Samsung Galaxy Nexus officially announced

The only thing is the App store does not have that many apps.

3"7 inch screen on the Wave 2, 5MP Camera, 720p recording and I found it faster than Android.

So I would say depends how much games you want on it. For the average phone to make calls, browse the web, music, good camera it's a great phone.

Cheers, tbh dad will never use apps anyway, I just wanted to get him something a bit more interesting than his old Motorola which is about 5 years old now.

finbaar · 20-10-2011, 13:16

Quote:

I think the smart phone market has slowed the innovation. They focus too much on apps, software rather than design and cameras now.

You have Android (they kind of all look the same lets be honest), Blackberry and Iphone) That's the choice people have some go with BB for design and others the other two.

Think of the great Samsung phones like Pixon or older slide model phones. Some were great.

Sony Ericsson is another since going to Android. Tell me what is the flagship model these days? Xperia but which model? There's 30 cloned models cheap budge ones all looking the same. From a company that use to innovate in the way Apple did Ipod vs Walkman phones and the Iphone's early camera being poor vs Sony Ericssons photographer pushed high end Cybershot phones? No wonder sales have dropped.

Think of all the camera phones that dropped mega pixel after the Iphone 3GS? I bet the new 8MP in the Iphone could boost the camera phone market again how long before a company tries to say how much better "there" camera is than Apple's Iphone 4S?

It was a disaster for SE C905 was the last great cutting edge design followed by W995 and the X905 was full of faults. They launched the Satio a bit of a confusion last good camera phone but they picked the wrong OS Symbian lots of faults and returns and lost ground to Samsung. Now the Galaxy S2 is seen as the proper Android alternative to the Iphone 4S.

If you want to blame lack of innovation blame Android or atleast the companies for focusing on software over the hardware. My ideal phone would be a bit more of a camera phone deisgn than Iphone's simple one maybe a Pixon 12 back but with the simplicity of Apple IOS.

For me Iphone 4 was the best innovation design wise it was not far off the LG Viewty idea back in 2007. Back to the OS thing I'm surprised Samsung never pushed the Bada OS from the Wave phones over Android the handset was much better looking than the old Galaxy and despite the lesser app store I found the device a little smoother than Android. But saying that you have to look back to the old early smart phones Blackberry, xperia the Nokia's they all had the same problem boring deisgn (maybe the only stand out Nokia being N95).

Bring back Cybershot, Walkman, Snakes, LG Renoir, Prada the early 3G phones, all the cutting edge features, design that lacks these days.

The Arc S is the flagship SE phone of the moment (however this is only a mid-range phone), not very hard to answer. SE got it wrong with the original Xperia range but now they are getting things right and there is a dual core model round the corner. You may criticise them for offering several different models, some of them cheap, but what is wrong with that? Why can't people on a limited budget have a SE Android phone? Not all phones need to cost £400 +.

As for Android slowing down the rate of hardware innovation, well look at the G1 from 3 years ago compared to the Galaxy Nexus. Look at the Galaxy S compared to the Galaxy Nexus as well. Huge improvements in hardware have been made and the pace is, as always, accelerating.

The original iPhone design was not only innovative but beautiful as well. The iPhone 4 & 4S, are imho, ugly, chunky and way to heavy. They are one of the first Apple products that have been undesirable as objects.

Gormond · 21-10-2011, 07:27

Screen not quite as good as claimed apparently http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2011/10/why...cked-up-to-be/

Quote:

if you calculate the real pixel density you will find that the Galaxy Nexus is actually closer to a “real” ppi value of 200, which is slightly lower than on the Galaxy S II (that uses a Super AMOLED Plus with RGB pixel structure). Some claim that a PenTile panel needs around 420 ppi to qualify as a Retina display and that is probably also the reason why Retina is nowhere to be found on the specs sheets of neither Galaxy Note nor Galaxy Nexus. If you are keen on a Samsung smartphone you might even find that the screen in the Galaxy S II is better. But the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S still lead the pixel race. Some people say they never notice the PenTile pixel structure but it is just like a stain on a carpet; once you see it, it is hard to disregard.”

paulbrock · 21-10-2011, 08:06

I always thought Retina was just Applespeak for their display. Apparently not.

alanwarwic · 21-10-2011, 08:21

It's a bit of a pixie race.
I really can't see anyone ever joining this one.

