Equally the current Google flagship smartphone, the Milky way Nexus by Samsung is the first device to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The version for Verizon'due south LTE network in the U.South. is slightly thicker than the European model, but it besides gets a larger battery and, of grade, the 15Mbps 4G downloads on Verizon's network, otherwise they're functionally the same.

The super big, super high-resolution display on the Galaxy Nexus is a dream to await at, and the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system gives users something very new and interesting to piece of work with. It'southward a good combination.

Unfortunately the phone does seem to carry a flaw from scratch, though. Reception, particularly on 4G, can be a trouble. Not everybody seems to experience this, merely showing itself in weaker signal areas. Apart from that, the Milky way Nexus is every bit the hero smartphone that Google needs it to be to move Android to the next stage of its evolution.

Hardware

The Samsung-congenital Google Galaxy Nexus shows off an interesting blueprint without existence groundbreaking. Information technology features a subtly curved front glass panel that protects the 720p resolution (720 10 1280) Super AMOLED Hard disk touchscreen display. In that location are few exterior controls on the telephone: a volume command on the left edge and a power switch on the correct. The phone feels to be solidly constructed and its 146.2g (5.2oz) weight gives it a nice amount of heft.

The Galaxy Nexus' 136mm x 68mm ten 10.0mm (5.4in x 2.7in x .4in) dimensions can make it a bit of a handful, though. It's longer and significantly thicker than the Motorola Droid Razr, but fits in the manus a bit better since it is narrower, even when the Razr has a smaller screen. At that place are no dedicated touch on sensitive controls on the phone, which is a feature of Android 4.0 Ice Foam Sandwich, merely it still takes a pretty long attain to get to the upper border of the display when using the phone one-handed.

The display is absolutely brilliant. It is sharp, bright, and colorful, and its 4.65-inch diagonal size is amongst the largest in the smartphone world. It is my favorite smartphone brandish on the market today, fifty-fifty though it uses the much-derided Pentile sub-pixel arrangement. Without magnification, I don't remember a normal person volition notice the difference and that is what matters in the end.

Removing the Galaxy Nexus' somewhat thin rear embrace reveals the micro-SIM card and slot required for LTE service on Verizon besides as the battery. There'southward no microSD retentiveness card slot on the phone, as was the instance on the Nexus Due south, but the Galaxy Nexus does come up equipped with 32GB of internal storage. Also found on the back are the 5 megapixel camera and flash. A secondary 1.3 megapixel photographic camera can be found on the front of the phone, and there is also a large, hidden notification light resting beneath the display almost the bottom edge of the phone.

Usability

With the arrival of Android 4.0 Water ice Cream Sandwich, Google's Os finally appears to exist growing out of its somewhat bad-mannered babyhood years and budgeted maturity. While Water ice Cream Sandwich uses many of the UI themes first introduced in Android 3.x Honeycomb (for tablets), they accept been refined and at present brand better sense. Google has even introduced a new font for the operating system called Roboto. But while Android is a visually inverse Bone, information technology even so offers the same bones functionality that it e'er has.

The Milky way Nexus offers 5 home screens that yous can configure. Users still swipe left and right to switch between them, and they can be configured with shortcuts and widgets as before - though all of these features are now accessed from the Widgets tab of the main menu where i previously only found apps. Since there are no hardware keys beneath the display, the main navigation controls are now drawn on the bottom of the touchscreen, which allows them to be more visually appealing and adapted at times, equally needed.

Dwelling house and back functions remain, but search and menu are gone. Search is replaced by in-app functionality and the search bar institute on every home screen panel. Menu is replaced by an on-screen control made up of 3 vertically aligned dots that can announced at the top of an app, the bottom of an app, or to the correct of the tertiary, and new, main control at the lesser of the screen.

That new command is the task switcher, which is inherited from Android Honeycomb. Tapping on that control brings up a visual history of applications that are running or take recently been used on the telephone. One scrolls up and down through the list, switches to an app with a tap, or removes information technology from the list with a swipe left or right. I was unimpressed by it on a tablet, only love it on a smartphone.

The swipe-to-remove gesture can also be used in the updated notification area at the top of the screen, making it now possible to remove individual or all notifications every bit desired - something all prior versions of Android lacked. A user-friendly link to the phone'southward Settings app is also plant there.

Android notwithstanding has no proper ringer profile back up, only now it allows to toggle between normal, vibrate, and truly silent ringer settings using the volume control. A tap on the on-screen volume will do the trick, as will pressing upward or down repeatedly on the book primal on the side of the phone. The Android keyboard has been updated, and features a much larger space fundamental. Vocalisation input on the keyboard, when enabled, is fantastic. It inputs words in near real-fourth dimension as you speak them when you have a fast enough data connection.

While there's no built-in support for social networking on the phone, Google provides an API that allows third party apps to integrate non just contacts with the telephone, but to also show status updates in a contact tape. The new contacts app features an oddball colour scheme that doesn't friction match that of the remainder of Ice Cream Sandwich, though. It's pretty, simply inconsistent with the electrical blue on black leanings of the Os every bit a whole.

Overall, though, I can't put into proper words just how happy and pleasantly surprised I am about how Android 4.0 operates. At that place'due south a learning curve for new users, but information technology's non a especially steep ane, and the rewards in the end are worth information technology.