# Looking for input from Galaxy Nexus users



## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Preferably from power users who are extremely detailed and thorough with their phones.

I currently own an HTC Thunderbolt which I have CM7.2 running on it and it's overall good. It does mostly everything I need but it's showing its age, and it has some buggyness about it (which is why a lot of TB devs have abandoned it) so I am looking to ditch it for the Galaxy Nexus when my discount is up in a week from now.

Basically I told myself if I ever upgrade it has to have the following minimum:

HD screen
dual/quad core proc
Super AMOLED
1080p recording
HDMI out in one shape or form

For the most part the GN fulfills all of the above, and on paper it seems great. However you don't learn about the little nitpicking problems of a phone by reading its spec sheet, you learn these things from the good people who already have it and use it on a daily basis. So I'm reaching out to anyone on this board who is very picky (like me  ) who can give me any known problems/bugs/unhappy-ness that may sway me away. I really like that it's a Google phone, I'm sick and tired of waiting months for these companies (HTC/Motorola) to release updates for my phone and be constantly behind the curve. It's just not what I want to deal with anymore.

So if anyone can give me any insight to any major drawbacks to this phone, I'd love to hear from you. I have about 9 days until I am going to pull the trigger on this upgrade so the sooner the better! I look forward, or rather don't want there to be any bugs







, to hearing from you guys.

Thanks


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## iPois0n (Jan 12, 2012)

Radios are finicky. The outside shell powder coat scratches easily. Battery life could be better but its not horrible. Definitely pick up the extended battery. I'm very picky with phones and those are the only things I can think of. Some don't like the camera but I think its just ad good if not better the iphone4 camera. The speaker is kind of shitty but that has been proven to be a software issue that the next update WILL fix.  I love this phone!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Great post iPois0n  definitely the kind of input I'm looking for.

I currently am using the 2750mah extended battery for my Thunderbolt, and it made a huge difference. Is the GN extended as dramatic a jump in mah? (1300 - 2750) or is it just a minor bump up?


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

DaRkL3AD3R said:


> Great post iPois0n  definitely the kind of input I'm looking for.
> 
> I currently am using the 2750mah extended battery for my Thunderbolt, and it made a huge difference. Is the GN extended as dramatic a jump in mah? (1300 - 2750) or is it just a minor bump up?


Very minor. Extended is only 2100mAh.


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> Very minor. Extended is only 2100mAh.


Ah that's weak-sauce. What do you think Mustang, worth me looking at the Seidio 3800 for this baby? I can charge daily but like to sometimes watch a movie or play a game when the jobs running slow


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## Mustang302LX (Jun 28, 2011)

DaRkL3AD3R said:


> Ah that's weak-sauce. What do you think Mustang, worth me looking at the Seidio 3800 for this baby? I can charge daily but like to sometimes watch a movie or play a game when the jobs running slow


If you don't mind the giant brick on the back it's worth it I'm sure lol. I also had the TBolt and I hated using the 2750 as it was just so big it was annoying to me. The 2100 adds a bit more over stock but keeps the phone nice, thin and lite.


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Mustang302LX said:


> If you don't mind the giant brick on the back it's worth it I'm sure lol. I also had the TBolt and I hated using the 2750 as it was just so big it was annoying to me. The 2100 adds a bit more over stock but keeps the phone nice, thin and lite.


Hahaha I guess I'm the oddball to the phone market then, I love my phone being a massive brick  that feeling of weight in your hands, it just exudes quality in my head haha. PS I was a fan of the OG Xbox controller









Well that's settled then, definitely going to get the 3800, if I get this phone that is. It's like 60/40 right now between GN/Rezound. The Rezound has me on the faster processor and supposedly better camera, but I am not -as- concerned with camera as I am with avoiding bloody HTC's slow updates. You being an old TB user I'm sure can relate. What a disaster man


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## Th3Annoyed1 (Aug 3, 2011)

Night and day difference over the TB. Only thing I miss about the TB is video playback. I'm having problems with certain streaming video to play ( mp4 streaming from apps, vids on FB). All other video play fine and look much better on this screen. If you plan on using Google Wallet then the make sure the extended battery you get has NFC in it. That's where the chip is located. Other than that you won't be disappointed.


