[unknown17]

Originally Posted by swordman

Jellybean is ok granted but that is software the nexus is hardware.

I feel like I'm bashing the GN here and for no apparent reason as it is a good phone, but not the benchmark that I would have expected from google.

Whilst vanilla android is good for some it is not the be all and end all, if your into social networking for example it is not the best choice. I would be reluctant to get any phone without sd card support especially with only 16gb on board. Camera is average by todays standards.

If you remove the fact is has updates first just don't see that it has that much going for it in comparison to or over some other phones.

Having said all that why is the choice between these two phones exactly?

There was a few I was interested in as I want something affordable but good and I saw those two on amazon.

I did go to the Carphone Warehouse and the when I said I wanted something affordable (£150 - £300) the guy showed me the worst phones available e.g. Samsung Galaxy Ace, HTC Desire C and Sony Xperia Tipo. Plus I've seen Huawei G300 and its horrible.

[swordman]

Originally Posted by unknown17

There was a few I was interested in as I want something affordable but good and I saw those two on amazon.

I did go to the Carphone Warehouse and the when I said I wanted something affordable (£150 - £300) the guy showed me the worst phones available e.g. Samsung Galaxy Ace, HTC Desire C and Sony Xperia Tipo. Plus I've seen Huawei G300 and its horrible.

You have up to £300 to spend then?

[unknown17]

Originally Posted by swordman

You have up to £300 to spend then?

Yes and I'm not bothered if the phone is second hand, just along as it doesn't have scratches and damage.

[Gibman]

I would say the only phone on the market better than the Nexus is Galaxy S3 - and thats mainly from a tech point of view and only if you dont mind the samsung bloatware and an uglier more expensive phone. For me, those factors swayed me to the Nexus. Apparently Samsung agonised for weeks over whether or not to go with a physical home button on the S3. Must suck to get a 50/50 wrong

[swordman]

Originally Posted by Gibman

I would say the only phone on the market better than the Nexus is Galaxy S3 - and thats mainly from a tech point of view and only if you dont mind the samsung bloatware and an uglier more expensive phone. For me, those factors swayed me to the Nexus. Apparently Samsung agonised for weeks over whether or not to go with a physical home button on the S3. Must suck to get a 50/50 wrong

Much better to have physical buttons, If I have a large screen i want the full use of it. There are also many phones technically better than the Nexus how is the Nexus technically the second best phone?

If you have £300 forget both of these phones you can get a nearly new One X from Amazon for £279.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0078LXM4A

Also get a note if you time it right for about £260ish if you want screen size.

[Step666]

Originally Posted by The Alpha Gamer

Ever heard of the word "Overrated"? Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's good, are you going to try to tell me that X Factor, Twilight and Justin Bieber are good?

And just because something's popular doesn't mean it's over-rated either

The fact that Samsung handsets get great reviews and that a large number of top-class developers/ROM chefs have moved to Samsung away from the likes of HTC who were always traditionally perceived as being more Dev-friendly both speak to the quality of their phones.

Originally Posted by The Alpha Gamer

Besides their first series of Android phones, which one's haven't been supported? I haven't researched it but i'm pretty sure almost the whole of the 2011 series are currently getting updated to ICS, except for the Xperia Play, which is only because it's a gaming focused device and third party devolopers wont update their existing games to have touchpad support on ICS.

It's not simply whether they get an update or not but how timely a manner it's delivered in.

Sony (Ericsson) were about the first OEM to make a statement about updating their pre-ICS range to ICS, yet not one of their handsets started to receive an update until months after various Samsung and HTC models did.
And that's in spite of the entire 2011 Xperia range using the same CPU, which should've made it easier for Sony to deliver the update as portions of code could be copied from one handset to the other.

Also, releasing the Xperia S with Gingerbread months after ICS had been released, that was an extremely poor move on Sony's part.

