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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ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I asked this in the previous LG Optimus 7 review and didn't get an answer. I was wondering if your benchmarks for the iPhone and iPad have been updated to use iOS 4.2.1? iOS 4.2.1 introduces Safari 5 compared to Safari 4 in the previous iOS 4.1 so I was interested in seeing what performance benefits there are.Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oh interesting, I haven't updated them but will do so soon. I don't know if they'll go into this review, but definitely in the myTouch 4G and LG Optimus One pieces that are coming shortly. Thanks for pointing that out.-Brian
Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
There we go, I've updated the web synthetics graphs (Brmark and Sunspider 0.9) with numbers from iOS 4.2.1. Looks like Brmark saw a nice jump, but Sunspider did virtually nothing.-Brian
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I'd be all over a Nexus if they made one with CDMA and either WiMax or LTE.ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Thanks for the quick response.Just a question on the charts. They mention the older iOS version as 4.2 while the newer one is iOS 4.2.1. Were the older results actually iOS 4.2 since I don't believe that was publicly released. They went directly from iOS 4.1 to iOS 4.2.1.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oops you're right. I got confused thinking - hmm, what's last the version of iOS I was running - since I played around with the beta for a while. Fixed now ;)-Brian
evan919 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Awesome, thanks!sprockkets - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
He took the video with an iphone. Kinda ironic ;)samven786 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I was wondering did your nexus s had any random shutdowns? This is known issue on the captivate and the vibrant.Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Thus far no, it's been speedy consistently. I've been using it (somewhat brutally) nonstop since mid-Friday. I haven't seen it grind to a halt yet.-Brian