Fred Wilson's Nexus S Review | Hacker News Reader

Fred Wilson's Nexus S Review

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58 pointsdavidykay65 comments

I was hesitant at first to get the Nexus S. It wasn't much better on paper than the Vibrant Galaxy S I owned. So far I've been very happy. The experience of a clean 2.3 install is amazing. The carriers are shooting themselves in the foot by installing bloatware and the handset manufactures are shooting themselves in the foot by modifying the skin.

I could have waited for 2.3 from Samsung but I lost faith in them. Too many promises broken over time. TouchWiz is junkie and to much to support. Samsung doesn't care about keeping the experience up to date, they'd rather I just buy a new phone. So I'm voting with my dollars and getting a phone from someone who will update it. (I do see the irony in that Samsung actually manufactured the Nexus S)

But I also am apprehensive about the Nexus S. There is no Best Buy in my town that sells T-Mobile service. I had to argue with the cell phone sales rep who told me the only way to get one was to order online. Turns out they were in a closet behind another box. How is a non-technical person going to behold the beauty of such a phone when it's not even out on the show floor.

"...I love my Nexus One and was hesitant to replace it but the Nexus S looks like the exact same phone, just better..."

Same phone? Really?

I was really looking forward to the S to replace my N1 but no matter how I slice it I keep coming up disappointed on the hardware. No SD slot, no trackball/touch-pad, no notification light, all items I use regularly. I really want to continue the pure Google experience and immediate updates but as of today I prefer the Desire Z specs over this phone by a significant margin. I am feeling really torn so I'm going to keep the N1 for awhile I guess.

I was really looking forward to the S to replace my N1

Why were you really looking forward to replacing a phone that still works with a new one that's basically the same?

Primarily so I could be rid of two the main problems with the N1: - hardware flaw in the touchscreen sensor - 196 Megs internal application storage is pitifully small

I also hoped for: - more speed - better battery life from a newer generation screen / CPU - all the new toys :)

Touchscreen one is an annoyance, yes. But the 196Mb app storage is fixable - Cyanogenmod 6.1 is the way to go. I am running it on my N1 and it gives you the ability to move any app to the SD card and it all just works. You might even get Gingerbread update from CM earlier than Google/Stock Firmware <edit> Well not really CM requires the new hardware drivers from Gingerbread that are not in AOSP - so Google will have to release Gingerbread for N1</edit>.

Regarding the 196MBs: what's the downside of App2SD?

No real downside other than the fact that apps don't move entirely to SD. All shared libraries must stay in the main storage as well as application parts tagged 'secure' from my understanding. I have my N1 rooted and use App2SD but still sit at about 32Meg free with everything possible moved. At 19 Meg (10%) the phone goes into 'low memory' warning so unless I keep caches cleared I'm always not too far away from being out of space. Gigabytes of internal storage would be a dream apps wise, and will probably be the tipping factor in when I let my N1 go even if I have to loose other things.

Not sure if you have looked at Data2SD. Allows 2GB (max) for /data

More info @

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3981637&p...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=852219 (specific for HTC Desire)

This is brilliant, thank you for the link. I think you just saved my N1 from an early retirement. I may wait until 2.3 comes down the pipe (soon? please Google?) then do it then. I would hate to see it mess up the OS upgrade. Thank you again.

No notification light? thats one of my favorite features on my Motorola Droid.

It was my absolutely least favorite aspect of using an iPhone, when I did. It seems a trivial reason to so dramatically prefer the Android devices I've had, but trivial or not, I sure did miss it when I didn't have it.

Having a useful notification light is one of the few things I miss about my old BB. I would like to know, at a glance, that my Incredible is both charging and has a new message.

I am surprised at the feature regression yet, my Droid has no trackpad, I have never used the D-Pad, the same SD card has been in my phone for a year and then some.

The notification light is a bummer though.

An app like NoLED is more than a decent stand-in for the no notification light issue. It has solved the problem on my galaxy s quite well.

i have to travel a lot and I load up the N1 with Movies, etc. for entertainment on the road. 16 Gig internal is nice but it's just not quite enough, not to mention to have to load it via USB (I pop the card out when I want to put on large media). Even 8 Gig internal with an 32Gig capable SD slot would have been a dream.

