Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless)

1. 275 of 290 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Not the pinnacle of new technology, but Android perfection (for now…), December 15, 2011

   By 

   Nathaniel Allen (Oakland) –
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)

   There are phones with bigger screens (Galaxy Note), faster CPUs and GPUs (Rezound), thinner profiles (RAZR), more memory and longer battery life, but the Galaxy Nexus (Verizon’s LTE version) puts a respectable amount of everything together into one package, and leaves me practically nothing to complain about.

   IN SUMMARY: This may turn into one of my longer reviews, so in a nutshell: BIG, but comfortable to hold, though begs to be used with two hands. Screen is awesome (bright and crisp) & keyboard is accurate. No problems with signal coverage. Average volume levels. Smooth & fluid Android interface feels polished. Camera very good, but vid cam has a lot of issues. “Typical” LTE battery life i.e. widely variable depending on usage, AT BEST a whole day on one charge.

   Android 4.0 Operating System:

   Outstanding: The OS feels integrated, speedy and mostly intuitive. Face unlock isn’t just a gimmick, it’s mostly reliable (though not in bad light), and it’s very swift in getting me to the home screen. Swipe-like gestures similar to Palm’s failed Web OS are carried over to manage and switch recent apps. The ability to expand widgets and personalize screens is not only fun, but really useful — for instance, I set up a screen for “home” where I’m more interested in the weather, Facebook & G+ updates, and feeds from my bike forum, whereas my “work” screen has quick access to certain web sites and apps that I use regularly. Icon animations for screen transitions are subtle but just enough to give the front end interface a sort of 3D effect. The selection of “live” backgrounds is neat, but a few of the more graphically intensive ones slow the phone down just a bit — and as great as they look, I still opt for corny (and static) photos of the kids. Hopefully, this being a Nexus device, new OS updates will come regularly and quickly from Google, without delay from Verizon — but be aware that this may be a bit of a beta device since it sees the first wide distribution of everything.

   You’ll need to know that because the operating system is new, there will initially be application incompatibilities. This isn’t a knock against the Galaxy Nexus — it’s something early adopters of a new platform should expect. I expect this to last only a short while, because new Android 4.0 devices are in the pipe for release in the coming months.

   Phone & Signal:

   For starters, I like 4.0’s big “clean” dial pad. And it’s also easy to dial from any of my contacts, as they culled from all sources (personal Gmail, company email via Exchange, G+). But I prefer to use voice dial because I’m often driving when calling, and I’d prefer voice confirmation ala BlackBerry (Android 4.0 still requires me to look at the screen to confirm). External speaker sound quality is loud enough for most uses, but just slightly quiet & flat compared to other phones (not a problem over my Bluetooth visor-mounted speakerphone or headset), and my voice quality is apparently clear and loud on the receiving end. I live and work in a well covered urban area, so signal strength is rarely a problem with any phone. However, I do have a couple of “dark spots” in the remote areas of where I work, and the GN hasn’t dropped a call on me yet. LTE coverage has been equally strong with fantastic data speeds, fantastic, *but* Verizon’s 4G antenna is literally attached to the building I work in. It’s not enough to say “faster than dialup” as in some respects it is faster than my home cable (longer latency times, however).

   (Note 1/22/12: There have been numerous reports (confirmed by Verizon) of signal problems in either fringe coverage areas or inside buildings. I, personally, have not experienced any problems with this either with dropped voice calls (CDMA/1X) or dropped data connections (LTE/3G) BUT there is a short “no data” time out when the phone switches from LTE to 3G, or vice-versa. HOWEVER, out of curiosity checked my 3G signal strength in Settings > About (LTE must be switched to OFF to read 3G signal strength, otherwise 4G reception will be displayed) and observed the Nexus consistently -10 to -15 dBm WEAKER than some other Verizon Android & BlackBerry…

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2. 80 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Best Verizon Phone Ever, December 17, 2011

   By 

   Timothy Swann –
   
     

   This review is from: Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)

   Hardware & Form Factor:

   A lot of the reviews of the GSM version claimed that the phone felt big in people’s hand and that some people had trouble with one-hand operations, however I don’t see this to be the case. I have had no trouble using this phone in one hand. It fits comfortably in my hand, and the phone is incredibly light. While the RAZR might also be light, because it is slightly wider, it did not feel as comfortable in my hand.