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## Snow02 (Jun 14, 2011)

Th3Annoyed1 said:


> Night and day difference over the TB. Only thing I miss about the TB is video playback. I'm having problems with certain streaming video to play ( mp4 streaming from apps, vids on FB). All other video play fine and look much better on this screen. If you plan on using Google Wallet then the make sure the extended battery you get has NFC in it. That's where the chip is located. Other than that you won't be disappointed.


Any app video issues you're having are due to the app being incompatible with ICS. The GN streams mp4 great in the stock player and apps that are ICS compatible.

And only the antenna is in the battery. Just fyi.

And op, given the importance of updates on your list of priorities, the nexus would definitely seem to be the way to go.


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## alatedseraph (Jan 23, 2012)

DaRkL3AD3R said:


> Hahaha I guess I'm the oddball to the phone market then, I love my phone being a massive brick  that feeling of weight in your hands, it just exudes quality in my head haha. PS I was a fan of the OG Xbox controller
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So I am in a family atm who had both the rezound and the nexus, I had the nexus and my brother the rezound, through a random chain of events we were able to get him a nexus which after only 2 months of the rezound he desperately wanted. He isnt even a computer guy in the slightest. His rezound had slowed down, from the sense ( we didnt unlock it cause apparently htc makes you tell them when you do it... ) and that really just ruined the phone, he found that the beats audio wasnt used enough to be important and he didnt want to have to pay to be able to customize his phone lol.


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## Turdbogls (Jun 7, 2011)

I also came from a thunderbolt with CM7.2
the signal is a slight issue. if you are in a building with marginal 4g signal on the TB, you will probably have 50/50 4G on the nexus.
the speaker is a little weak
camera is actually pretty good. if you are happy with the TB camera, the nexus camera wont let you down.
battery life is slightly better than a stock TB IMO.

other than that, ICS is a HUGE upgrade to Gingerbread. it is the main selling point of this phone IMO.
the hardware is light (which you may not like) but solid
the screen is FANTASTIC
there are TONS of accessories for it.
updates are going to come 10 to 1 compared to the rezound.

sure the rezound has a slightly higher processing speed, but Sense slows it down. i have the ability to overclock the nexus, but i dont. i didn't really notice any difference between 1.2 and 1.5 ghz.

the developer community around this phone is simply amazing. however most of the ROM's are very similar.

i also had the chance to get a rezound(for $100 less) or a Razr and passed both up because i wanted a google phone, quick updates, and in the end, i would try turning whatever phone i got...into the nexus. so why not get a nexus?


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## Pleirosei (Jul 8, 2011)

I would say the phone is solid for a 4g phone with the battery life. Depending on the settings you run and the kernel and rom, you can get very good battery life being on 4g all day.

The 4g drops sometimes bit not enough to be annoying. Sometimes when I enter and 3g area and reenter a 4g area the 4g radio does not come back on most of the time so I have to toggle it in those occasions. Just to give you an example of battery life when I ran aokp with an unblacked theme, here was my battery life.

Fullness of life is in Jesus only.


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## Pleirosei (Jul 8, 2011)

Here is the on screen shot of that sane day

Fullness of life is in Jesus only.


