Posts Tagged ‘Nexus S’

Nexus S vs. Nexus One

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

A few days ago I switched from my HTC Nexus One to the Samsung Nexus S. I also switched from AT&T to T-mobile. So far this is probably one of the top ten BEST decisions of my life. So looking at the price of the Plan change I have gone from paying $88 a month after taxes with a contract (paid 80 dollars to get out of it) to NOW my plan is 59.99 (plus taxes) a month with NO CONTRACT. Oh and there is no difference in plans other than the lack of rollover minutes, which I never used.

In order to get that low low price and no contract I had to purchase the phone for the full price of 529.99 plus tax. I don’t mind this because I can just sell the phone if I really need to change plans and make back the money. So whatever on to the important part! The phones!

nexus-one          VS         nexus-s

Hardware

So obviously the Nexus S is FAST much faster than the Nexus One. Things are smoother than ever and sometimes things happen before my brain registers touching the screen. Yes, it’s THAT fast (or demonstrates the sluggishness of my brain). So yeah, that’s that. There are three hardware advantages, in my mind, that the Nexus One has over the Nexus S. Here are the three reasons:

  • The Nexus One’s camera can zoom.
  • The Nexus One has a trackball
  • Micro SD Slot

The one thing that bothers me about all these Nexus S and Nexus One comparisons is the GLARING omission of the biggest advantages of the Nexus S over the Nexus One. The Touch Screen. As EVERYONE knows the Nexus One’s suffered from a ridiculously horrible touch screen that was built into the hardware. I did a warranty exchange and got the same crappy touch screen performance. Thankfully the Nexus S, at least mine, does not suffer from this defect. So yes it is wonderful. WONDERFUL I TELL YOU!!

But anyways, I digress, these 3 hardware advantages are completely unimportant to me. I was fine with a 4 gig SD card on my Nexus One. The Nexus S has SIXTEEN gigs of storage. Who cares if I can get 32 gigs on my Nexus One if I already have trouble using up 4 gigs.

As far as the camera is concerned I have a Canon Rebel XS that I use to take pictures so I don’t really care about that. For some of you vacationers that use your phone as a camera, (You know who you are! I’ve seen you while I was out there being a tourist!) you probably will see this as being a bit more important.

The lack of a trackball does disturb me a bit but I’m over it already. instead of using the trackball to move between letters there is an arrow that shows up and allows you to move the cursor very precisely. There is no equivalent to using the trackball as the camera button (this is a Nexus One feature). the lack of this capability does make me a bit sad. but as I said earlier, Canon Rebel XS (cheapo DSLR camera).

Just the fully functional touch screen makes me happy and on top of that I get a speed boost, NFC, front facing camera, nicer screen, cooler looking styling, etc., etc., etc.. Oh one more thing about the SAMOLED LCD. It seems as though there is a sort of blue sheen when bright light reflects on it, this does not bother me but I could see how it would annoy some people. But as promised the screen does perform better in direct light than the AMOLED on my N1.

Build Quality

There has been a lot of talk about the Nexus S feeling plastic-y and because of that the build quality is lower because it feels cheap. Well I submit to you that the idea of weight as a measure of value is, in most situations, a faulty method of valuation. This method of estimating value for electronics probably has something to do with the weight of the heat sinks in older electronics (just guessing). Anyways the phone is lighter! who cares! it’s made of plastic who cares!

Also, the Nexus one, being metal, has a sort of rubber coating over the metal body of the phone to stop the phone from sliding around I guess. But that coating, on my N1, has started to peel off. This is very, very annoying and ugly. The Nexus S may slide around a bit more but at least the phone won’t start molting like a dry lizard.

But really the only thing that matters to me, as far as build quality is concerned, is the fact that everything on the phone works as it is supposed to (AHEM touch screen). So yeah, that’s what I think about that.

Software

Both have Gingerbread (Android 2.3) so who cares on this one. The software runs noticeably faster and smoother on the Nexus S, but as mentioned earlier that, I think, is a symptom of the fasterhardware in the Nexus S.

Conclusions

You may think this is a crappy comparison between the Nexus S and the Nexus One and you would be 100% correct. But first of all there are many comparisons between the two phones that are very good, with the exception of the touch screen issue being omitted (here’s one with a table and everything!). And second and most importantly, I do not ever try to write quality blog entries! If there happen to be some quality entries on this site then they were the product of happy accidents. I just write whatever stupidity that enters my idle mind! And what is on my mind? The fact that the Nexus S is WAY better, in my opinion, than the Nexus One. Bam! Done!

Peace out!!

 

Edit 4/2/2011
Since originally posting this I have found the Achilles heal of the Nexus S. It’s the GPS. It works well enough for when I use Runkeeper on my long runs but it is absolutely abysmal for when I use the navigation feature. The Nexus One had a solid GPS, the navigation was PERFECT. But I guess there is always something.