   While this phone may not have the same high-end processor that is found in the HTC Rezound, the 1.2 GHz dual-core processor combined with Android 4.0 makes this thing lightning fast. (Update 1/17/12: My research has informed me that the processor in the device can actually clock up to 1.5GHz. You can get speeds higher than 1.2 GHz, but you must unlock your bootloader and flash a custom kernel. There are a few that overclock to 1.35 GHz since that is what has been found to be the highest speed that remains stable. Do this at your own risk.)I have found no lag in anything. At times, launching the camera application takes a few extra seconds, but it is really not too bad. Overall, launching apps is the fastest of all of smartphone out there (and yes, this is faster than the iPhone 4S). Since I’ve already mentioned the camera, I’ll mention it now. It takes very good photos, but not quite the quality of pictures that the iPhone 4 or 4S is capable of. While it is only a 5MP camera, REMEMBER that MP is not the whole story because the light sensors are even more important. That being said, this takes very good photos and make this a good point-and-shoot camera, just not great.

   While some people don’t like the plastic feel that Samsung chooses to use, it feel very sturdy! If you need to take the back cover off, it comes off fairly easily, but snapping it back in is somewhat annoying. But keep in mind, how often will you really need to take off the cover. Because the phone is made of very high-quality plastic, it is much sturdier than the iPhone. Yes, the iPhone may have more of a premium feel to it, but to make a phone that has glass on the front and back of the phone, you will very scared of dropping it for fear of cracking the glass. And if you crack the glass on the iPhone, it is not covered by insurance.

   I have two assessments of the speaker on this phone. For phone calls, it’s great, whether you have it on speaker phone or not. However, if you try to watch a video or listen to music on it the speaker could be louder, but the fact that the speaker is on the back of the phone plays a factor in why it could be louder. . Let’s remember this though, this is a phone so in that respect the speaker is great!

   Display
   The Display is absolutely amazing! It’s crisp, and the color saturation is incredibly. I’ve never seen a display quite like it. It is on par with the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the HTC Rezound. While the Rezound technically has the highest ppi, the 315ppi on the Nexus is amazing. You can adjust the brightness to save some battery life, and even on low the picture looks as good as is to be expected, but I’ve chosen to leave it on full brightness because the screen is just that pretty. At time I find myself switching to the auto-brightness setting which I find is very helpful. Since I have always used my cells phones as my alarm clock, the auto-brightness makes it easy to actually look at the phone when the room is dark after I’ve just woken up. Because the screen is amazing I am willing to leave it on full-brightness most of the time, except when I go to sleep becasue I don’t like being blinded when I have to either snooze or dismiss my alarm.

   Camera:
   I know I’ve already mentioned the camera a little bit, but since most reviews line item this separately, I will do the same. Yes it’s only 5MP, but MP aren’t everything. As I’ve mentioned, the light sensors are more important. It is a little disappointing to see that Samsung didn’t inclue the 8MP shooter they use on their Galaxy SII brand becasue that phone takes some pretty good photos as well. After spending a decent amount of time playing with the camera, I find that in perfect lighting, this thing takes great pictures, but other than that, it struggles to take a high quality picture. This still doesn’t change the fact that it can take very good pictures, but it’s just not what you would have expected in a flagship phone, especially since pictures from the Galaxy SII takes better pictures. Kind of a bummer. However, you can play with the settings as needed to get what I think can still be a very good picture, but not great.

   Google really made us aware of the zero shutter lag that comes from the software and camera. I’ve tested this several times and demoed it to a lot of people that didn’t quite believe. I could shoot off about 10 photos in like 2-3 seconds. That’s pretty fast!

   This thing can also shoot in 1080. Now if you…

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