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Comment by amartya916 | Hacker News Reader

I tried the Galaxy Nexus today and the really poor quality back plate (to gain battery/SIM access) threw me off. I was about to pay close to 700 dollars for a unlocked version and the quality seemed to be fairly humdrum. I can now categorically say that HTC phones seem to have better build quality.

Do pay attention to the finish of the backplate, in fact, try removing it in store. I saw that the fit and finish was slightly different between phones.

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For a plate you will remove a few times in the life of the phone, it's a strange reason for killing the deal.

I agree, it is very cheap feeling, but it also feels thin and snug because it is a useless piece of shell.

You know, ideally, it'd be paper thin, but just as effective as holding in the battery/sim.

Precisely why I don't want it to be there, I don't really need access to the battery. For the SIM, a solution similar to the iPhone will ensure that the phone feels a lot more solid.

I guess you've tried putting back the back cover, each time a tab snapped into place, I winced, fearing I'll break one. I still have the first Nexus, it has its own issues, but it feels more 'solid'.

Almost every review for this and the SII mentions the "cheap" and "flimsy" backplate. Have you seen this video of it getting folded in half and being entirely undamaged?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXqnQKs-tA

I've not actually tried it because the video shows a Galaxy S II rather than the Nexus, but it's given me a lot more faith in Samsung's "cheap" plastics.

I'm always amazed at the minutiae that drives peoples experiences. It's true that the backplate is very thin. It "peels" from the phone more than snaps to it. I noticed that immediately and just filed it away as "interesting". Maybe it saves a half millimeter of thickness, who knows? Didn't seem important to me at all.

You are correct, it does seems like a minutiae indeed. I even took a video of it, just because the part peeled away (like you said). The problem is, once I saw that, I couldn't 'unsee' it. I started pressing the area of the backplate around the camera, and saw that it flexed quite a bit.

I don't change phones often, and I was looking forward to this one. But after I saw this, I decided that I'm going to check out the a Motorola with ICS...... if that doesn't happen by January end, I might jump ship to Windows Phone 7 with the Lumia.

The NFC antenna is back there, which probably limits the materials they can use in the backplate?

Not that it matters on Verizon ;)

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