Originally Posted by The Alpha Gamer

The Xperia S is also the first non-Nexus phone that the AOSP team are going to work with. Sure Samung have made the most Nexus phones, but none of their non-nexus phones have had official AOSP support, have they?

That's pretty meaningless really.
You can already get CyanogenMod for the Xperia range, it's a branch of AOSP that doesn't tinker with the UI much but adds a lot of customisation/tweaks/options that AOSP lacks, so anyone with any sense would just go for CM instead.

[unknown17]

I ended up ordering a HTC One X from Amazon for £275.80 like new. I've also had to order a sim cutter as I hear that it only takes micro sims.

[pi r squared]

Originally Posted by swordman

Much better to have physical buttons, If I have a large screen i want the full use of it.

Surely that's an argument in favour of on-screen buttons? If you have on-screen buttons then they're there when you need them, and tuck themselves nicely away when you don't - ie. full screen games, video etc. - so you do get full use of the screen. The 84-pixel height of the on-screen buttons is in all likelihood no different from the extra bezel required to house the physical home button and capacitive buttons, but those extra pixels can be used, unlike hardware buttons.

[swordman]

Originally Posted by pi r squared

Surely that's an argument in favour of on-screen buttons? If you have on-screen buttons then they're there when you need them, and tuck themselves nicely away when you don't - ie. full screen games, video etc. - so you do get full use of the screen. The 84-pixel height of the on-screen buttons is in all likelihood no different from the extra bezel required to house the physical home button and capacitive buttons, but those extra pixels can be used, unlike hardware buttons.

I'm happy to have a little extra bezel to house the buttons so the Nexus with physical buttons but slightly longer would be my preference

[Step666]

Originally Posted by pi r squared

Surely that's an argument in favour of on-screen buttons? If you have on-screen buttons then they're there when you need them, and tuck themselves nicely away when you don't - ie. full screen games, video etc. - so you do get full use of the screen. The 84-pixel height of the on-screen buttons is in all likelihood no different from the extra bezel required to house the physical home button and capacitive buttons, but those extra pixels can be used, unlike hardware buttons.

An argument that would hold more weight if there weren't the wasted spaced under the screen on the Nexus where the notification light is.

Personally, if I had been designing the Nexus, I would've made the notification light touch-sensitive and have had that as a toggle for the on-screen buttons.

[pi r squared]

Originally Posted by Step666

An argument that would hold more weight if there weren't the wasted spaced under the screen on the Nexus where the notification light is.

I was talking about on-screen buttons in general, not on a specific device. If you look at the Galaxy Nexus with cold, clinical eyes then you can also see a wasted 1-2cm in the top bezel between the speaker/FF camera and the screen - and there's no 'notification light' excuse there. It's not really relevant to my point, though: my argument is that the extra screen space required for on-screen buttons can be negated by a reduction in bezel required to hold any hardware buttons - and as such, you are getting fuller use of the screen (which was swordman's argument against this), because those buttons disappear contextually, unlike hardware ones.

Personally, if I had been designing the Nexus, I would've made the notification light touch-sensitive and have had that as a toggle for the on-screen buttons.

Ice Cream Sandwich was all about refining and improving the UX. I don't see manual toggling really as part of that. What sort of use cases would you actually want to toggle the on-screen buttons off?

[unknown17]

Originally Posted by unknown17

I ended up ordering a HTC One X from Amazon for £275.80 like new. I've also had to order a sim cutter as I hear that it only takes micro sims.

This was a big mistake

It came today and the battery was absolutely terrible. I charged it fully and after 10 minutes it went down to 90% so I'm getting a refund.

Back to the HTC Wildfire now until I can find something else.

[SonyJunkie]

I've bitten the bullet and ordered a Galaxy Nexus from Expansys as it's on offer for £300 at the moment. My HTC Sensation XE is going against the wall as soon as the GN arrives!! :-)

[finbaar]

Originally Posted by SonyJunkie

I've bitten the bullet and ordered a Galaxy Nexus from Expansys as it's on offer for £300 at the moment. My HTC Sensation XE is going against the wall as soon as the GN arrives!! :-)

I have had my GNexus since Friday and it just gets better. I am getting over the GNote and not longer miss the massive screen.