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Posted in Gadgets, Tech | 2 Comments »

Nexus S: Another Super Tiny Pixelated Picture!

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

new nexus-s-macbook-pro-spyOnce again there is another super tiny picture of a phone that is supposedly the Nexus S. I am assuming that they are right and it actually is the Nexus S. To the left is the picture in question.

Supposedly this was found in a Google Employees Picasa Album.

I guess it is an interesting picture but really who cares about the phone? I am wondering why this macbook looks like some nasty unknown substance I eating away at the screen! Come on Guy! Get a micro fiber cloth and clean that up!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot this picture shows that the front of the device is curved and that the Nexus S will use Micro USB. yay! but unfortunately it still does not tell us whether or not the actual touchscreen glass/plastic is curved. And I had already assumed that it would use Micro USB. so really, it is a useless picture, Engadget still wins!

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The Nexus S hmm…..

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

The Nexus One is the first HTC phone I have ever owned and as far ass hardware is concerned it is by far the worst phone I have ever owned. Two weeks after I got my first phone the speaker broke and it had to be exchanged. In both of my Nexus One’s the touch screen was absolutely abysmal. But I stuck with it because I LOVED the software. And I still do love the software.

After reading that there would never be a Nexus 2 I thought all was lost and that I would be stuck with a crappy touch screen for another year. I really don’t like those user interfaces that cell phone manufacturers add on to the Android Experience. I just want the plain vanilla android. And after having to exchange my phone after two weeks I wasn’t about to void my warranty by rooting the phone to get the experience that I wanted. So I resigned myself to dealing with crappy HTC hardware. And after trying to get it exchanged for the touch screen, I now know I will NEVER buy an HTC cell phone again.

Then on November 16th, 5 days late, I found out about the Nexus S. The Nexus S is really the Nexus 2 with a mirrored 2 according to Eric Schmidt. When I heard about it I though “OMFG, FINALLY! I no longer have to feel all crappy about my phone!” Then it just keeps getting better! It’s going to have Gingerbread (Android 2.3), It will have NFC (Near Field Communication), it’s going to be coming out soon (more on the “soon” later), It will be sold at Brick and Mortar stores (Best Buy), and most importantly it is NOT going to be made by HTC! I was instantly in love.

nexus-s

I know that as soon as I get back from Hong Kong I am going to throw down 600 dollars and buy that phone and junk my Nexus One on Ebay. The Samsung Nexus S with the “pure google experience” is where it’s gonna be.

So in my excitement I sat down and watched the entire talk with Eric Schmidt at the Web 2.0 Summit and actually say the bad ass phone! But then came the downer. When Eric Schmidt said that Gingerbread will be coming out in the “next few weeks” I was very sad. This reminded me of the Froyo debacle from earlier this year. Google said Froyo would be coming out in a few weeks, or soon, or when it is ready, and it took months after that announcement.

 schmidt_nexus_sNexusS

Then I started hearing about hardware issues, and dual core optimized software. Supposedly at the last minute they decided to add a dual core processor to the device but the software is not optimized for dual core. For these reasons they delayed the November 16th release date. But in any case I hope that this phone comes out in time for the Christmas holidays. But with Google’s track record, I am starting to think that it won’t.

I really want the Nexus line of phones to continue because I enjoy the pure Google experience with tethering, no crappy UI’s, no AT&T telling me I can’t install outside applications, the ability to travel outside of the US and use my phone without having to figure out Black Snow and Cydia, and no Man with his foot on my neck! So please, please, please, do this right Google and Samsung. Please get the holiday sales so that this Nexus phone will be both a success both financially and in  terms of getting android out there to the public. I know that people like me will buy the phone no matter when it comes out because that’s how we do things. We are Android fan boys and girls haha. But you have to get the normal people on the bandwagon too!

Whenever the Nexus S does come out I will be buying it if I am in the US at the time. I won’t be back from Hong Kong until December 31st!

For all those people who think that “Samsung sucks and they shouldn’t have been chosen to make the phone and HTC makes good quality phones” you obviously haven’t suffered with the Nexus One’s abysmal touchscreen. the touch screen issue on the Nexus One is well documented and all over the internets. And HTC has done what? Zip, Zilch, Nada. In fact they make a big deal about how impossible it is to exchange the phone when you call them about problems. Then when they finally transfer you to the warranty exchange department, the warranty exchange department transfers you back to the tech support as soon as they find out you have a Nexus One. So yeah I am EAGER to get off of HTC.

Even if 99% of your products are great, how you handle that last 1% says volumes about your company. And those volumes about HTC are full of bad tech support and not taking care of their customers.

So anyways, that’s all folks I’ll write something else later!

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Posted in Gadgets, Gripes, Hong Kong, random, Travel | No Comments »