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
Speakerphone, Voice, Battery
So I mentioned earlier that the Nexus S speakerphone is a bit quiet when calling with SIP VoIP. I think that’s an understatement - it’s extremely quiet when making a SIP call. Again these tests are the same way we’ve run all our other speakerphone tests - 6” above the device with our USB datalogger.
The Nexus S is louder than the Nexus One for normal calls, however. Speakerphone at maximum volume has a bit of distortion, but one volume notch down it goes away entirely. I thought speakerphone voice quality was very good. Earphone volume is acceptable if a tad on the quiet side, but then again I think the same thing for nearly every other handset. Voice quality on the earphone is exactly what I’m used to for UMTS voice. There’s software noise cancellation for video, but I can’t locate a second microphone on the Nexus S for noise cancellation in calls. Having that second microphone was a big deal for the Nexus One, so I’m surprised it’s absent in the Nexus S - if it’s there, I at least couldn’t find it.
Battery life on the Nexus S is actually shockingly close to the Nexus One. So much so that it’s honestly scary in the case of 3G and WiFi browsing time. 3G Talk time on the Nexus S is far better than the Nexus One. We of course ran our normal suite of tests for 3G and WiFi browsing time, loading through a couple dozen pages with the screen at 50% brightness, extraneous processes killed using a task killer, and the display on. For the talk time test, we play music at both ends, allow displays to sleep, and take the total talk time. I noted that the Nexus S fell back to GSM voice three times, each time I reinitialized the call after the Nexus S reacquired UMTS. I’m going to run this test again and update if necessary - just know that’s what happened if these numbers change.
The Nexus S includes a slightly bigger battery than the Nexus One (5.55 Whr versus 5.2 Whr). I’m a bit surprised battery life didn’t improve just a bit more between the two.
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metafor - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
That's a bit misleading. There are a few versions of the "lagfix" around and not all of them simply change the filesystem. A bunch actually turn on memory caching, which essentially uses DRAM to cache disk IO.This is what causes the gigantic jump in Quadrant scores you see. In reality, while the fileIO portion of quadrant does artificially lower the Galaxy S's end-score, it's nowhere near by the amount many who apply the patch sees.
daveloft - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I'm running 2.2 which boosted my score from 800 - 1100.I also use a lagfix to change my file system to EXT4 which boosted my score from 1100 - 1600.
It's by no means misleading. I know there's lots of other lagfixes and optimizations and custom kernels. It doesn't take away from my point that Quadrant is heavily influenced by file system and as a result of running a different file system on my Galaxy S I a significantly boost in my score.
daveloft - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
The people touting their 2000 plus scores on their Galaxy S are the ones likely doing what you said. But again that comes back to my point that modifying your phone for better IO performance will make your Quadrant score significantly better and any device with really fast storage will benefit from a high Quadrant score. This will lead people to say that the Snapdagron chip is better.metafor - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
A lot of people make a lot of claims without isolating the chip. I remember the "A4 vs Snapdragon" and all the wild conjecture that went into that.As for the original comment, I think at least the 45nm Snapdragons are comparable, almost indistinguishable from the current gen Hummingbirds. With the exception of perhaps the FP/SIMD performance -- which no programs today use anyway.
One thing I would like to see is someone try to test these chips for power usage in isolation. A Hall-style current monitor and an integrating voltage monitor should be sufficient to know just how much power these chips use. Of course that means taking the device apart and still have it operating.
zorxd - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Works just fine here with android 2.2. WPA2+PEAP+MSchapv2Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
So I think the story with the Nexus One was that it was working in 2.2, but disappeared in 2.2.1. I know that for some months now I've been unable to authenticate with that same network with the Nexus One.Some of the other devices have better WPA supplicants too I guess.
-Brian
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
If you phone is laying on a book, the camera lens is about 3 mm away from the page and the viewing angle is about 3 of those letters. Not to mention there is no light getting under there. So how can the screen be showing all those characters?Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oh so when I took that photo, I was worried someone would be misled, apologies, didn't mean to confuse. I just took a photo a few inches from the page, then set it as the wallpaper, then snapped the picture.What's being shown isn't camera input. ;)
-Brian
sabrewulf - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
"Things like scrollback and sending cursor commands in connectbot (arguably Android’s best SSH application) simply require having some directional controls - there’s no virtual keyboard with arrow keys. "Using the Swype keyboard, if you swype from the swype button to the sym button and release, you are given a virtual keyboard with arrow keys, pgup/dn, home/end, and a few other functions.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oh wow, I totally missed that in Swype. Awesome tip!-Brian