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Criteria
Comments
Rating
- Reception and call quality Call quality is excellent! 4G reception could be better.
- Display Best phone display made! Hands down! 1280x720 in a 4.65 inch screen!
- Battery life With the 4.0.4 update I'll have 60 percent battery left when I get home from a 8 hour work day. That's outstanding!
- Camera No cellphone cameras are "great". This is as good as any other. It does have the benefit of instant shutter speed (no lag).
- Ease of use Ice Cream Sandwich unmolested the way Google intended. Easy as hell to use. Logical.
- Design and form factor There's a reason this phone won so many design awards. It feels amazing in your hand. No sharp edges! Form follows function rather than the other way around.
- Portability (size / weight) It's astounding to have a screen this huge and perfect in such a thin light device.
- Media support Everything works! You aren't stuck in a bad ecosystem. Supports all open standards.
- Durability Normally I'd give most Samsung or HTC phones top rating, but this thing will break if dropped the wrong way.
- Ecosystem (apps, accessories, etc.) Anything you can imagine you can get. I even have photoshop touch installed. Games, apps, and best of all the common things are mostly free and high qualtiy.
Detailed review
Have you ever had a phone that you haven't had to do anything at all with since purchase? Have you ever had a phone that hasn't had one app crash or lock up or needed a forced reboot since purchasing it? Five months of one day waking up and realizing I haven't had to screw with my phone one time in five months. This has been the most reliable phone I've owned since my Nokia N70 years ago.
The screen is amazing. It's like having a 1280x720 4.65" tablet. I use photoshop touch on this thing. I use Xtralogic RDC to remote desktop to my Windows 7 machine and edit excel spreadsheets. The colors are amazing. Text on it is sharper than it is on my new iPad, which isn't surprising since it has higher pixel density. Since the glass is curved (not kidding, they beveled a curve in the glass) it feels more comfortable when you hold it to your head. It also means the glass won't hit the ground if you drop it on a flat surface (which I've done about 20 times. I'm kinda clumbsy). My girlfriend lusts after my phone. She has something more common and fashionable.
Despite dropping it somewhat frequently, you'd have no idea. It looks brand new! High strength polymers are used to make devices that need to be durable for a reason. They are superior. I have no idea why some manufacturers make phones out of materials that crack easily. Function is more important than fashion for a real device for doing real work. While this phone is incredibly durable, it doesn't "feel" as durable as my old Nexus S which I never used a case with, and dropped about 3,000 times. There have been reports of the screen cracking at the edges if it's dropped on them. I use a case with this phone.
The battery life is amazing since the 4.0.4 update. It literally doubled. I wasn't complaining anyway. I was getting home with enough charge to not have to take a charger to work with me (about 20 percent). Now I'm plugging the phone in before I go to bed. If it's at 100 percent in the morning, it lasts until I go to bed. Since i can replace the battery anyway (absolutely crucial for a real phone) I just carry a spare in my wallet.
The difference between Gingerbread (Android 2.x) and ICS (Android 4.x) is night and day. I'd have apps crash frequently in Gingerbread on my Nexus S (connectbot, market, gmail). Not ONE TIME so far on Android 4.x.
Options option options! Don't like the default launcher (how you launch apps)? You have ten great ones to choose from. Change your background. Change your icons. Heck, remove your icons. Use folders. Don't use folders. But rest assured, what comes out of the box is still the easiest to learn, most logical and most advanced phone OS to date. It's just nice that you can change it to be however you want.
This is what the concept of the "smartphone" was meant to be. It's the first phone I've used I'd consider truly smart. It's reliable. It's beautiful. It's logical. It's tough. It feels good in your hand. There's no compromise to make this a high priced fashion phone for trendy people. It's just a damn great phone. This is my third Nexus phone. I had the HTC Nexus One, the Samsung Nexus S, and this one. I'm a believer. If it isn't a Nexus phone, I'm no longer interested.
Simply put, right now in my opinion, this is the best phone in the world. Nobody I know that has one disagrees.
The screen is amazing. It's like having a 1280x720 4.65" tablet. I use photoshop touch on this thing. I use Xtralogic RDC to remote desktop to my Windows 7 machine and edit excel spreadsheets. The colors are amazing. Text on it is sharper than it is on my new iPad, which isn't surprising since it has higher pixel density. Since the glass is curved (not kidding, they beveled a curve in the glass) it feels more comfortable when you hold it to your head. It also means the glass won't hit the ground if you drop it on a flat surface (which I've done about 20 times. I'm kinda clumbsy). My girlfriend lusts after my phone. She has something more common and fashionable.
Despite dropping it somewhat frequently, you'd have no idea. It looks brand new! High strength polymers are used to make devices that need to be durable for a reason. They are superior. I have no idea why some manufacturers make phones out of materials that crack easily. Function is more important than fashion for a real device for doing real work. While this phone is incredibly durable, it doesn't "feel" as durable as my old Nexus S which I never used a case with, and dropped about 3,000 times. There have been reports of the screen cracking at the edges if it's dropped on them. I use a case with this phone.
The battery life is amazing since the 4.0.4 update. It literally doubled. I wasn't complaining anyway. I was getting home with enough charge to not have to take a charger to work with me (about 20 percent). Now I'm plugging the phone in before I go to bed. If it's at 100 percent in the morning, it lasts until I go to bed. Since i can replace the battery anyway (absolutely crucial for a real phone) I just carry a spare in my wallet.
The difference between Gingerbread (Android 2.x) and ICS (Android 4.x) is night and day. I'd have apps crash frequently in Gingerbread on my Nexus S (connectbot, market, gmail). Not ONE TIME so far on Android 4.x.
Options option options! Don't like the default launcher (how you launch apps)? You have ten great ones to choose from. Change your background. Change your icons. Heck, remove your icons. Use folders. Don't use folders. But rest assured, what comes out of the box is still the easiest to learn, most logical and most advanced phone OS to date. It's just nice that you can change it to be however you want.
This is what the concept of the "smartphone" was meant to be. It's the first phone I've used I'd consider truly smart. It's reliable. It's beautiful. It's logical. It's tough. It feels good in your hand. There's no compromise to make this a high priced fashion phone for trendy people. It's just a damn great phone. This is my third Nexus phone. I had the HTC Nexus One, the Samsung Nexus S, and this one. I'm a believer. If it isn't a Nexus phone, I'm no longer interested.
Simply put, right now in my opinion, this is the best phone in the world. Nobody I know that has one disagrees.
good review!
2 people find this review helpful
review history
- 2012-06-10
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Updated detailed review