Review: Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a beautiful beast

by Asif Patel

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is both a beauty and a beast - packing a punch with great specs and horsepower in sleek and stylish form. Touted as one of the best Android smartphones in the market right now, the Galaxy Nexus is the first-born child of the latest Android operating system.

The phone which was released worldwide in December 2011, has been delayed in India, with the latest update from the company Twitter account saying that it will be available from March 2012. This review is based on theVerizon 4G phone that was released in the US.

Hardware and Design:

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The Galaxy Nexus comes in at a thickness of 9.47mm (0.37 inches) and weighs 150g - that’s 15g heavier than the GSM version and a half-millimeter thicker than its 8.94mm twin. The powered up 1,850mAh battery, adds the slight thickness and extra weight to this phone, but it also provides more juice than its GSM counterpart (the Nexus’ 16GB version), which has a 1,750mAh battery. The fact that it has 4G gives the Nexus an edge over the Apple iPhone 4S.

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The Nexus is a big phone, but it’s worth every inch. It has a 4.65 inch screen (with a curved glass display no less!) and two external buttons on the outside; a power button on the right, and a long and sassy volume rocker on the left. On the bottom of the phone is the micro USB charging port accompanied by the 3.5mm headphone jack and microphone. On the back of the phone, we have a 5mp camera and a speaker on the bottom. And for those who fancy self portraits (we’re not going to judge you!) and video calls, it also has a 1.3mp front facing camera.

Inside the solid plastic body is a sound 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The 4G release also comes with on-board storage of 32GB (the GSM model has a 16GB base), which is a boon for data and application lovers - especially since there’s no potential for a removable storage card.

And of course, we can’t discuss the Nexus’ hardware without drooling over that gorgeous 4.65-inch screen. It has a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels per inch and superAMOLED display- which means its resolution is better and more vivid than that of a phone with an LCD display. This black slab of beauty deserves almost full marks for the quality of its display screen which in addition to brilliant resolution, has a very efficiently responsive capacitive display. This makes viewing pictures, videos and streaming on it, a pure joy.

Software:

I scream, you scream, we all scream for some ice-cream. No, I’m not talking about Baskin-Robbins, I’m talking about something more desirable to all Android lovers - It’s none other than, Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0! This bad boy is the first phone to have the new version of the Android, right out of the box. And, Ice Cream Sandwich has much to offer.

The new OS, finally, yes finally, has customizable docks - one that has five icons. Of course, there have been launchers out there for a while that fulfilled this criteria, but having this inbuilt also means saving on some valuable space which you would rather use for an extra song or another app.

The phone also has three on-screen buttons - back, home and multitasking. They’re very user friendly and in some applications, for example YouTube, they disappear, giving you more screen real estate to watch your favourite videos.

Another welcome addition is the menu button. While the procedure to get into the menu tray is similar, the menu button has changed in form and accessibility. The menu button has moved to being an onscreen button within each app, provided the app (for example, the browser) requires the option.

Camera:

While the phone overall is a stunner inside out, there is nothing extraordinary about the camera. Its primary camera at 5MP is no different to what we have seen on similar Android devices. But its zero-lag shutter along with the ability to take panoramic photos is certainly welcome. And while the picture quality is nothing to write home about, it’s extremely useful for those with a requirement for continuous shooting, as it has absolutely no lag between two successive shots.

Bottom Line:

The Galaxy Nexus is a metaphorical synchrony ofthe name of its robust Android OS - it provides more than enough depth to satiate the appetite of a ravenously hungry Android lover, with just the right dollop of sweet manufacturing. It is the perfect culmination of the latest and best software, gift-wrapped in equally beautiful hardware. This rare combination makes the Galaxy Nexus a superior device, easily the best Android toy available in the market right now.

And yes, the Galaxy Nexus makes one believe that the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ can indeed have a happy ending.