had was better volume. The speaker and the earpiece blow compared to the thunderbolt.

 

[wtherrell]

Love the phone, its a keeper but one thing I wish they had was better volume. The speaker and the earpiece blow compared to the thunderbolt.

Volume + from market.

 

[zenit#AC]

First day Impression:

1. Awesome form factor and design, I love the look of not having any buttons or markings on the front of the phone
2. Decent screen. Not as good as the Charge, PenTile is still noticible but getting better with higher resolution. I can live with that
3. Speaker volume is low for notifications
4. Very mediocre signal strength - worse than Charge, alot worse than Thunderbolt - hope this gets fixed.
5. ICS is fantastic. What Android should have been long ago.

I like the phone so far, if signal issues get fixed, the phone would be absolutely fantastic. I got mine 2nd hand so can't return it anyway.

 

[DIE_JCL]

There is a video of a guy testing this new screen with a key and it resulted in no scratches....google and see for yourself. I personally like to keep my phones naked as in the past I had them all covered but now I prefer them stripped down!

 

[MessedUpTeen]

Wow i really like it ! Its really easy and simple to use. I soon as I took it out the box i noticed how flimsy the battery cover feels but i will get used to it. The screen looks great btw but what im most blow away with is the 3G speeds! Ive been getting constant 1.5mps which is something ive never seen on my old blackberry ! I will defiantly consider going 3G only to save battery life and simplify my day by not having to worry about charging my phone. Ive noticed people complaining about the speaker but i seemed fine to me. Not necessarily loud but it doesn't bother me. Wish there was a way to control LED notafication colors.

 

[phidelt1499]

First Impression: Love this phone. I came from the HTC Droid Eris (yeah yeah...) so it is a lightyear of an upgrade for me. It is a big phone, but that's what I was going for, but my wife's small hands don't like it.

My one gripe so far... The bookmarks menu of the browser are in a sub-menu of the tabs screen... seems like there should be a bookmarks button/menu right next to the address bar or something like that. Minor gripe, but certainly not enough to regret this purchase.

 

[CarryMe]

2. Decent screen. Not as good as the Charge, PenTile is still noticible but getting better with higher resolution. I can live with that

So the Charge is not pentile but lower resolution?

 

[davey11]

One thing that bums me out is there is no gps icon in the status bar.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[chevyguy8893]

First off, I'm coming from a Samsung continuum, so any phone is awesome in comparison. Anyways, first impressions of the galaxy nexus:

1) The phone is big, which doesn't bother me at all, but still somewhat thin even with the silicone case on it.
2) I love the HD display on this phone and the fact the home buttons go away when playing videos to make use of more screen space. First thing I did was stream, from two bars of 4G, Gymkhana 4 in 1080 from youtube. The picture was very clear and there was no buffering. Then I put an anti-glare screen protector on and that took away from the screen quality, but that is changing soon.
3) The audio from the earpiece almost sounds a bit tinny, but I text more anyways. The keyboard size is a very nice feature, even better when it is turned on it's side.
4) Audio output from the headphone jack is very clean sound, and the equalizer settings are plenty to be able to tweak the sound to how I wanted it. Plus, having al the jacks located on the same side is awesome to me.
5) I use wifi in my house and it does a much better job at picking up the signal than my previous phone or even my iPod touch.
6) The phone is very fast to me for multitasking which is a big plus considering my phone replaces my laptop when I don't have it.
7) Battery life is better than I am used to, but under heavy use it drains pretty quick which was to be expected. I may try out the extended life battery here soon to see if it helps out much.

Overall, I am very happy with the phone and how well it functions. It comes up short in some areas to some, but nothing is ever perfect. In the end I don't regret buying the phone at all.

 

[sc4fpse]

One thing that bums me out is there is no gps icon in the status bar.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

There actually is, but the behavior has been changed from previous versions of Android. Rather than the GPS icon being grouped on the right hand side of the notification bar with the signal strength, network indicator, and clock, it is now a general app icon and grouped on the left. Open up the Speed Test app, for example. You will see the GPS icon show up on the left until it gets a lock. At the same time, a notification will be displayed in the notification dropdown saying that it is attempting to get a GPS lock.

 

[CarryMe]

Shoot any comments, questions, or concerns you have my way! I'd be happy to answer them.

-Elo

How's the reception/signal strength? Any dropped calls?