Google Nexus S official photos
It’s only their second try and users are given a second chance to like the Royal Droid. A tall task it is – the very concept is fundamentally incompatible with the free and open source Android system. Royal blood is not a benefit in a free democracy. Google did learn it the hard way with the Nexus One.
Google’s second smartphone child has more than just an image problem to tackle. The Samsung Google Nexus S has to keep pace with the evolution of the platform. The “S” in the name may stand for many things – from second to superior. But with Android 2.3 Gingerbread inside, speed is not far from the truth either. Here’s what else the Nexus S has to offer in a nutshell.
Key features:
- Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
- HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
- 4.0" WVGA (480x800) Super AMOLED Contour Display with curved glass screen
- Android OS, v2.3 Gingerbread
- 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 (Hummingbird) processor
- 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM
- 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
- Front-facing VGA camera
- Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Portable Wi-Fi hotspot and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
- Near Field Communication chip
- Accelerometer, proximity and light sensors
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging)
- Adobe Flash support out of the box
- Latest Google Mobile apps
Main disadvantages:
- No microSD slot
- No 720p video recording
- All-plastic body, fingerprint magnet
- No DivX and XviD support (no actual video player) out of the box
- No dedicated camera key and no lens cover
- No FM radio
- No smart dialing
- Overly expensive for its feature set
The fact aside that our review isn’t exactly on time, this hardware is so 2010, while the imaging department is surely from 2009. We wouldn’t fuss about it was it not for the Tegra 2 SoC and its 1080p video recording, which has the power to be the next big thing in the industry. The emphasis here being on next. Maybe Google should’ve thought of that and instead of rushing to release the Nexus S.
If they chose to wait a couple of months, a dual-core CPU could’ve made a lot of difference – especially with Gingerbread. The Nexus S would have been a beast just like its predecessor was, with the first droid powered by a 1Ghz processor on the market. With this hardware, the Nexus S is no more than an overclocked Nexus One.
Google Nexus S live shots
But wait a minute – maybe not all is lost and the Nexus S will be salvaged by the software. Not only is it the first Gingerbread-powered phone to the market – it can also count on special treatment in terms of getting updates on time.
Anyway, when you have a second try at something the results are supposed to be better. Just like when parents raise a second child differently having learned from their past experience. Stick around to find out if the Google Nexus S is the definitive, all-muscle replacement of the Nexus One we’ve all been waiting for.
2.Samsung Google Nexus S review Basic retail package : Royal droid
The retail box of the Nexus S is identical to that of its predecessor. The obvious omission is an android-branded pouch but it still has everything you’d need: a USB charger, standard microUSB cable, headset, and a quick start guide.
The Nexus S unboxed
It’s unfortunate that Google didn’t supply a carrying case. It’s not a cheap phone by any means, and cutting back the accessories will not go down well with users.
Google Nexus S 360-degree spin
Although the Google Nexus S is based on the Samsung Galaxy S, there are slight differences in the form factor, mainly due to the characteristic curve of the display. Measuring 123.9 x 63 x 10.9 mm, the Nexus S is a bit taller and thicker than the Galaxy S, but in fact handles better.
The Nexus S compared to the Samsung Galaxy s and the Apple iPhone 4
Despite those extra few millimeters here and there and the increased weight of 129g, pocketability hasn’t been compromised.
Design and construction
To begin with, the Google Nexus S isn’t a precise replica of the Galaxy S – though the resemblance is obvious. To us, it’s a definite step forward in design. This is due to the special Super AMOLED Curved Display, which Google are so proud of. The 4.0” glass covering the display is slightly curved to improve usability.It’s the subtlest of shapes, but the screen is nicely curved. As a result, the Samsung Google Nexus S is more comfortable to hold and have calls on.
The Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen is beautiful. The blacks are remarkably deep and everything is crisp and sharp. Viewing angles are impressive. As for the sunlight legibility – it doesn’t disappoint either. It won’t let you down if you fancy e-book reading.
The responsiveness of the capacitive touchscreen is top notch. The Nexus S reacts to even the slightest of touches.
A minor difference from the Galaxy S can be found in terms of screen protection. Gone is the Gorilla glass and it has been replaced by a regular glass with an oleophobic coating. Not very useful against drops or scratches, but it makes sure the inevitable fingerprints on the display are easy to clean off and not as nasty.
The gorgeous Super AMOLED display on the Nexus S. Sunlight legibility is a thing of the past.
The typical Android controls (Back, Menu, Home and search) are capacitive and located below the display. We don’t know what made Google change the button layout compared to the Nexus One, but as long as it works, it’s fine.
