News October 19, 2011

Galaxy Nexus With Android 4.0 is Official

I just finished watching the Google/Samsung event that officially announced the new Galaxy Nexus phone. This will be the first phone with Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich). I liked what I saw as there is a lot to like about this new phone. The hardware is impressive and the new version of Android takes the look of Honeycomb but makes it much smoother and faster. Here’s a quick look.

Let’s talk about the hardware.

The Galaxy Nexus ships with a huge 4.65 inch high-definition super AMOLED display. The display is humongous yet the phone is just 8.84 mm thick. At just 4.29 mm, the bezel is also super thin. The phone has a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 1 Gigabyte of ram, 16 or 32 GB of storage, 4G LTE or HSPA+ for data, a 5 Megapixel rear facing camera, a 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera and an NFC chip.

In all, this is a phone whose hardware is impressive… and then some.

The Software.

The Galaxy Nexus is the first phone that will ship with Android 4.0. Google has spent a lot of time and effort to clean up Android and make it look really, really nice. To that end, Google developed a new font, called Roboto, that is used everywhere in the phone.

You can lock the phone in all the standard ways and one new one and that is called Face Unlock. Unfortunately the demo for Face Unlock failed, but if it works only YOU will be able to unlock your phone. No more remembering the code or pattern is needed.

The home screen has some nice updates as well. You can drag icons on top of icons to create folders in a similar manner to the way you can do it on iOS. Then you can take that folder and dock it on the bottom of the interface allowing quick access to your favorite apps.

Google has long had voice typing in Android but they have made some updates that look like it may get a lot more use.

They revamped the contacts app, now called the People app. This app has some really nice integration with social networking including Google+ and looks smooth and supple in the demos. Plus Google Voice is entirely integrated into the people app allowing you not just to visually listen to your voice mails, but speed them up to get through those really long winded voice mails.

The camera app has had some extensive work on it and is lightening quick with no shutter lag. The Galaxy Nexus can also record 1080p video and in the demo the videos they shot look gorgeous! The camera looks really killer and it’s something I look forward to.

Finally, the NFC chip can finally get some use with Android Beam. Android Beam lets you beam web pages, maps, and more between other Galaxy Nexus phones or other phones that support Android Beam.

There’s really a ton of stuff to like about the Galaxy Nexus and it will launch all over the world sometime next month. The only carrier mentioned in the announcement was NTT Docomo in Japan, but with 4G LTE this almost looks destined to arrive on Verizon here in the US giving Verizon customers their first Nexus phone.

Tags: Android Apps, Android Phones and Tablets

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About Joel McLaughlin

View all posts by Joel McLaughlin

Joel is a system admin for a local college in Columbus, OH. While he loves Linux and tends to use it more than anything else, he will stoop to running closed source if it is the best tool for the job. His techno passions are Linux, Android, netbooks, GPS, podcasting and Amateur Radio.

Anonymous

It looks to me like Google has made big strides in fixing one of my biggest Android complaints – the user interface. Now if they can keep the carriers and manufacturers from mucking it up, and if they can find a way to release it on a decent number of existing handsets (may be difficult depending on hardware requirements), then this would be huge win for Google.

Hopefully they can also bring some chaos to the mess that is the Android App market (I don’t mean the marketplace) by offering some tools that make it easier to develop across different displays (and provide a consistent appearance). I’ve seen too many apps work great on one set and look like crap on a different set (not to mention all the issues of supporting multiple language sets which many Android apps are TERRIBLE at even when the program is specifically targeted at language use!). I’m crossing my fingers and toes on this one! :)
http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson

Well, HTC is already hedging on their timeline, Moto is unlikely to abandon Blur anytime soon (since it is on the Droid Razr), and I can’t see Samsung NOT using TouchWiz on everything BUT the Nexus – like they did the last time.

Not only that, but the success of Android phones has actually emboldened carriers to get MORE draconian rather than less in their business practices and what they require for installed software.