And ultimate camera quality only really matters to a few and those doing prints.
It's hardly had a mention until recent.

spendleb · 21-10-2011, 09:19

I would have thought the networks would have been allowing pre orders or indicating their price structure by now, especially if the rumoured release date of the 3rd November is real?

david.boobis · 21-10-2011, 10:39

Quote:

I always thought Retina was just Applespeak for their display. Apparently not.

It is. There is no such thing as a Retina display. It has in fact since been proved that increasing PPI beyond 330 is noticeable at regular viewing distances, so all that hyperbole from Jobs was rubbish too.

carnivalist · 21-10-2011, 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by david.boobis

Think of all the camera phones that dropped mega pixel after the Iphone 3GS? I bet the new 8MP in the Iphone could boost the camera phone market again...

Increased megapixels do not mean a better quality camera. Trumpeting megapixel numbers is often marketing hype. In fact a camera with higher megapixels can be worse than one with fewer megapixels if compromises are made to accomodate the higher number of megapixels.

jcheekychappy · 21-10-2011, 14:58

Quote:

It is. There is no such thing as a Retina display. It has in fact since been proved that increasing PPI beyond 330 is noticeable at regular viewing distances, so all that hyperbole from Jobs was rubbish too.

It's not rubbish. Retina display means that the display is the highest amount of pixels that the human eye can no longer process. The iPhone screen is the clearest smartphone screen. It couldn't be any clearer because your eyes would no longer notice the difference.

jcheekychappy · 21-10-2011, 14:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnivalist

Increased megapixels do not mean a better quality camera. Trumpeting megapixel numbers is often marketing hype. In fact a camera with higher megapixels can be worse than one with fewer megapixels if compromises are made to accomodate the higher number of megapixels.

Well that's why the new iPhone also introduced a new lens. The biggest changer In picture quality is the lens. The more light, the better the picture.

paulbrock · 21-10-2011, 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcheekychappy

It's not rubbish. Retina display means that the display is the highest amount of pixels that the human eye can no longer process. The iPhone screen is the clearest smartphone screen. It couldn't be any clearer because your eyes would no longer notice the difference.

steve jobs:
"there's a magic number around 300dpi, if you hold something about 10-12 inches away from your eye, it's the limit of the human retina to distinguish pixels."

Nexus ppi - 316.

Gormond · 21-10-2011, 19:39

Quote:

steve jobs:
"there's a magic number around 300dpi, if you hold something about 10-12 inches away from your eye, it's the limit of the human retina to distinguish pixels."

Nexus ppi - 316.

It isn't though it's closer to 200 as the article I linked explains.

paulbrock · 21-10-2011, 19:50

Quote:

It isn't though it's closer to 200 as the article I linked explains.

In which case their resolution is false advertising and they're bound to pull it.

edit: ah no, I see, its resolution times fudge factor, for all phones.

edit number 2:hmmm.. not 100% sure of the calculation I should be doing but I definitely get something approaching 300ppi. Whilst there might be an argument it's not as 'good' a ppi as the iphone/or SII, as steve Jobs says, once you hit around 300ppi it really doesn't matter. The times 2/times 3 is for subpixels, and doesn't affect the actual ppi.

Gormond · 21-10-2011, 20:03

Quote:

In which case their resolution is false advertising and they're bound to pull it.

edit: ah no, I see, its resolution times fudge factor, for all phones.

edit number 2:hmmm.. not 100% sure of the calculation I should be doing but I definitely get something approaching 300ppi. Whilst there might be an argument it's not as 'good' a ppi as the iphone/or SII, as steve Jobs says, once you hit around 300ppi it really doesn't matter. The times 2/times 3 is for subpixels, and doesn't affect the actual ppi.