Yeah, I don't mean to encourage removing features like that, I just suspect that most users don't mind or care and more importantly, I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for some good ole pure AOSP with an unlocked bootloader.

Yes, I suspect you're right. When I get a chance I will put one in my hand and play with it for sure. I just really hoped the Nexus series of phones would always imply 'no compromise / this is the new high bar'.

To anyone looking to get a Nexus S in the UK:

The link from http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/ takes you to: http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/NEXUS...

Here, the Pay As You Go model is £549.95 and the Pay Monthly model is free from £30/month with the usual low low usage caps (and in some cases apparently no internet allowance included at all?).

However the sim-free model is a slightly more reasonable £430, on the same website. The page is harder to find. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would order the PAYG "model" (as in it's exactly the same phone) instead of this + a free sim card from any provider.

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/choose-tariff/NEXUS...

By the way, I've been using the giffgaff sim-only network for a month and recommend you take a look. Unmetered internet usage is the big one.

Don't forget to go through quidco or top cash back ;-)

I tried a Nexus S demo phone the other day, and was disappointed (comparing it with an iPhone 4). The Nexus (and most all Android) phones are jerky compared with iOS. It's also not as responsive. An example, when I zoom in to a webpage it takes a second to respond and then it zooms with a jerky motion. Android doesn't seem to respond as fast to swipes as well. I've had the G1, Nexus One, Evo 4g... and they've all been horrible to me. The biggest advantage Android has over the iPhone is price and a wide selection of handsets. I'm hoping Android 3.0 will bring a big design overhaul.

I believe 3.0 will be the big UI overhaul. In looking at the change list in 2.3 it seems to me they really focused on cleaning up core issues with the OS. You'll see most of these listed under categories like "for game developers" but I expect they are also in the process of rewriting the UI to use all the new low-level functionality as well.

I'm looking forward to the 3.0 overhaul. If Android can look and function more naturally/elegantly than it can build on it's momentum. Also 3.0 should also be a universal build for phones and tablets. Its going to be interesting to see Android 3.0 tablets.

>An example, when I zoom in to a webpage it takes a second to respond and then it zooms with a jerky motion.

I just sat here trying to reproduce that on any normal web page and couldn't, on my Nexus One. No matter where I go I get perfectly smooth zooming synchronous while I'm pinching, no kind of lag or delay whatsoever. The only place I got anything remotely like lag was by turning Flash on and going to a flash heavy web site. I can't imagine that the Nexus S is worse than the Nexus One.

Are you sure you were really using a Nexus S?

Try loading up a dozen home screen widgets and running some memory/CPU intensive things in the background. It really depends on exactly what you're running. On my HTC Eris, which is of course a much slower phone, the phone is basically unusable if Google Navigation is running. Every screen tap takes at least twice as long to register so I have to mentally shift into a lower gear to accommodate it.

Yeah, it was a Nexus S for sure. It was cnn.com I was browsing so maybe it was slow loading.

I also noticed on the Galaxy Tab that the response to swiping is noticeable slower than the iPad. It's very frustrating if you're used to iOS.

I think most people attribute the jerkiness to the lack of GPU/hardware acceleration in the Android UI. Really hope that's implemented in 3.0

I'm not sure the perceived "improvements" (especially regarding to the speed) is due to hardware or software upgrades, as NS is still the only official 2.3 game in town.

Hardware wise, Nexus S doesn't have a spec that can totally blow you away. But when N1 came, it was clear that N1 was the king, and it was so for quite a while.

The speed improvements are both. Hummingbird is a crazy beast but the low level touch improvements are showing. There is visible lag on my Mom's stock Droid 2.2 phone with few apps. Running a preliminary build of CM+AOSP 2.3 on my Droid is unbelievable. Same CPU speed, but my Droid now handles like a Droid X. It's truly, truly crazy.

The UI enhancements are subtle but have a huge effect. This feels like a bigger upgrade than 2.0 -> 2.2 was... (and this is just a AOSP build two days after source was released).