I hope I’m wrong, but I still see us entering 2013 with ICS on 25% of phones, Gingerbread on 50% and Froyo on 20% with trickles of others …

One thing I am wondering – right now the Nexus has software buttons
(home/back/menu) rather than silk-screened like on every other Android
phone. I didn’t see the video – did they discuss how the UI will handle
that? Will it adapt the existing buttons or chew up more real estate?
Either way … suddenly every other phone looks outdated.
- Thomas R. Hall
  
  The buttons disappear with a tap and the content takes over the space. The buttons also highlight when tapped to give a visual indication of the button press. It actually looks very well-done in the video. Also, the buttons rotate as the display is rotated.
  - http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson
    
    Thomas – are you talking about the Droid Razr? The buttons on THAT disappear? If so that would be great and would dovetail nicely into ICS.
    - Thomas R. Hall
      
      Talking about the Galaxy Nexus. It is built-in to ICS, though, so I imagine most/all devices going forward will have that as a feature.
      
      As a reference implementation, the Galaxy Nexus certainly ups the ante for Android devices. Loving the hardware feature set.
      - Anonymous
        
        So… you buying?
        
        Thomas R. Hall
        
        Do you need to ask?
        
        Anonymous
        
        I wanted it in writing
      - http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson
        
        Thanks – that is what I thought.
        
        My post before wasn’t clear – I am wondering how phones like the Droid Razr or SGSII will handle this – will they just use the existing buttons or will ICS want to superimpose its own buttons and chew up space.
        
        Thomas R. Hall
        
        The hardware buttons won’t disappear. There isn’t anything officially stating how this works explicitly, but based on what I’m seeing in the developer documentation, devices with hardware buttons will continue to have them work as-is. Newer devices (with software buttons only) will have those appear on the screen in the System Bar.
        
        From the Android 4.0 SDK Highlights:
        
        “Virtual buttons in the System Bar let users navigate instantly to Back, Home, and Recent Apps. The System Bar and virtual buttons are present across all apps, but can be dimmed by applications for full-screen viewing. Users can access each application’s contextual options in the Action Bar, displayed at the top (and sometimes also at the bottom) of the screen.”
        
        So virtual buttons will always appear on the System Bar, but developers can add code to hide them (say, in a full-screen mode for a video app). Of course, that is only for phones with virtual buttons only.
http://twitter.com/doogald doogald

First, I like to thing that the first Droid as an unofficial Verizon Nexus phone. It was before Google started the Nexus brand, but it had an unlockable bootloader and was marketed as the first Eclair dev phone.

I noticed that the Razr’s soft buttons resemble the honeycomb/ice cream sandwich software keys (the home and back key, for example) rather than the old GB style. Moto already announced that the Razr will get ICS in early 2012, so that’s hardly surprising. I imagine it will not be all that difficult to recognize that the hardware includes buttons and prevent displaying redundant on-display controls.

This phone is way too big. I believe it’s more than 3/4″ longer than an iPhone 4 and quite a bit wider. I think that’s insane, but I guess some people will like it.
Thomas R. Hall

I am happy to see a notification light on the front which is in the same location as the original trackball on the Nexus One.

Another feature from the Nexus One is the dock contacts which allow for easy docking / charging.

Two of my favorite Nexus One features are back. I definitely will be getting this phone.
Anonymous

I think the extra length is fine as long as it’s thin enough. The only ones who will really have to worry about this being pocket-able are those girls who rock uber tight skinny jeans…and Justin Bieber. ;-)
http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson

OK, so the wheels start to come off – screen is crap, Pentile system (http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/21/the-galaxy-nexus-super-amoled-display-is-a-minus-not-a-plus/)

“a non-Plus display uses a cheaper PenTile system — which forces pixels to share each other’s sub-pixels. Aside from potential hygiene issues, this results in a lower overall sub-pixel density, reduced sharpness and worse color rendition. ”
- Thomas R. Hall
  
  A bit upset by this, but I will reserve judgement until I see the screen in real life.
  
  Samsung was VERY careful in the wording used in the announcement. They said “the best screen greater than 4″ on the market”. Not the best screen period. I found the qualifier interesting.
  
  This article from Anandtech goes into actual detail, unlike the Engadget post:
  
  http://www.anandtech.com/show/5000/galaxy-nexus-pentile-discussion-confirmed
Thomas R. Hall

Looks like Samsung is trying to gauge interest in what people want for carriers for the Galaxy Nexus:

http://www.samsung.com/us/register/galaxynexus/