Standard displays uses RGB and have 3 sub pixels per pixel such as the iPhone or Galaxy S2. The Nexus has 2 sub pixels per pixel so even though it has 300ppi the pixels them selves contain 2/3 of the information and so the true ppi is around 200ppi.

Gormond · 21-10-2011, 20:22

Anandtech provides move info on the display here - http://www.anandtech.com/show/5000/g...sion-confirmed

As shown going by subpixel density for a more accurate comparison we have:

iPhone 4: 613
Droid: 452
Atrix 2: 438
Nexus: 414
Galaxy S2: 383

So although the display is indeed better than the Galaxy S2 there's not alot in it. Certainly not as much as google would have you believe.

paulbrock · 21-10-2011, 20:25

Quote:

Standard displays uses RGB and have 3 sub pixels per pixel such as the iPhone or Galaxy S2. The Nexus has 2 sub pixels per pixel so even though it has 300ppi the pixels them selves contain 2/3 of the information and so the true ppi is around 200ppi.

PPI is dependent on resolution not subpixels. There's either less pixels or not, in which case they are making a false claim advertising a resolution of 720x1,280. They are the only numbers, along with number of inches to consider, in terms of calculating ppi.

If you want to talk about quality of pixels or display thats a different argument, but you can't change the ppi without changing either the resolution or the dimensions.

Gormond · 21-10-2011, 20:32

Quote:

PPI is dependent on resolution not subpixels. There's either less pixels or not, in which case they are making a false claim advertising a resolution of 720x1,280. They are the only numbers, along with number of inches to consider, in terms of calculating ppi.

If you want to talk about quality of pixels or display thats a different argument, but you can't change the ppi without changing either the resolution or the dimensions.

It's not a false claim as such just misleading. If you make the pixels have 2 rather than 3 sub pixels you can squeeze a third more pixels on the screen without increasing cost (but the actual sub pixel count remains the same).

Realistically displays should be compared using sub pixels per inch and not pixels per inch as per the anandtech article to avoid misleading claims such as this.

call100 · 22-10-2011, 10:53

Millions of phones sold............I wonder exactly how many of those purchasers actually gave a fig about the detail of pixels and sub pixels. In the real world it's not even on the radar of the vast majority of people...So I wouldn't think it was even a selling point.............

Stiggles · 22-10-2011, 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by call100

Screen not quite as good as claimed apparently http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2011/10/why...cked-up-to-be/

Have you ever wondered why no other manufacturer use the same screens as apple do?

Gormond · 22-10-2011, 11:13

Quote:

Millions of phones sold............I wonder exactly how many of those purchasers actually gave a fig about the detail of pixels and sub pixels. In the real world it's not even on the radar of the vast majority of people...So I wouldn't think it was even a selling point.............

To those people you could same the same about all hardware specs. Most of my friends and family couldn't tell me how much ram or the processor speed of their phone.

TheBigM · 22-10-2011, 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcheekychappy

Well that's why the new iPhone also introduced a new lens. The biggest changer In picture quality is the lens. The more light, the better the picture.

What also matters is the physical size of each pixel site. This is basically a function of megapixels (more is worse) and sensor size (larger is better).

What also matters (and where the iPhone is really getting its great shots from) is image processing, the software algorithms applied by the image processor to the raw data coming from the sensor to turn it into a jpeg.

call100 · 23-10-2011, 08:34

Quote:

To those people you could same the same about all hardware specs. Most of my friends and family couldn't tell me how much ram or the processor speed of their phone.

I agree, that was kind of my point. It's easy to forget that when on forums like this it's populated by a very small minority of people who are obsessed with minutia and pointless spec figures that the real world inhabitants don't even consider when purchasing a phone..

.
Still a good place to come to sort a problem though...

Dai13371 · 23-10-2011, 12:58

Quote: