Samsung Galaxy Nexus Mobile Smartphone

Purchased from http://www.simplyelectronics.net for £260

Nearly a year ago I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Nexus mobile smartphone.  It was the second Android phone I have purchased, as I was looking for functionality and speed, this phone came highly recommended.  At this point in time I enjoy using the phone as it has everything I currently require, I use it for maps, in-car navigation, as a dashcam, taking video and photos, oh yeah and making phone calls!

The phone’s brain comes in the form of a dual core 1.2Ghz Cortex A9, which enables the phone to run just about every app and game on Google’s Play Store quite comfortably.  It feels comfortable in the hand and has a very skinny profile, I purchased an aftermarket fake leather case just for peace of mind which has served me quite well in the year or so I have had it.

Currently, the smartphone is running Android 4.2 Jellybean smooth as butter and it has had few, but admittedly some, crashes, usually after heavy apps use.  The size is perfect for me with a nice bright 4.65” Super AMOLED, multi point touch screen, which is curved to fit the side of your face.  I have to say that I feel that OLED screens are great, super bright, making icons, photos and even video pop.  The screen has a resolution of 712x1280 and a pixel density of approximately 316 pixels per inch which makes it great for viewing HD Youtube videos.

It has 2 cameras, a front mounted camera for video chats and a rear facing camera used for shooting photos and video. The rear facing camera is only 5 megapixels but it it certainly good enough for posting images to Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  The phone shoots HD video 1920x1080 at 30P with really excellent colour clarity and minimum ‘cmos wobble’ (Rolling shutter).  Situated below the rear facing camera is a very bright white LED lamp that also works as a flash when taking photos.

The sound quality on the device is really excellent and frequently I will listen to streaming music through its loudspeaker as I am busy doing something else.  The phone comes with in-ear bud type Samsung brand earphones that also contain a microphone for voice recording or, oh yeah, making phone calls.

With 1 gigabyte of RAM, the model that I purchased came with a built in 16 gigabytes of storage which, to be honest, is perfectly adequate for my personal needs.  That being said, there is no opportunity to add extra memory using a microSD card and some people might find that a deal breaker, however, the phone automatically dumps video and photos into instant upload cloud storage on Google+, if you apply that in settings.

With Bluetooth, Wifi b,g,n and NFC it is well connected, with connections staying quite stable and strong.  I have actually used the NFC feature to transfer info and data to and from my Nexus 7 tablet using ‘Android Beam’, its quite clever and rather convenient, I can see it being a continued feature on all future android products.

Charging is through the supplied micro USB charger and again, I have purchased an aftermarket accessory in the form of a vertical charging base that has a micro USB plug and on which the phone sits.  The phone’s battery needs to be a bit bigger, especially if you choose to keep wifi, bluetooth and GPS turned on, as I do, but with a slight change in your charging regime, this should only be a minor aside.

In summary, I really like this phone, great screen, fast enough, lots of practical features and oh yeah, makes clear and solid phone calls, I can recommend.

Here is the unboxing of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus: