Galaxy Nexus Review VS. Galaxy S II LTE

Happy Friday ya’ll!

Now that I have had my Galaxy Nexus for a full week, it’s time I write my review based on my finding and experience. When writing my reviews, I also compare it to my previous phone. My previous phone, in this case is the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE from Rogers. If you missed my review on the Galaxy S II LTE, you can find it here

Physical Design:

The physical design of this phone is what a common Galaxy user would expect. Upon first impression, it feels a little light and flimsy. For those who follow me on Google+, you will know that I actually dropped my Galaxy Nexus the first day I got it. The damage was minor; a small scuff on the corner and minor scratches near the front camera. Luckily nothing too serious happened, but was good knowledge for writing this review. Having dropped my phone, I can honestly say it’s built strong.

The back of the phone is pretty much what you would expect. It has it’s camera in the center of the backside, slightly recessed to prevent damage while laying down. The speaker is in the center of the bulge at the bottom of the phone. On previous Galaxy phones, you would traditionally see this speaker off to the side. This decision to move it to the center is an interesting way to design it, but I find it a little troublesome. I somehow end up accidentally covering it with my hands while holding it, thus blocking the sound that should be coming out.

The face of the phone is absolutely beautiful. It is clear of all branding and logos, so all you see is the solid black screen. There are no physical, or touch sensitive buttons on the face of the Galaxy Nexus. Cutting out these buttons allows the screen to extend a little farther down the chin than we are use to seeing. Naturally, the speaker, light sensor and proximity sensor are at the top of the phone. A great addition returns to the Google flagship phone as well; a LED light on it’s chin. There is a Micro USB port at the bottom of the phone, with pogo pins on the right side. Currently there are no available docks to make use of the pogo pins on the market (to my knowledge) but surely we will see some very soon.

 

Performance:

The Galaxy Nexus brings some impressive hardware to the table. 1.2Ghz dual core processor, 1GB of ram, 16-32GB of internal space. With specs like that, it’s no surprise this phone is pretty fast. Not only is the hardware pretty quick, it is also accompanied with the new edition of Ice Cream Sandwich. This adds so many more features to navigate users where they want to go in a hurry.

Scrolling through menus on ICS is a real treat. Not only is it a pleasure to look at, it is backed by the Galaxy Nexus’ hardware. There is no hesitation at all.

Comparing Galaxy Nexus to the Galaxy S II LTE in the performance department is pretty simple. Both phones perform with very quick and snappy menus and UI. Obviously the Galaxy Nexus comes with Ice Cream Sandwich(4.0.1), where the Galaxy S II LTE come with Gingerbread (2.3.5). Because the Galaxy Nexus comes with Ice Cream Sandich, I have to give it the edge. Ice Cream Sandwich just makes the overall experience and functionality, while still keeping its snappy UI that we all know and love.

 

Sound and Media:

The Galaxy Nexus’ speaker on the back of the phone delivers a decent quality sound, but sounds a little tinny at times. The volume was never as high as I really wanted it to be. This actually caused some of my notifications to go unheard in a low to moderate noise environment. Watching something like Netflix outside or common area is very hard to hear. The Galaxy S II LTE on the other hand, has a very high maximum volume and a much fuller sound. Turning the volume up to 100% caused the phone to vibrate slightly due to the loud speaker.

The Galaxy Nexus makes up for its lack of volume with an agressive vibration mechanism. This aggressive vibration was my saving grace for when I couldn’t hear my phone while in my pocket.

The Galaxy Nexus only comes with 16GB internal storage for Canadians.  The 32GB version is only available in the LTE version of the phone, which will not be coming to Canada. Though 16GB might be enough for the average user, some of the more heavier users may find themselves at a loss. After you take out the portion for apps and a little for the partition, only 13GB is accessible to the user. The Galaxy Nexus does not support expandable storage via MicroSD chips, so what you got is what you get.

In sound and media, I have to give the edge to the Galaxy S II LTE. The sound is more rounded out, with less of a tinny sound. As well as being able to provide a very loud maximum volume. The Galaxy S II LTE is also able to expand its its storage with a MicroSD chip, up to 32GB.

 

Battery Life:

I have read reports of other blogs and websites praising the battery life of the Galaxy Nexus. I strongly have to disagree. I am a moderate to heavy user most of the time. My average day consists of 8 hours of bluetooth streamed music, 40+ texts, 20+ short emails, checking Google+ 10 +/- times a day and 30-60 minutes of web surfing. All with using about 2-3 hours of screen time. The Galaxy Nexus was the first of many phones to not meet my personal requirements. If my phone dies before the end of my work day, I cannot speak highly of it.

After my 8 hours of bluetooth streamed music, I got home after work with about 40-50% battery life. This gave me slightly less than half a battery to get me from 3PM to bed time. During that time, I do my small amount of browsing, text, email, etcetera. My phone would die out around 7PM on moderate use. The battery seemed to drain very easily even during minor tasks, also during sleep.

One thing that really caught my attention was the amount of RAM occupied when nothing was running. On average the Galaxy Nexus would have 300MB+ of used RAM, with about 300-350MB free. This seemed very high to me, as all my previous phones would run around 150MB used and 550MB free. This makes me wonder if the high RAM occupation is the result of some of the higher than usual battery drain on the Galaxy Nexus.

