Google Nexus S review

When Google said that there would be no Nexus Two handset to follow up the Nexus One, it was technically right, as the next smartphone from the search giant is this, the Nexus S. Just as the Nexus One was manufactured by HTC and was basically the same as the Desire, the Nexus S is manufactured by Samsung and is very similar to the excellent Galaxy S.

In fact, we’d go so far as to say that the Nexus S is a slightly upgraded Galaxy S. The new features are the Contour Display, Near Field Communication (NFC) reader and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

While the Contour Display has been hyped by Google, as a curved display that makes the phone more comfortable to hold and use, we don’t think it’s that much different to a regular screen. In fact, the Nexus S’s screen is only slightly curved and you have to really stare at it side-on in order to see its contour at all.

The 4in touchscreen AMOLED display is the same size and resolution (480×800) as that found on the Galaxy S. While it may be slightly lower resolution than the iPhone’s Retina display, the Nexus S still has enough resolution to fit an entire web page on screen in portrait mode. Screen quality is fantastic, with bright vibrant colours even at minimum brightness and excellent viewing angles. The capacitive touchscreen’s a joy to use and very responsive.

Inside the case there’s pretty much the same phone as the Galaxy S, with a 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor. It’s a great CPU and makes the phone incredibly responsive to use. Zooming into webpages is smooth and pretty much the experience you’d expect from an iPhone.

There are some minor hardware differences, though. One of the most glaring ones is that while the Nexus S has 16GB of built-in storage for data (there’s 1GB of internal memory for apps), there’s no way to expand this, as there’s no memory card slot. Admittedly the 16GB of storage should be enough for most people, but it’s a little odd not to have a Micro SDHC card slot.

The only other addition is the NFC chip, which can be used to read chips embedded in objects. The chips can contain text information or links to websites. In Japan they’re embedded in a range of objects, such as movie posters, so that people can scan them and go to a website for more information. In the UK, though, there’s currently no use for this scanner. That’s not to say it won’t be useful in the future, but it’s not a feature that you have to have now.

Build quality is OK, but the plastic construction means that the handset doesn’t feel as well made as the iPhone or the HTC Desire. When you take into account the SIM-free price of this handset, we’d expect a much tougher-feeling phone.

The main thing that people are excited about with this phone in Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). This latest version of Google’s mobile OS is actually a fairly minor update to Android 2.2, but has some important features bar support for the NFC scanner. For starters, it feels that bit much faster and more responsive, improving the Android experience.

Running apps are easier to deal with and the Manage Apps feature is now selectable by pressing the Menu button on the homescreen. Apps are supposed to be better managed, too, with processes eating up too much CPU time while running the background or keeping the handset awake automatically shut down.

Battery life in our MP3 playback test was pretty good, with the battery lasting 27hours and 14minutes (just a couple of hours shorter than the Galaxy S). Google also quotes 17.8 days standby time and 6.7hours talk time.

We love the new copy-and-paste feature in Android 2.3, which gives you a set of bounding arrows that you can drag to accurately select the text you want to copy. With previous versions of Android, it was a nightmare to accurately select anything.

The keyboard has also been improved, with a long-press on some keys bringing up alternatives, such as holding ‘Q’ to enter the number ‘1’. It’s also multi-touch, so holding down Shift or Alt, brings up the alternate letter or character selections; once you’ve hit a key and released Shift or Alt, the keyboard returns to its native QWERTY mode. It seems a little more accurate to type on, although users of HTC phones will already know what it’s like to have the long-press selection method.

VoIP calls are supported directly by the handset thanks to Android 2.3’s built-in SIP client. For a lot of consumers, though, this probably won’t be very useful and you’ll still need to install a third-party app, such as Skype.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much business as usual. The 5-megapixel camera on the rear takes decent-enough shots in bright light, but in low-light images suffer from noise. Video, recorded at a resolution of 720×480, suffers from similar problems and it’s a shame that there’s not an option to shoot in HD.

This is the first Android phone we’ve seen with a front-facing camera (640×480 resolution), although support for it is pretty poor at the moment. It’s designed for video calls, but the Skype app doesn’t support it and you can’t make video calls over 3G currently. Hopefully, this situation will improve with future updates.

As it stands, the Nexus S is the best Android phone that you can currently get. Its high hardware specifications and blistering performance make it a joy to use, while the latest version of Android is much slicker and feels like a proper consumer operating system. That said, the build quality could be better and the price is pretty high.

If you want the latest Android updates the second they’re released, this is the phone to buy; if you can hold on for a few months to get them, the Samsung Galaxy S is currently better value.