Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Ice Cream Sandwich Review
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on January 18, 2012 1:34 PM ESTSettings
Android continues to offer configuration options within individual applications as well as centrally located system settings. Once again the lack of a dedicated, system-wide menu button forced Google to rely on a settings icon alone to get you to the system settings panel.
Although most of the configurable options remain unchanged from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich, Google completely reorganized the Android system settings page. What used to be a convoluted mess of items that weren't always placed logically has now turned into something far more sensible:
| Gingerbread vs. Ice Cream Sandwich | ||||
| Gingerbread | Ice Cream Sandwich | |||
| Settings |
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Location settings are now separate from security and there's now a dedicated backup & erase section. Subtle changes like these seem to make a lot more sense than the organization in Gingerbread. I find myself spending far less time staring blankly at the ICS settings menus than I did in Gingerbread. Let's hope Google's partners don't go in and shift things around too much.
ICS includes a complete set of cool developer options, above and beyond the ability to enable USB debugging. You can force GPU accelerated drawing system-wide, even in apps that don't explicitly request it. You can overlay CPU usage data on the screen, cause any part of the screen that has been redrawn to flash wildly and even mark up the screen with your last touch events:
Most of this isn't useful to an end user but for a developer or just someone who's curious, it's fun stuff. More generally applicable however is the ability to turn on a little circle that follows your finger around the touch screen similar to what's always used in touchscreen demo videos.
There's also official support for adjusting mouse pointer speed, an obvious inclusion for dockable tablets like the Transformer Prime.
Copying via MTP or PTP
With Honeycomb we saw Google treat tablets as Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) devices rather than traditional USB mass storage devices. For Windows users there was no difference as MTP is natively supported in Vista and 7. Mac users have to rely on third party support for MTP, which Google provided via its own free Android File Transfer application.
Given that Android exposes much of the file system to the end user, MTP is a safer bet for protecting against corruption from both Android and the connected Mac/PC modifying data on the NAND at the same time.
Business is as usual for Windows users as ICS based devices just appear as a drive letter thanks to native MTP support. If you want to access an ICS device as you would a camera (perhaps for a specific application), Google allows you to toggle between MTP and PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol).
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TedG - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
I am looking forward to ICS on my RAZR. It seems similar in power and size to the Nexus.Jonathan Dum - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
Any comments on the quality of the touch sensors? My biggest gripe with my Nexus One is the absolutely inane touch accuracy in comparison to an iPhone. If these new ICS phones have significantly improved touch sensors, I may be coaxed into sticking with Android.jalexoid - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
Synaptics touchscreen controller on N1 was to blame. Even the HTC's "copy" Desire had a much better touchscreen experience due to a better touchscreen controller.All devices after that should have a really good controller.
tipoo - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
Same with my Nexus S. The locational accuracy is good, but it actually senses a tap with my finger a few millimeters above the screen, which can cause problems with the keyboard and other precise apps.Brian Klug - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
That was always my bug with the Nexus One as well, and it remains an unsolved problem to this day on that phone.I've seen no touch recognitions at all on the Galaxy Nexus. For the most part honestly these issues have gone away as the OEMs stopped being cheap with their capacitive layers and controllers. The Nexus One was especially bad.
I've seen some people complaining about issues with recognition in the bottom right corner - hardware swaps fix those problems.
-Brian
Skiddywinks - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
... is the GN still going to be the best Android on the market? I upgrade in March, and it basically comes down to the S2 or the GN. Each has their advantages, but personally it largely comes down to the display and the GPU.I like to play emulated games on my phone, but I don't know how they work in terms of whether they are software only, or can GPU accelerate. The better GPU in the S2 doesn't really do much if the GN can play everything else on the market at no apparent deficit. Better display all the way in that case. GN wins.
I'm not liking the lack of mSD in the GN either, though.
BAH. Decisions, decisions.
tipoo - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
Yeah, the Mali 400 in the GS2 might benchmark way higher than the Galaxy Nexus, but there are no games that exclusively run on it, or even that have more features on it like Tegra phones. I'd guess that even with its relatively weak GPU the Galaxy Nexus will never leave you wanting in games for the next year or two, and its screen is better. My Nexus S can still play top end games like Shadowgun, and that was built for more powerful tablets. With Android developers aim for middling hardware.medi01 - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
@Android is an OS that, although more closed than many would like, still allows more flexibility than iOS@And that comparing Open Source OS to something as closed as it gets. It is merely "still allows more than iOS", hilarious.
doobydoo - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - link
The openness of Android wasn't being compared to iOS, the flexibility was.Two separate points.
Gwynbleidd - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - link
Two things, though:1. You wrote "Business is as usual for Windows users as ICS based devices just appear as a drive letter thanks to native MTP support." - that's not true, because of MTP Nexus appears in My Computer in Windows as a multimedia device and does not have a letter assigned, so sadly it's not possible to use traditional file managers like Total Commander to deal with files on it without additional plugins.
2. Did you notice any screen quality issues in your devices? Mine shows ugly pinkish smudges visibly especially on gray backgrounds, here's photo (it's out of focus on purpose, otherwise there would be a rainbow goo on screen):
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/7794/nexussmudg...
So when scrolling webpages you can see that text is pinkish at the top, then white stripe, then pinkish again... Apparently I'm not the only one having this issue with Nexus, and there is a long thread on xda forum about the same problem with Galaxy Note Screens
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1...
A little investigation, maybe? ;)