When it comes to battery life, I have to give the edge to the Galaxy S II LTE. Even with its LTE radio in action, I still get a much longer lasting battery than the Galaxy Nexus. Galaxy S II LTE has never fallen short, even during some of my more excessive days.

 

 

Optional Rooting:

Both Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy S II LTE are both able to be rooted. I rooted the Galaxy S II LTE to cut out bloatware, but I did not root the Galaxy Nexus, as I felt it was unnecessary. Ice Cream Sandwich, which is found on the Galaxy Nexus, already has the ability to cut out bloatware all on its own.

Currently there are no 100% stable custom roms for either phone.

 

Network:

Both Galaxy S II LTE and Galaxy Nexus are capable of speeds up to 21mbps as advertised, but obviously only the Galaxy S II LTE supports the LTE network in Canada. The LTE version of Galaxy Nexus will not work in Canada, as we use a different band. For those reasons, I give the edge to the Galaxy S II LTE

 

Camera Quality:

The camera on the Galaxy Nexus is nothing short of amazing. While testing, I was able to snap about 3 pictures per second. One thing it suffers from, is your own shaking hands. Because of it’s ‘zero shutter lag’ any movement during the time you touch that button will result in a blurry picture. That aside, pictures come out clear and crisp, but a steady hand goes a long way. Recording videos is crisp and offers video stabilization for front and rear camera. The overall quality is superb.

Galaxy S II LTE Camera has a wide screen option which I really liked, but of course your not going to be able to snap pictures in an instant. I found the overall picture quality on the Galaxy S II LTE to be slightly better than the Galaxy Nexus. Video recording was fairly equal on both phones.

I have to give the edge to the Galaxy Nexus at the end of the day though. Despite the odd blurry picture due to shaking hands, if your snapping 3 pictures a second, you’re bound to get one you really like. Not to mention, you will never miss that action shot, due to it’s instant snapshots.

 

Screen Quality:

Galaxy Nexus screen quality is amazing to say the least, with a 720 x 1280 – 4.65 inch display. Everything is crisp, super smooth and just stunning to look at. Sadly it’s slightly tarnished by the Galaxy Nexus’ faded lacklustre colors the screen can produce. With the “Auto Brightness” on, the screen has a very low natural brightness, which we also saw on the previous Nexus S. During this very low light is when you experience the dull colors and unappealing display. However, turning the brightness up high releases the sheer brilliance hiding within. In a nutshell, The screen is amazing in high brightness, but suffers in a lower brightness setting.

The Galaxy S II LTE only has a 4.5 inch screen at 480 x 800. It has a very bright vibrent screen with a great display of colors, but suffers from having such a large display with smaller screen resolution. Things still look very clean and smooth, but not as smooth as the Galaxy Nexus. Galaxy S II LTE comes with Super AMOLED+ screen where the Galaxy Nexus only has normal Super AMOLED with the Pentile screen. This may not mean a whole lot to the common user, but this a contributing factor to the lacklustre color on the Galaxy Nexus.

I give the edge to the Galaxy S II LTE.  Yes, the Galaxy Nexus Screen is bigger and more clean with a higher resolution, but the buttons take up a fair amount of space. Which theoretically makes the screen on Galaxy S II LTE  slightly larger on a side by side comparison. Galaxy Nexus’ lack of brightness and dull colors are what lead me to my decision.

 

Other Stuff:

During my testing, I ran into a bunch of issues with the Galaxy Nexus. Most of which can and most likely will be fixed in future updates.

• Poor battery
• Music Duplicates itself when playing through bluetooth and music controls would start to lag when switching tracks during this issue. Stopping music playback was fine, but when pressing play, the phone didn’t know which music to start and would lag, then start a song in either the wrong spot, or the wrong song all together. Force closing the music apps did not solve the issue, nor did restarting or factory resetting the phone.
• Uploading pictures to google+ would result in a very small, almost thumbnail size with terrible quality. 320 pixels, 12kb. Resetting, factory resetting, updating or downgrading Google+ did not clear this issue.
• Network would drop signal about once a day, had to reboot to get it back.
• Low maximum volume.

As stated previously, these are just the current issues I faced during my week of use. Not saying this phone is bad, just saying there are minor bugs to be worked out. Working out minor glitches is something to be expected for new phones fresh off the boat. Just something for early adopters to watch out for.

 

[Final Thoughts]

I really enjoyed my use of the Galaxy Nexus, but at the end of the week I was really starting to miss my LTE speeds and my large 44GB storage due to the microSD support of my Galaxy S II LTE. I ended up popping my SIM card back into my Galaxy S II LTE and sorry to say… I had much more enjoyment with it than I did the Galaxy Nexus.

Both phones are great, and top players in their fields. In the end it all comes down to the user and what they are looking for in a phone. As for me, my Galaxy S II LTE will be the one that remains in my pocket, for now anyway…

 

Keep in mind that this review is based of my own personal experiences and opinions. Others may feel differently, or even disagree with some of the information I have provided. If that is the case, feel free to post your own mini review, or post your own experiences as another word of mouth.

Don’t forget to follow me on Google+ to get more information, as I’m always posting updates and pictures of my current activities an answering questions in real time about recent news.