This is quite exciting. Do you have notes on how you installed 2.3 on your droid? The lag from 2.2 drives me crazy, particularly when I go to the homescreen. (It did force me to learn the keyboard shortcuts for switching between applications, though.)

(Oh I forgot the new software keyboard rocks too).

Come to #koush. mtwebster has a very initial build. Google Apps won't apply correctly, but there is also a link floating around to a rather large patch that you can install after the initial build that gives you an old version of Gapps, but the Market updated instantly and I got all updated Gapps.

I can see if someone has written something up yet, if not I can throw something together, or, like I said, if you drop by #koush people will help you.

Thanks, I will definitely check koush out in a couple of days. (Traveling at the moment, and can't afford to break my phone for now.)

Oh, well in that case, in a few days any info I'd give you would be out of date. Better builds with better gapps will be available very very soon.

That's true. But I'm still a little bit underwhelmed by the raw horse power packed into NS, at least not as impressed as when N1 came out. Hummingbird may be the fastest on the market right now, but I'll probably bet on the next dual core 1.2 Ghz snapdragon phone for my next upgrade.

Dual core is appealing for a lot of reasons, especially if you buy the company lines about performance and battery life improving due to parallelism offered by two cores. Good luck finding a dual core phone that will easily run CyanogenMod though. That's why I have a little soft spot for Nexus S, even with some of its... missing hardware. :/

The difference between the Nexus One and Nexus S is that when the Nexus One came out not only was it the best spec'ed Android phone you could get, but it would be the best spec'ed for some time.

While I think you can argue that the Nexus S is the best spec'ed Android phone today (and I think there's an argument to be made against it, with phones like the Epic 4G that includes 4G support, while the S doesn't have HSPA+, a really odd omission), it seems pretty clear that this will be pretty short lived... we've already seen leaks of phones like the Optimus 2X that will be out shortly

I feel like there isn't a lot of weight in being the best spec'd phone, seeing as how it's generally a short lived title (as you point out).

Seems like much of this review is describing how, "once you get over problems X, Y and Z", it's very close to being like an iPhone.

All he said was that there is a higher learning curve to the bottom buttons and that purchasing apps was slightly more difficult. All of this was in self-contained in a single paragraph.

What are you talking about? I only see one complaint and it was that purchases are hard. Maybe relatively, but I can buy an app in less than 30 seconds, certainly not that hard.

He compares it to an iPhone experience. Personally, I don't prefer the iPhone experience and I think this is the most polished and responsive Android yet. I think it is smooth like the iPhone but without sacrificing the UI/navigation paradigms and organization that I've come to love about Android (and coincidentally, many iOS->Android converts find they enjoy after getting over the initial "but it's not how the iPhone/Win7/Mac/whatever works" feelings).

To elaborate, everyone has expressed disappointment that this wasn't the major re-GUI that everyone was expecting, but the touches of color and black-ification is really quite nice when you see it in person. The light highlite at the bottom of a scrollable list, the new notification bar and consistent icons... it all feels really really nice on my Droid. I can only imagine how gorgeous it is on an AMOLED screens where the black is really black.

The lack of HD video recording absolutely blows me away. How could they _remove_ features from the Nexus S line? Make the damn thing a half millimeter thicker if you have to and it will still be thinner that the old version plus a Flip video.

Is he saying a feature of the camera is tha t you can attach a shot of the photographer into each photo eg using both cameras at once?

If so that's awesome.

I think it's more likely that he means taking a photo of yourself is easier with the front camera, as you can see the image on the screen as you do it.

So to buy this would I order one from best buy and then buy the tmobile prepaid? The tmobile website seems to imply I need to activate a phone first?

Easiest way is to buy the device at Best Buy and then go to a physical T-Mobile store and setup an account. Go prepaid or request the deprecated "Even More Plus" plan - they still can set one up if you ask. Saves you about $10/month.

So prepaid works? They allow it? Also are there any issues with keeping my AT&T phone number with the prepaid plan?

You shouldn't have any problem with porting (unless you're under contract) or using a prepaid plan. "Even More Plus" plans are still available though no longer advertised and may save you $10/mo.

