Having used both the iPhone and various Android phones over the last few years, I can say with confidence that the Galaxy Nexus is the first Android phone that does not make me long to go back to iPhone. Coming from the Bionic it was the allure of LTE combined with the vanilla Android experience that prompted me to purchase this phone.
HARDWARE DESIGN. I really like the physical design of the phone. It's thin, sleek, and feels comfortable in the hand. The single piece of glass on the front makes it feel more like an iPhone. Despite the textured back, the phone can be a bit slippery to hang on to, however.
SCREEN. Despite its pentile characteristic, the Gnex screen is phenomenal! 720p makes all the difference, and it feels much more like the iPhone’s retina display than the Bionic’s pentile display. The colors are vibrant and bright (once you turn off the conservative Auto Brightness), and the extra resolution really helps when reading text.
ICE CREAM SANDWICH. Android’s new operating system feels great! I don’t know if it’s the ICS changes in particular or the lack of skinning that I’m noticing, but the overall responsiveness of the phone is superb. There are certainly some OS inconsistencies that remain, and there’s an occasional bug here and there, but it feels very polished and improved.
LTE. The Gnex is nearly identical to the Bionic in this area: it rarely falls back to 3G and when it does, it’s in pretty much the exact locations as the Bionic. The Gnex does seem to have some issues handing off data between 3G and LTE that hopefully will get fixed in a software update. And it's unfortunate that Verizon has had some LTE outages this month, which make it more difficult to judge the phone's performance. But all in all, LTE rocks and is one of the selling points of the phone.
BATTERY LIFE. Since all LTE phones struggle with battery life, I opted for the extended battery right off the bat (especially since it was 50% off). After using the Nexus for nearly 2 weeks now under the same circumstances as the Bionic, I can say with good accuracy that the battery life on the Nexus is about what I expected. It doesn’t last as long as my Bionic with its extended battery, but the extra juice in the 2100 mAh battery was well worth the extra $25.
SUMMARY. Frankly, I am no longer interested in ANY Android phone that isn’t a Nexus from here on. The more I use the phone, the more I love it. It's not perfect: the camera’s sensor is middling (but very fast), battery life is still a struggle, and I’d prefer not having the Verizon logo and apps on a Nexus device. But all in all, THIS is the Android phone I’ve always wanted, and is the first Android phone that doesn’t make we want an iPhone instead.
