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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
73 Comments
View All Comments
Zingam - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
I agree I have a nokia and the phone jack is on the top side. I have wished many times that it is on the bottomcece74 - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
I also miss the trackball on my Galaxy S.But I now use Swiftkey , a pretty good keyboard, and it also have arrow keys (press "123" then symbols : {&= key) to see it.
JimmiG - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Basically a Galaxy S (which was basically a Nexus One with a better screen and faster GPU), with a few extra features, unlike the Nexus One which was pretty revolutionary for its time.Of course, the Nexus One isn't even a year old, which isn't such a long time.. but sometimes it feels like the N1 was released in another decade considering how fast things have moved. I hope the Nexus 3 or whatever at least as a dual-core out-of-order CPU and other improvements.
blueF - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Well I purchased my Nexus S, and am very pleased with the phone. Scrolling is not as smooth as I was lead to believe, but still glad I purchased one.bobshute - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Brian, are you sure on the 3G radio.The T-mobile Samsung Vibrant radio, although not advertised, is at least Quad band
It has the 1900 radio on by default for 3G on AT&T.
You can also turn on the 850 band in the service menu although it's not confirmed to work in 850 mhz only areas of AT&T coverage.
Voldenuit - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
>Don't you usually have your phone in your pocket upside down anyway?Not if it's in the shirt pocket. Or jacket inner pocket. Or on a belt holster.
I'm a lot more likely to use a headphone with the phone in these places rather than in my pants pockets, where walking, sitting or standing up is more liable to crush/damage the headphone jack.
Inuit - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
A new on-screen keyboard for Android from Keypurr has directional keys, and it is in the main screen (no need to flip to another screen). I am using Keypurr on my Galaxy S - and love it!In addition, it has large keys (almost twice as large as the standard keyboard) and very clever and up-to-date dictionary. I can type on it as fast as hardware keyboard, or type one handed. It also comes in black or white skins, has function keys, and more. I think Keypurr has some good short videos on their site: www.keypurr.com
keypurrtech - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
Keypurr is a new Android keyboard that uses a full QWERTY layout with keys that are are almost twice the size of other onscreen QWERTY keyboards. It also has a dictionary that includes abbreviations, acronyms, and words borrowed from other languages. Best of all for Nexus S users (and anyone who's phone doesn't have a trackpad) it includes customizable function keys that can be used as directional controls.Keypurr allows users to type with greater speed, confidence, and ease, than any Android keyboard! Check out our website: www.keypurr.com or our youtube channel: www.youtube.com/keypurrtech to learn more.
teohhanhui - Monday, December 20, 2010 - link
"... people want carriers to provide first-party support for devices, and people want to play with devices in stores before making the jump ..."I wouldn't consider a carrier as the first party when it comes to providing support for phones (there is no doubt that they are the first party when it comes to network issues). As it stands, carriers are only worsening the experience by slapping on unwanted customizations and hindering roll-outs of OS updates.
What is stopping you from "playing with devices" in a retail store (either by manufacturer/OS vendor/authorized reseller)?
IMO the real reason for the prevalence of "carrier subsidies" seems to be consumers preferring to pay by installment, or simply unaware of the fact that they end up paying more in the end.
ravenfq - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
I'm always disappointed to find that no reviewers mention the fact that Android doesn't support WiFi proxy 'out of the box' - any suggested solutions to this lack of functionality require that the user 'root' their device, which is not necessarily acceptable to everyone (for all sorts of reasons).This lack of functionality precludes student usage on campus, and crucially (in my opinion) any corporate in-house 'managed' usage, where any WiFI authentication is a pre-requisite.
As a CIO, I'm forced to eliminate Android-based devices from consideration as a corporate standard, and constrain my options to Apple, Microsoft and (hopefully) any upcoming HP WebOS-based devices.
This is deeply disappointing to me personally, as I applaud any attempt to separate the OS from the hardware, liberating hardware manufacturers to compete and innovate, and thus giving us, the end users, ever expanding and increasing capabilities in a portable device. I had high hopes for the relatively open Android environment in this regard.
I would also refer you to this (somewhat emotive) link that outlines the issue in more detail:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=...
Thank you, Anandtech, for what is otherwise superb technical journalism.