The capacitive keys are as responsive as the screen itself. They react to the gentlest touch and have impressively smooth and precise haptics. Gone is the trackball of the Nexus One, and that’s hardly a surprise since the phone isn’t manufactured by HTC.
Above the display you will find the earpiece, two hidden sensors (proximity and ambient light) and a front-facing VGA camera for video calling.
The capacitive keys • front-facing camera, earpiece and sensors at the top.
Both sides of the phone are very clean and feature only one button at a side. On the left is the volume rocker, while the Lock/Power key is on the right.
Volume rocker on the left side • Lock/Power combo key on the right side.
There’s little going on at the top too – it’s virtually button-less. At the bottom is the mouthpiece, the standard microUSB port, which is used both for charging and data connections, and the 3.5mm audio jack.
Featureless top area • The microUSB port, the mouthpiece and the 3.5mm jack at the bottom
At the back of the Google Nexus S there’s a 5 megapixel camera lens along with a LED flash to help you take those tricky low-light shots. The loudspeaker grill is nearby.
The back of the Google Nexus S
Popping the back cover out unveils the 1500mAh battery and the SIM compartment. The battery is quoted at 6.7 hours of talk time, with a standby time of 17 days in 3G mode (scaled up to 14 hours of talk time and 29.7 days of standby in 2G networks). The Nexus S has no microSD memory expansion, the 16GB of built-in storage is all you get.
Bellow the battery cover resides a generous 1500mAh battery
The Google Nexus S is good looking and solidly built. Ergonomically, the device is well thought out and can easily be used with only one hand, despite its big 4.0” screen. The impressive Super AMOLED screen is undoubtedly a key asset of the Nexus S. However, not all of the units will have it – as it turned out on some markets the Google Nexus S will come with S-LCD.
The downsides of the Nexus S are pretty much the same as in the prototype – the Samsung Galaxy S. The phone could’ve had a more premium finish to justify the price tag. The all-plastic body is alright, but not spectacular. Some metal could’ve done wonders for the feel of the device. Not to mention the downgraded imaging capabilities.
All in all, the Nexus S is a step up from the Galaxy S but hardly a match for the superior materials HTC used on the Nexus One.
But that’s on the outside – inside we’re about to experience Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
3.Samsung Google Nexus S review User interface – stripped Gingerbread: Royal droid
We rarely get to see the default Android user interface but here it is, the latest available phone UI from Mountain View. Not much has changed since the last couple of versions, at least there are no major visual changes.
Still, there is plenty of polish and fine tuning that has gone into Gingerbread, so let’s begin.
The Gingerbread homescreen
We have the UI on video too, because static screenshots rarely tell the whole story.
The homescreen has grown two shortcuts around the virtual menu key – dialer and browser.
You get five homescreen panes, with dots in the bottom left and right corners, indicating how many screens in what direction. You can tap on the dots to move in that direction and a tap and hold brings up a thumbnail overview of all homescreen panes.
The main menu is the same as on the Nexus One – it’s vertically scrollable, with icons at the top and bottom edge curving off into the distance. This ups the eye-candy quotient of the menu, but it’s useful too – in very little vertical space, you can see the next four rows, which helps in finding the app you need.
The main menu shoots for infinity
The homescreen estate is all yours to fill up with shortcuts to applications, folders and widgets of your choice. Folders can help you keep the shortcuts organized but you can't put folders within folders.
You can create a shortcut for just about everything – an app, a bookmark, a contact, a Gmail label or even a destination.
Live folders are also interesting – they automatically curate info, such as received Bluetooth files, recently opened documents and so on.
Adding to the homescreen • Shortcuts • Folders and Live folders
Widgets are the most practical part of the Android homescreen. You’re probably familiar with the widgets that come with the Google Nexus S – they are the default set included on every droid out there.
These widgets can be quite useful. The Power Control widget gives you one-tap command over the power-hungry features of the phone. The Rate Places widget is for those who like to read and write reviews of places they eat or just hang out. There are a couple of Google Voice widgets preinstalled too.
Some of the widgets
Live wallpapers really do bring the homescreen to life – they are always animated, always on the move. There’s a new one, Microbes. It shows a colony of “microbes”, which feeds (a tap on the screen produces more food), and when they get big enough microbes split into two.
Probably not particularly useful and it’s a drain on the battery, but as far as looks go, very little beats Live wallpapers. If usability tops eye-candy for you, then you can use regular static wallpaper.