Also consider the T-Mobile reseller Simple Mobile. $60/mo gets you "unlimited" service.

Yeah, I'm also interested in getting a smartphone on prepaid (or postpaid, whatever, I don't care as long as I don't have to sign a contract). I hear it's possible with this phone, but I'm having trouble finding out all the info.

Though actually, having spent the last week carrying around an iPod Touch in a large building with wifi, I think perhaps I'm better off being unable to access my email.

If you want pre-paid, just call and they'll mail a sim out to you. I did that and ported my ATT number over with no problems. They can't do pre-paid in store, I don't think.

I've been using the nexus s for a few days and I enjoy it. The biggest problem I have is the lack of notifications. No blinking leds or anything.

NoLED app on market, check it out. Apologize for posting this twice in the thread but I wanted you to see this suggestion if it is a big pain-point.

Blah. I have a droid and I want to microwave it on a dail basis. Weird crashes, wrong apps launch when i press their apps, etc.

I've never had the wrong app launch. It sounds like you have a faulty phone.

... How is that even vaguely possible?

A screen that intermittently reports the wrong location? Other than that, no idea. I just know that I've never had a problem with the wrong app launching, and it's not something I've heard anyone else complain about before today.

I've had a similar experience with my Droid (as has my girlfriend). It's super flaky, and it feels like it has gotten worse over time, rather than better.

Whether it's the hardware or Android, I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is that I won't be buying another Android phone when my contract's up. I just don't want to risk having another phone as glitchy as this one.

I just recommended a Droid 2/X/whatever the latest version is to a client because they advertise support for Exchange. Supposedly it works great, etc. etc. Anecdotes seemed to indicate it worked fine on Froyo so I had her get something with that.

Then she emails me saying she can't get it to work, and apparently the Moto ROM has some issue that can make it difficult to get Exchange support working. Makes me seriously bummed out and feel bad inside.

My wife and I have G1s running CyanogenMod 6.1. Mine works pretty well, but my wife is having pretty constant issues, and has with all the ROMs we've installed. These include the wrong app launching, text messages going to the wrong people, unbearable slowness, and more. The only conclusion I can reach there is that her phone is defective.

All (recent?) Android OSs have Exchange support. Don't think this has a single thing to do with specific models or manufacturers.

Let me guess, running Motorola's stock ROM? I'm so sorry for you. Funny, my mom uses her Droid all the time for gaming, emails, news, and doesn't even manage to have the problems you're having.

"Wrong apps launch when I press their buttons". What? Come on, I've never heard of that and have no idea how that would even be possible unless you're using LP/ADW.Launcher's custom shortcut functionality...

EDIT: I think I know what people are referring to, especially after reading one of the child comments here... when you are using an App, it can use an Intent to launch an Activity of another application to provide some piece of data. If you leave during that flow and come back to the original app... it can appear that you are still in the secondary app launched by the first.

It's not the "wrong" app, you just left the application in an awkward place and Android is trying to help you out.

FWIW, I've had the wrong apps launch on my phone as well. I'll click an icon and something else will come up. So, I'll just assume I fat fingered it and go back to the home screen, but when I press it again, the same thing comes back up. It generally stops doing it after a few tries, but it is pretty annoying.

EDIT (to respond to your edit): I've had instances where opening the browser app opens the text message app, which definitely isn't a normal intent for the browser to use.

Most frequently, I will hit the messaging app and it will go into Twitter, rather than the SMS app. I am not sure that is the same thing.

I had something similar happen to me on my Incredible once or twice. I can't remember if I hit Twitter and it went to GMail or vice versa.

It's odd that Twitter was involved for both of us. I wonder if they're doing something weird ... though I don't know any android.permission.CONQUER_OTHER_APPS permission in the API.

Never heard of it? Now you have.

Most frequently, I will hit the messaging app and it will go into Twitter, rather than the SMS app. I am not sure that is the same thing.

I actually have several other android phones (all employee phones: a nexus one, a mytouch, and the g1) but would really prefer to be on verizon.

I liked the last paragraph. iTunes really is a terrible part of the iOS experience.

I hope the Nexus S will be available in Germany and other countries. :)

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