There are a few people on here keen to get this handset, so I thought I'd share my views so far having owned it for half a day....

It's a decent bit of kit, no doubts about that, it's powerful and has some impressive features. Having said that, it's not without it's downsides either and some of those downsides are still niggling me as whether to keep this handset or just stick with an HTC Sensation. The next few days playing will be my decider.

I've not had a great deal of chance to play with this today as I've been busy, but here's my view so far,

Size - it's huge. Those of you coming from the SG2 may not be too fussed, but HTC users may find this feels a little on the large side. I'm slowly getting used to this.

Build - I know it's cliché, but yes, it feels cheap.
I've clearly been spoilt over my last few handsets with the Desire, Desire HD and Sensation all feeling like they'll last me a long time due to their materials and build quality. The GN however doesn't fill me with confidence, it feels very thin and plasticy - couple this with it being rather large and you wonder if it's safe to put it in your pocket.
The shape isn't quite as nice a feel as the Sensation either, a little less comfy on the grip.

Battery - Considering I've been playing with it I'm impressed that the battery appears to be doing well for a newly uncycled battery. Certainly appears to be better than HTC batteries.

Screen - Not as impressed as I thought I'd be.
I thought I was getting something that resembled an HD display, something that was going to be bright, colourful and impressive. Sadly so far the screen has been a little bit dull and uninspiring. The Sensation's screen is out doing it when they're put side by side.

Issues - Only come across one bug so far and that was the Market refusing to download any apps to my handset. Sadly the only fix for this appears to be to do a factory reset and loose all your settings and customisation. Until another fix is found, make sure you test the Market before you start customising your phone to avoid wasting time.

Flash - This handset is NOT currently compatible with Flash!!

Swype - Swype refused to install and stated that it wasn't compatible with the display.

Camera - INCREDIBLE!
When I bought my Sensation I was looking forward to this 'instant' photo feature that never actually quite lived up to it's name. The GN however has a camera so fast that it could win an Olympic gold medal!
I played with the camera earlier and found that it takes photos as quick as I can click the screen, one after the other. It's very fast, even with the flash turned on.
Video recording is nice and clear and the photos it takes aren't bad either although in low light I noticed the quality appeared to drop considerably - something I'll be exploring more later.

Market - The latest version of Google Market comes installed on this handset. It's very different to what I've used in the past and it takes a little getting used to.

Web - The absence of Flash is a pain, but the browser appears to work rather well. The tabbed browsing is great and even when I had 6 tabs loaded earlier the browsing experience didn't slow down at all.

Wifi - Connects to my wireless network at home faster than any other smartphone I've owned in the past although the signal meter doesn't show a full Wifi signal even when it's bang next to the router. Not sure if this is a signal issue for the handset or if it's just an issue with the signal display.

Buttons - One of the things I hated about the Galaxy S2 was the dog ugly square button at the bottom of the screen that ruined the entire phone for me. Thankfully the GN doesn't bother with such a blemish, all the buttons are non-physical. They generate as part of the display with a nice vibrate response when you touch them. It works well and looks quite neat. The buttons' icons vanish, turning in to white dots, in camera mode though which can be confusing on the first few times you use it.

Recent apps - I like this button. Press it and any app you've used recently is displayed in a rather smart little menu that shows a snapshot of the app when it was open. This also works for web pages, phones calls and text messages.
To clear something from the recent use display just slide it left or right and it's gone. Very nice.

Call quality - The earpiece is clear and loud. Speakerphone appears to work well too. No complaints from anyone I've called about them hearing me either.

Video call - Where the hell is it?
I remember the GS2 had a video call icon to make a video call. The GN appears not to have this and so far I've not found a way to make such a call.
I was disappointed with my Sensation when I found that it didn't support network video calls, only software type calls such as Skype. I'm really hoping the GN hasn't gone down this route, although I get the feeling it may have.

User Interface - Coming from HTC the user interface on the GN feels a little dull. I'll be putting something like Go Launcher EX on there soon I think to make it look a little nicer.


Overall I'm starting to like the handset. I started off really unkeen on it, but it's growing on me. I think it was because I was running it next to my Sensation which is a superb handset and looks very polished and user friendly. Now I've started to explore the GN I'm thinking it may be staying with me rather than heading to Ebay. We'll see...

It's clearly a handset aimed at developers and you see little menu options and physical features to remind you off this every now and then.

Good handset, but I genuinely think it's seriously over priced at the moment for sim free and PAYG.

I found that my screen's brightness was set to automatic and as such it appeared dull. A quick play with the settings revealed a very bright and attractive screen. It's still not as impressive as the Sensation's screen, but it does look a lot better with the setting changed. Very crisp, very clear.

As a former Galaxy S2 owner I can say some of your issues are Samsung related, the build quality of their phones is rubbish, they seem to make them out of the poorest quality plastic, sure it may make it feel lighter but it just feels like rubbish.