The Live wallpapers, including the new Microbes one
One of the most powerful and useful parts of the Android UI is the notification area. It shows various notifications (e.g. new message), but also has some more advanced features (certain apps can have corresponding widgets in the notification area). Since it’s accessible from everywhere, you can check the notification and go back to what you’ve been doing, or tap the notification to switch over to the relevant app.
The notification area does wonders for the workflow on Android. We were a little disappointed that Google didn’t do what some custom launchers do, i.e. put some more functionality into it (power toggles and such).
4.Samsung Google Nexus S review Phonebook does well: Royal droid
The Nexus S phonebook is pretty standard, but can store extensive information about all your contacts. The list can be sorted by either first or last name.
The quick contacts can save you a click or two
You can add multiple accounts to be synced, including an Exchange account, and you can selectively show or hide contacts from some accounts, or set the phonebook to display only contacts with phone numbers.
If someone is added in both accounts, you can “join” their contact info. This really becomes more useful once you install Facebook, Twitter or another app as you can put telephone and SNS info in the same place.
Quick contacts are available – a tap on the contact’s photo brings up shortcuts for calling, texting or emailing the contact.
Each contact can have a variety of fields (and repeat fields of the same type), the plus and minus buttons let you add and remove fields as needed. The fields cover anything from names (including a field to write down the name phonetically) to addresses, nicknames and notes.
Quite interesting is the option to redirect calls directly to voicemail. Personalized ringtones are enabled too.
Editing a contact • Filtering the phonebook • Managing multiple accounts
You can "star" a contact, which puts it in the Favorites tab. Also, in each Gmail account there's a special group called "Starred in Android" where these contacts go automatically.
Searching for a contact in the phonebook is quite easy – just hit the search key and a search box pops up. There’s no alphabet scroll though.
Telephony doing good but is short of smart dialing
The Google Nexus S held on to signal well enough and we didn’t experience dropped calls. The in-call sound quality is good but the strength is average.Unfortunately, the Nexus S does not support smart dialing – we thought that Google would have fixed this by version 2.3, but no. There’s voice dialing though (a press and hold on the search key will launch that).
No smart dialing but you can use voice dialing instead
Thanks to the proximity sensor, the Google Nexus S automatically switches off its touchscreen when you hold in next to your ear during a call. There is no chance of ever hitting an on-screen button with your cheek.
The call log displays all the dialed, received and missed calls in bulk.
Google Voice also comes preinstalled – not that you can’t download it after the fact, but Google is trying to hook new users in. Anyway, you’d need to be a US resident to use that, but it’s an important service to some.
We also ran our traditional loudspeaker test on the Google Nexus S. Scoring an Average result, the Nexus S isn't the loudest ringer around, so you might miss a call or two at times. More info on our loudspeaker test as well as other results can be found here.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Pink noise/ Music, dB | Ringing phone, dB | Overall score |
| Samsung I9000 Galaxy S | 66.6 | 65.9 | 66.6 | Below Average |
| LG Optimus 2X | 65.7 | 60.0 | 67.7 | Below Average |
| Motorola DEFY | 66.6 | 65.8 | 74.7 | Average |
| Google Nexus S | 68.1 | 66.3 | 69.3 | Average |
| LG Optimus 7 | 66.6 | 66.7 | 75.7 | Good |
| HTC Desire HD | 69.7 | 66.6 | 78.3 | Good |
| Nokia N8 | 75.8 | 66.2 | 82.7 | Very Good |
| Nokia C6-01 | 75.0 | 66.3 | 77.8 | Very Good |
| HTC Gratia | 73.2 | 73.6 | 83.5 | Excellent |
Threaded messaging
The messaging department of Android values simplicity in design and is very easy to use. All SMS/MMS communication is organized into threads – each thread consists of all messages between you and one of your contacts.You can set the Nexus S to delete older messages (by default, it keeps 200 texts and 20 MMS). Quick contacts work here too, in case you prefer to respond to a message with a call or an email. You can activate delivery reports and read reports too (they are notifications that the receiver has read the message).
Each thread is organized like an IM chat session, the latest message at the bottom. You can manage individual messages (forward, copy, delete) and even lock them (to prevent deletion). You can use search to find a specific message in all conversations.
Threaded messaging • viewing a single thread • managing a message
Composing a text is a little frustrating as the text box starts off as a single line and grows only to three lines, which makes working with longer texts hard.
You can add multimedia (photos, videos, sounds, etc.), which will convert the message to an MMS. If you need multiple slides or multiple attachments, you can go to a full-blown MMS editor as well.