[rosetech]

I dont understand why this phone is not more popular It ticks all the boxes for me and I also have a S3.

[schilltastic41]

It has come to that point that I use smartphone to execute small but heaps of daily tasks like emails, news reading, twitter, etc so I need a long-running battery. Thus Nexus is a better choice but I like the originality of the Xperia design.

[Tracey.l]

I say go for the Sony, after just spending an hour researching pentile screens I'm happy NOT to have one.

[Stuart_h]

Originally Posted by Tracey.l

I say go for the Sony, after just spending an hour researching pentile screens I'm happy NOT to have one.

Hello again Tracey.

.... and what did your hour of research tell you ?

If wager if you looked at a Nexus or S3 screen you wouldnt be able to see any issue with Pentile without a magnifying glass .....

Pentile issues were noticable before the resolution got as high as it is now really .....

[swordman]

Originally Posted by Tracey.l

I say go for the Sony, after just spending an hour researching pentile screens I'm happy NOT to have one.

Thought you loved the S3 I'm confused again now have you changed your mind here again also.

[Tracey.l]

Originally Posted by swordman

Thought you loved the S3 I'm confused again now have you changed your mind here again also.

What made you think I "loved" the S3? Because you won't find a quote of me saying I love it, nore that I hate it.

If I loved it an it suited my needs I would own it, but it doesn't an now I have looked into the screen technology I like it a little less.

Please don't try to misquote fellow forumers.

[Dai13371]

Im looking at my Galaxy Note's gorgeous 720p screen here and, whats this PENTILE, arrrrrgh I'm going to have to immediately dispose of this abhorrent phone. What ever possessed me to get it.

Jeez do you know how daft you lot sound when you talk about pentile? One hours research looking at scaremongering sites with close up photos of pixels does not hold a candle to actual real world experience.

[swordman]

Originally Posted by Tracey.l

What made you think I "loved" the S3? Because you won't find a quote of me saying I love it, nore that I hate it.

If I loved it an it suited my needs I would own it, but it doesn't an now I have looked into the screen technology I like it a little less.

Please don't try to misquote fellow forumers.

But Trace you said it was the 'best phone out there' and given how much you gush about your iphone as it is better than that, that was the only conclusion I could draw surely.

Are you now saying it is not the best or when you said it was the best you didn't actually know what it was exactly? I'm awfully confused by your constant contradictions some might say you don't have much of a clue at all.

[Stuart_h]

Originally Posted by Tracey.l

What made you think I "loved" the S3? Because you won't find a quote of me saying I love it, nore that I hate it.

If I loved it an it suited my needs I would own it, but it doesn't an now I have looked into the screen technology I like it a little less.

Please don't try to misquote fellow forumers.

You have certainly suggested previously it is a great phone. i also recall you stating that it has a great screen but strangely that post no longer shows up.

Curiouser and curiouser.

methinks Tracey might not be all that she seems to be.

[whedon247]

guys im not into phones but i have had enough of my lg optimus one(my frist smart phone) and i have agreed a deal with a mate at work to buy his nexus(4 months old,great condition,boxd,headphones,chargers etc) for £205

do you reckon this is a good price or should i stick to my original offer of 190?

[Terual]

Can anyone tell me if either of the two phones being reviewed here can be used with the Alfa Romeo "Blue & Me" system? When I purchased my car just over two years ago I could pair my then Sony Ericsson phone, and thus make hands free calls. I then went and changed my phone to to Sony Ericsson Xperia and that was the end of hands free, it couldnt be "paired". As the contract for that phone is about to expire I,m looking for a replacement which will do the job.
I want a good phone too