As for WiFi I had the exact same issue, unless I was sat on top of the router I could never get full WiFi signal, however in saying that it never dropped even with 1 bar.

Thanks for the post.

I'm still trying to decide on the following:

Get the Galaxy Nexus (I'm starting to sway away from this now due to the size and a couple of little bits (inc the price at the moment)).

Get the Galaxy S2 (a lot cheaper, like the ldea of the Gorilla Glass + it being a slightly smaller handset).

Or wait for either the S2 LTE to come out in this country next year or even the S3?

I was wondering if anybody had compaired the S2's Super AMOLED+ screen and the Galaxy Nexus Super AMOLED screen (is the Nexus a lot sharper)?

My phone (HD2) has just come to the end of it's 2 year contract.

Thanks, Mark.

A friend of mine has the gs2, I'll compare wren I can.

having seen both them I prefer the S2s screen. The sub pixel density is about the same but the S2 seems brighter and sharper.

Another positive find is that mobile internet appears faster on it.

I was browsing over the mobile internet earlier on both handsets and I had to check the Nexus wasn't on Wifi because it was loading pages so fast. Very impressive.

I have read somewhere that the flimsy feel of the galaxy and the solid feel of the HTCs is deceptive. The plastic in the Samsungs is supposedly quite high tec. It's supposed to feel like it gives, because that transmits less shock to the inside in the case of trauma, whereas the HTC's transmit more shock - if you drop them the case might be unscathed, but the insides might not.

It's a similar principle to modern vehicle chassis - they seem thinner and more flimsy than tank-like cars from the 1950s, but if they hit something, less of the shock is transmitted internally.

Talk about flexible!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXqnQKs-tA

But that's what I mean. It might look scary if you're used to the typical hard plastic of most phones, but the fact you can't break or crack it is a bonus - and I bet the shock absorbency of that is better than the hard plastic or metal of some other phones.

The issue is it doesn't feel like good quality plastic in the hand, it feels cheap and flimsy.

Not all of us choose form over function.

I'd vote for better shock protection, better reception and better battery life 9 times out of 10.

Agreed. Putting a proper aerial on would be good too!

yes your findings are about the same as mine had mine for 2 days now its a deffo keeper though but the screen is a let down imo my sg2 and extras is for sale if anybody is interested £315 del or collected £305 face recognition is very cool gimmick i have had none of the volume issues but it does seem low call clarity is excellent and ics looks superb

can you expand on the "not compatible with flash"?

Surely its just a matter of installing the flash apk and enabling plugins in the browser? Whats stopping it from working?

I'm tempted to wait another 3/4 months and then hopefully the GALAXY S3 will be out by then. A lot of speculation, but I recon they might be along the right lines with the specs etc.

I was not sure about getting the S2 without finding out what ICS runs like on it and if there were going to be any issues with it (also how long we might have to wait for it to be made available on the S2).

I've had a look at the S2 LTE online, but they recon that's going to be even longer before it's released in the UK.

ics is not compatible at the moment ie it wont work period until google or adobe release a fix there is no flash to install no plugins nowt i have tried everything we have to wait

ps and dont call me shirley

yea, it didnt even occur to me that flash wouldnt work. I was contemplating getting this phone but just been reading a lot about it over at xda forums and a few things are putting me right off it now. Apparently flash should be coming soon but theres a few others that make me think ill wait till either my GS2 is updated or more models are released with ICS next year

Right.. so all in all OP:

1. Is the Nexus worth the money in its current state?

2. Do you think a Sensation XE or overclocked Sensation with XE-style ROM would give a similar experience once ICS is implemented?

Is the LTE any better than the S2 spec wise, as it would be hard to push an LTE version that is the same as we will not be getting LTE till end of 2011/early 2012.

Seems quite barking that ICS is not having Flash.

Tegra 3 would eat Flash for breakfast so one wonders if Google will put in a gingerbread compatibility mode for Flash.
I have doubts in that Nvidia relies extremely heavily on Microsoft and Apple for sales and market cooperation.

Its got a 4.5 inch screen and 1.5 cpu.

They recon Q4 for the S2 LTE and February for the S3, but sounds like the S3 is going to be the better phone anyway.

I had the same issue - there is a patch on the xda forums to increase the brightness under auto brightness so i'm going to put that on later.

I'm loving the Nexus so far (I'm also a Galaxy S2 owner) but didn't realise how much I use Flash. Hopefully Adobe will sort it out soon or someone will work out how to hack an existing version of Flash to work.

LTE will take a lot longer than that to appear in the UK! The spectrum isn't even being auctioned off until the end of 2012 at the earliest.

http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=469152

Just read about your lukewarm reaction on the new Galaxy phone......nd....I've decided to go with it. Does the phone really look cheap? Pls. give som info. regarding the contract deals available for the phone.