Moving onto email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which allow multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. The default app supports multiple Gmail accounts, but there’s no unified inbox.
Gmail app supports batch operations and multiple (Gmail) accounts
There is also a standard email app for all your other email accounts and it can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
Google Talk handles the Instant Messaging department. The GTalk network is compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts.
The Google Nexus S with its sensitive, 4-inch screen is quite adept at text input. Gingerbread also comes with a new, vastly improved keyboard by default, which should make text input easier and more typo-free even on smaller screens.
In portrait mode, the keyboard is easily usable and text correction will generally prevent typos. When you enter a word, the spacebar will flash orange – hit it and even if there was a typo, the phone will correct it.
A landscape QWERTY keyboard is available too – the accelerometer will launch that automatically as you flip the phone on its side. It’s bigger and better to use for longer texts. You can activate haptic feedback, which might also improve your typing by giving you better feedback
A tap on the text area will reveal a “handle” attached to the text cursor – it’s easy and more accurate, which makes correcting mistakes easier. A tap and hold will bring up the select options – select word and select all – with two handles to adjust the start and end of the selection. Another tap and hold brings up the copy/cut options.
The virtual QWERTY keyboard on the Nexus S
5.Samsung Google Nexus S review Same old gallery downsizes images: Royal droid
The different albums and folders appear as piles of photos which fall in neat grids once selected. If you have online albums over at Picasa those show up as separate stacks as well.
The gallery looks nice
Alternatively, you photos can be organized by date with the help of a button in the top right corner, which switches between grid and timeline view.
In grid view, there’s a date slider, which can also be used to find photos taken on a certain date.
The gallery supports finger scrolling or panning so you can skip images without having to return to the default view. Just swipe to the left or right when viewing a photo in fullscreen mode and the previous/next image will appear.
Thanks to the Nexus S multi-touch support pinch zooming is also available here but you can also double tap or use the +/- buttons. Unfortunately zooming in isn’t going to reveal much detail.
The Android gallery still shows only downsized version of you images, though if you send one from here the full-res shot is received on the other end. We were hoping that Google would have fixed that but it doesn’t seem like it’s on their list of priorities.
Unfortunately you are only getting downsized images here
Images can be cropped or rotated directly in the gallery. Quick sharing via Picasa, Email apps, Bluetooth or MMS also comes in handy.
Video player wasn’t on Google’s mind
Google has something against playing local video files, we’re sure of it. Why else wouldn’t they preinstall a dedicated video player app is beyond us. To find your videos, you’ll need to visit the Gallery.Okay, so maybe a fancy UI for picking a video is not that important, playing videos is what really counts. Well, that’s another disappointment – the video player supports only 3GP and MP4 videos.
To its credit, the Nexus S did play a 720p MP4 video though. And the 4” WVGA SuperAMOLED screen is a pure joy to watch. If you re-encode your videos before hand, the Google Nexus S can make a good video player.
Or you should just download a capable video player off the Android Market and make your life easier.
Watching a video on the Nexus S
Music player has been neglected
Sadly, the music player saw no updates with Gingerbread on the Nexus S. It’s is not bad at managing your audio files but there’s definitely room for improvement.There are four tabs, which offer the four main ways to search your music collection - by artist, album, song or the playlists you've created. Search by gradual typing is also available.
The music player saw no changes
The functionality of the music player hasn't changed much. It has that great feature that allows you to quickly look up a song on YouTube, via Google search or in the local collection.
A nice feature is the automatic pause when you pull out the headphones. Also, you can adjust the volume even if the screen is locked (but the screen has to be on).
The "Now playing" screen
There are still some shortcomings of the music player that need addressing though. There are still no equalizer presets, nor any alternative skins. We won’t even mention goodies like flicking left or right to skip a song.
Very good audio quality
Having already tested quite a few members of the Galaxy S family, where the Nexus S has its roots, we expected the Google smartphone to do very well in our traditional audio quality test. Fortunately it managed to deliver and did as well as its siblings.
The more impressive part of the Google Nexus S performance is with headphones out of the equation. When connected to an active amplifier, the Nexus S audio output is simply flawless - all the readings are downright impressive. The loudness is good too, though we have seen better.If you plug in a pair of headphones the Google Nexus S shows some extra stereo-crosstalk and intermodulation distortion. The frequency response suffers a bit too, but actually none of those gets too bad. Plus the volume levels don't suffer even one bit.
Overall the Nexus S does better than the I9000 Galaxy S, but loses a bit to the I9010 Giorgio Armani. That still gets it an excellent score though.
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