Well I have had my Nexus for about 24 hours now, playing with it for about 15 hours, and I thought I would leave my impressions this morning.
- Speed - Wow...... this phone is FAST.. No delay swiping from home screen to home screen, apps load quickly, videos are quick, Angry Birds does not stutter, and just plain fast.....
- Screen - Nice big screen, sharp for the most part. Viewing from a pretty large off angle leaves little to be desired, but that is just the Pentile screen. Not a deal breaker to me..
- On/Off Button - Now this will take some getting used to. Coming from the Droid X, I loved the center top button, not a big fan of the side power button. I will get used to it with time, but I still find myself reaching for the top to turn the screen off at times.
- Volume Button - Another getting used to the phone item. I have only turned the screen off once reaching for the volume.
- Speaker Volume - Seems to be a decent volume for me. I do not use the speaker that often, so just testing it out in the house, seems loud enough for the way I use the phone. I did find it funny that Samsung included a set of ear buds with the phone, and they are nice.
- Signal Strength Meter - Now this needs to be addressed with a software fix. The meter never shows anything more than a couple of bars in the house, but using other signal strength apps, the meter on the phone is NOT showing what the phone is getting. Some people think that the phone gets no signal when there is actually a lot of signal there, at least in my case.
- Network 3g/4g - I live in an area that Verizon calls "Extended 4g coverage" which means that the towers near me do not have 4g in place yet, but I might be able to pick up 4g from the towers a little farther out. My phone has shown 4g signal at times in the house, but not consistantly. My house doesn't get the greatest coverage inside, so it surprised me to see a 4g signal at times. But I have not had a problem with connection. I think the market had a connection timed out twice last night, but that is not out of the ordinary becase my Droid X would have the same problem now and then.
- No Hardware Buttons - I was not sure if I would like a phone with no hardware buttons, but I have adapted to the software buttons pretty quickly. I actually like those software buttons. Now it will take some getting used to finding the Menu button since it is either top right or bottom right of the screen depending on the app. But that is a small price to pay for this software. Yes, consistancy would be nice, but I think that it is more of a function of the apps either being written for ICS vs apps that have not been written for ICS but run on it.
- Ice Cream Sandwich - This is a wonderful look/font. The Roboto font is really easy on the eyes. The OS is really working well, but it does take some getting used to. I used to just long press the home screen for a menu to either place a shortcut or a widget on the screen, but that has changed. I do like the layout of apps and widgets in the app drawer. The widget section shows what the widget will look like and that is a nice preview. However, I do miss the 7 home screen I had before vs the 5 home screens that I have now. I also miss the Gingerbread 'swipe up the center' to bring up all the home screens to choose which one I want to go to. This is just another 'I need to get used to the software moment', but I do miss those features right now. I do like the way to make a folder on a home screen, and the ability to change the name on the fly, instead of having to make an app group, then choosing the apps to put into tit, then haivng to place it on the home screen. Overall, I love ICS and glad that I waited to get the Nexus vs getting the Razr or Bionic. I thought Gingerbread was pretty good, but this is light years better in my opinion.
- Bettery Life - I see others post that they are disappointed in battery life of the phone. The way I use my phone, I have a charger at home, a car dock with power running to it, and a charger at work for when I am at my desk. I am never away from power for more than a couple of hours at a time, so battery life is not a big deal to me. I know that other people are away from power all day long because of their jobs and need good battery life. For the time I have had my phone off the charger yesterday, the battery life seemed to do OK. I will know more once I use it during my everyday life in a couple of weeks.
- MTP vs USB Mass Storage - Now I have an app that needs to see the phone in USB Mass Storage for syncing purposes. It does not work well when the device does not have USB Mass Storage to show up in the computer as Removable Drive. The developer is working on a solution for this, and since is this not a big production app in my life, I can wait. I know that MTP is better because the phone and computer can use the memory at the same time and USB Mass Storage cannot. Its not that big a deal, just mildly frustrating is all.
- Apps not compatible - So far, I have one PAID app that was deemed NOT compatible with ICS. Not sure why, but I am glad that I didn't pay full price for the app. I got it when they had a sale months ago. In case you want to know, the app is QuickOffice Pro. I did email the developer yesterday afternoon (OK is was pretty late in the afternoon) and have yet to get a response. Well I was not exactly expecting a response until Monday/Tuesday anyways, but it would be nice to know WHY it is not compatible with the Nexus and ICS.
All being told, I love this phone. Yes, I have not used it in my everyday life yet to see if it works as well as my other phones, but for now, it is a winner. Just my opinion. You opinion may/will vary.
