Nexus S and Android 2.3 Review: Gingerbread for the Holidays
by Brian Klug on December 14, 2010 4:08 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Nexus S
- Gingerbread
- Android 2.3
- Mobile
Contour Display
I’ve already touched on a lot of what there is to be said about the Nexus S display. It’s an unbroken piece of gently curved glass, and underneath is the same 4” Super AMOLED display we saw on the Galaxy S line of phones. Pentile is still here, love it or hate it - best I can tell it literally is the same thing as in Galaxy S devices. Brightness is a little better on the Nexus S, but you still get perfect blacks that look awesome on the new black-heavy Gingerbread UI.
The Nexus S display is indeed excellent. We’ve got full viewing angles galleries and uniformity shots. Notably, there were no color or luminance uniformity issues we could pick out on our Nexus S - it appears flawless. Again the banding in our RGB gradient image is due to the gallery application color depth, which remains unchanged sadly.
The Nexus S also gets an oleophobic coating, something the iPhone 3GS got a lot of press with. I found that after a few months and wipings, the 3GS lost its amazing ability to repel oils. So far the Nexus S has withstood copious amounts of finger and face grease, coming clean with a quick brush on the shirt or lens cloth.
The curved surface is more of an aesthetic extra than an ergonomic feature, but it still is impressive that this is possible. The nice thing about having the front face in compression (from the concave shape) is that scratches probably don’t affect the glass’ structural integrity nearly as much as they would in tension. Glass is just stronger in compression rather than tension - the reason is primarily because cracks don’t propagate as well on surfaces in compression as they do in tension. Viewing angles on the Nexus S are very good, again the curvature is small enough that it doesn’t adversely impact vertical viewing angles.
Capacitive touch was always a major problem for me on the Nexus One. Anand noted it in his Nexus One review, and I experienced it firsthand with mine. I exchanged it and got one some months later with much better response and far fewer false touches, but compared to other flagship devices something always just felt wrong. Luckily the Nexus S has no such issues - touch is flawless, multitouch is excellent as well.
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tipoo - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
HTC then Samsung, I wonder who will be next to make a Nexus phone...Motorola, maybe? I think they went with Samsung this round because they have the most capable processor right now.blueF - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Well the benchmarks show that the current iteration of the snapdragon are on par if not better than hummingbird. I think they chose Samsung for a few reasons, with the most important being they are the OEM of the best amoled screens available. Honestly I would have preferred another HTC nexus due to the superior phone shell. The galaxy phones and their stupid right side lock button is close to a deal breaker for me. Also the head phone jack on the bottom is beyond stupid.vol7ron - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
This was me during this article:"Nexus S... yes, yes.. good stuff. Whoah! Look at that myTouch!"
Can't wait to see that myTouch review, thanks for putting those figures up there.
deputc26 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Hmmm where'd the page load times for popular websites vs. other leading phones go?That and battery life are the most relevant benchmarks as to whether or not I buy a phone.
tipoo - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Yeah, the 1 definitely was constructed better.OscarGoldman - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
"the head phone jack on the bottom is beyond stupid. "Nope, not when the thing lacks an audio line out (which IS stupid). With the jack on the bottom, they can at least make a dock to drop the phone into in your car. That's a lot better than having to plug in a wire that's dangling across your dashboard, every time you want to listen to music.
Reviews need to call these phone manufacturers out for failing to provide an audio line out on the bottom of every phone. Even with the headphone jack on the bottom, you still have to screw around with two volume controls; the one on the phone, and the car radio. And you're running everything through the crappy headphone amp on the phone.
tiredad - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I'm a little confused by so many reviews being against the jack placement; usually giving the lame reason that it's not what everybody else does. You think Apple thinks that way?I look at my phone to select a track etc. and then i put it in my pocket upside down so the placement is perfect. Not that this is much of a serious matter.
BTW since this is my first post i have to thank this site for providing the most consistent, unbiased and professional reviews i've found to date. When i read a review i want the facts and opinions separated and i don't want any pro one company or another and that's what you give... so cheers guys.
daveloft - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I prefer the connectors at top so I can throw my phone in the cup holder and not have to put it in upside down.steven75 - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Lack of line-out is one of those things that would be hard to give up if I decided to move from iOS to another mobile OS.I use my iPhone for audio in the car at least twice daily and having line-out audio and charge capability through a single cable is simply awesome.
My stock radio even allows adjusting the level of the aux-in (separate from the volume) so that it matches the volume of all the other sources.
Unfortunately Bluetooth is still a sub-par solution because although you don't need any cables, sound is still inferior quality and you kill your battery on anything but a very short trip.
daveloft - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Those benchmarks you refer to are probably Quadrant and the reason why a Snapdragon device like the G2 performs better than the Galaxy S was because it had 2.2 while the Galaxy S had 2.1.Also Quadrant scores are heavily influenced by file system speed. The file system on the G2 is much better than the Galaxy S. This why you see so many Galaxy S users applying lag fixes which change the file system. When Galaxy S devices use the lag fix to swap the file system for something like EXT4, their Quadrant scores jump by as much as 50%. Throw in 2.2 or 2.3 and you get the highest scoring device available.