Google Reveals the Details of Android OS 4.0, Samsung Galaxy Nexus Discussion

[Varjak]

Never read anything about endemic cracking. It certainly hasn't hurt sales. People said the same 'stone' thing about the Palm Pre, see how that worked out. Seriously, it's obviously a very subjective thing; but it seems like you enjoy following me around and making countervaling comments to every opinion I might have. You can defend your valid opinion as much as you want; but many tastemakers have hailed the style and feel of the iPhone, regardless of whatever failings it may or may not have. Remember, Ferraris aren't all that practical either sometimes.

And in any event, I wasn't talking about the Nexus S, which I happen to think looks marginally better than the NP. Again, just going from online photos.

[weegie]

Anything Samsung will be mostly plastic, it's the way they roll.
The only Nexus I really liked is the first one made by HTC.
I like the look and feel of the iPhone 4, and the screen, but that's as far as it goes.

Pity Android 4.0 isn't going to let you remove OEM applications as well as carrier ones, as I never buy carrier models there isn't a problem for me with that, having to root to uninstall unused OEM software bugs me though.

Being able to disable OEM skins like Mi An said would be good, as long as I can have 16 or so commonly used shortcuts in my face without swiping and opening app drawers I can live with any of them.
Would like to have an expanding scroll bar like the winmo HD2 has, scrolling long lists of anything is inane and just plain annoying with just finger scrolling alone

[Drillbit]

Hmm. My anti-virus is marking the website "Known Threat" - huh. Anyway, went to a reviewer's site. Looks pretty nice. Quite iPhone-like.

I guess I'm odd, but I *like* HTC Sense. It adds alot of functionality. Half my widgets are probably HTC. I looked at several after market Launchers and decided I didn't need anything with Sense.

But - has anybody tried SPB Shell 3D?
It looks pretty amazing.

HTC Sense is outright amazing. But its not for people who are into the "simple" philosophy. But I do find Sense is simple enough to use. I need to say the texting app is the prettiest I have seen. I just like texting on their phones.

SPB Shell looks great, but they're asking 15 bucks for it. Other launchers are free, including Reina 3D.

But what seems to be the rage now in the Android world are these UI launchers like Go Launcher and QQ Launcher, which are available in the Android Market and the top star for flashers in the moment, the MIUI ROMs.

QQ Launcher is actually from Tencent of China, who is behind the QQ Zone social network messaging system that is wildly popular there. MIUI is from Xiaomi, that has released an Android phone in China using this interface.


QQ Launcher


Go Launcher


Reina 3D


MIUI

[Drillbit]

I do read that the new NP has a nicely textured back; but I don't see any 'metal' supporting the camera.

If you have one of these phones, and I have my Galaxy S2 right here, you see and feel that the structure surrounding the camera and the flash is definitely metal. It is also minutely grooved so it has very tiny sharp fins, which sounds like a heat sink to me. If the phone gets hot doing a lot of thing, this is the area you will obviously feel it.

Its not plastic, like say, the area that supports the twin cameras on the EVO 3D.

[Girt]

Thanks for the suggestions and the pics, Drillbit!
As far as design, I like Ferraris and this phone better than the square-edged, square-shaped iPhone. They're both smooth and curvy. So let's realize that's a matter of personal taste. Like a Lambo vs. Ferrari, say.

As far as durability; some students posted a vid on YouTube, dropping an Galaxy S2 and an iPhone 4 onto concrete. Although it wasn't a well-controlled test over exactly how the phones impacted, the Galaxy fared very well. So I wouldn't be worried in that arena.

And as far as marketing... why the heck didn't they get the S2 over here sooner?
Although I supposed they'll continue to sell both, and the S2 has some appeals of it's own.

[Drillbit]

The reason why the S2 got delayed in the US, well a few reasons. First minor ones. US carriers prefer the traditional four button look with purely capacitive buttons instead of the three buttons with the center large physical button. In truth, the four button layout is more consistent in keeping with the Android brand identity, while the three button layout seen with international phones, is more consistent with Samsung's own brand identity as they also appear on their feature phones and their Bada OS phones.

Second, US carriers want them to have 4G, whatever 4G means. The stock Galaxy S2 is good only up to 21mbs HSPA. The AT&T version of the S2 is almost stock, except for the four buttons. The Sprint version had to have WiMax, so that took a while. Also turns out that the Exynos processors don't support LTE and T-Mobile's 42mbs HSPA+, so a radical change of processors are in order. This made the T-Mo version the most radical in the phone changes.

As far as the Sprint version goes, that phone has already been testing as early as July, because its code number has already starting appearing in benchmark sites.

As far as Verizon goes, they got their hands full with one power introduction after another with Bionic, then RAZR. then now, it became obvious they are choosing the Galaxy Nexus instead. In the meantime, in Korea, the LTE version of the S2 has gone on sale, powered by the same dual core Qualcomm processors the T-Mobile Hercules has.

In a sense, the US versions are slightly improved over the international ones, having bigger screens (4.5" vs. 4.3"), came out of the box with newer Android versions (2.3.5 instead of 2.3.3). It is strange though, why the AT&T version didn't go with 4.5" like the Infuse, however.

[brickman65]

I actually watched the "keynote" from Google on Youtube. That is one impressive phone! (Galaxy Nexeus) If I weren't so heavily invested in apps through Apple I would be tempted.

[Varjak]

PLEASE, read what I wrote. I'm not disputing there's metal and I don't care about the camera anyway. That's a little module in the whole back of the phone. It's not 'supporting' anything. It's not really a structural part of the phone overall. It's also about the size of the joint on my little finger.

[Varjak]

And by the way, I didn't start anything about the construction, I only addressed the LOOKS, which are mediocre AFAIC. YMMV.

Not that the camera is a structural element.

[weegie]

Galaxy SII disassembly

GALAXY S2 disassemble (??) - YouTube

Gotta love the guy taking it out of the box and going....oops, better turn it on at least once before I pull it apart and rip a ribbon cable