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## headcheese (Aug 1, 2011)

life with stock battery is at least better than the tbolt. As others said radio seems weak. And the screen can look grainy at times espec with white background. Also really slippery, picked up a scratch on the screen no idea how. Protection is a must.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## RCantw3ll (Feb 2, 2012)

Seidio makes a 3800mah super extended battery with NFC built in, and they also offer a case to fit it. Buy those two things, and you will not be disappointed with this phone. If you decide to root and ROM it will only get better. As mentioned before, the only thing that can be finiky are the radios, but I have not ran into any major issues. My signal may be slightly lower, but i maybe get 1 dropped call every few weeks, and the call quality is just as good as any other phone ive ever had. The speaker sound is easily fixable with volume+, the new update coming for the phone, or already built into some custom ROMs. I personally didnt have an issue with the volume though. Hope this helps.


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## Soapinmouth (Jun 21, 2011)

DaRkL3AD3R said:


> Hahaha I guess I'm the oddball to the phone market then, I love my phone being a massive brick  that feeling of weight in your hands, it just exudes quality in my head haha. PS I was a fan of the OG Xbox controller
> 
> Well that's settled then, definitely going to get the 3800, if I get this phone that is. It's like 60/40 right now between GN/Rezound. The Rezound has me on the faster processor and supposedly better camera, but I am not -as- concerned with camera as I am with avoiding bloody HTC's slow updates. You being an old TB user I'm sure can relate. What a disaster man


Actually the processor in the nexus is faster, the camera is better in the rezound, but the instant shutter on the nexus is awesome.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using


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## Art Vandelay (Jan 4, 2012)

I haven't read all the other posts, but here's my thought on it.

Its been said the TB will get ICS, I'd imagine this will happen in the next couple months.

If you can wait to get ICS for the TB, that will probably be enough to hold you over til the next wave of super phones (quad cores with great battery life, like the Droid maxx's battery life).

Now the Nexus is awesome and I am not sure that any phones out within the next year will have the type of support that the Gnex does, so that may factor in for you.

Me personally, the GNex is not perfect Nd if my previous phone wasn't a OG Droid and was the TB, I'd probably just wait it out and see what's coming out thus summer.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## miketoasty (Jun 10, 2011)

Here's the way I look at it TC. No matter what phone you buy in about 6 months it will be "old news". In a year you will probably see it's last OS upgrade, so although the TB is getting ICS that will probably be the last OS upgrade. So when I was looking to upgrade my TB last winter, I thought hard about my choices. Do I go for the best hardware and the Rezound or go with Software and the GNexus... Well being that I am going to (Have) to get a 2 year contract the easy choice was the GNexus. The fact that it has such a dev following gives me some relief knowing that for the next 2 years I may not have the fastest phone but it will at least be up to date the whole time.

Now don't get me wrong I love the GNexus, probably the best phone I have owned but if I wanted the latest hardware and didn't care about software or updates I would have probably gone with the Rezound or Razr.

To answer your question, I would upgrade to the GNexus, enjoy 2 full years of owning a phone and then look at the options available. Plus single core CPU's are not going to cut it for much longer.


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## housry23 (Aug 25, 2011)

I agree with most of what has been said. The battery life is bad mostly because of lte which is going to be the norm right now. I read that there will be an update soon that will address the signal issues, in call sound issues and other bugs. I have owned a lot of Android phones & I will never go with anything other than Nexus phones from now on. I had the Nexus S 4G and traded it for the Evo 3D and wished I hadn't instantly. I am going 2 suggest getting the gnex. If you can wait for shipping I have heard it's going for $100 on Amazon. I would look around the internet instead of buying it at big red cause you might save some $ . Good luck bro.

PS. I have owned many phones & have always wanted something else when I did. This is the first phone I have owned where I am completely satisfied & not jealous of the phones that have been released since. Can you believe that phones are still shipping with gingerbread?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Thank you all for your responses. I read them all, and it looks like 90% of you recommend this phone to me over the Thunderbolt 

Art Vandelay, your post did bring me the little bit of uncertainty that is left in me and made it really something. I did see that the TB is getting ICS sometime in the future. But no date was given, it could be in 2 weeks or it could be in 2 months, or maybe I won't even see it till summer. However, if I do get the GN now and am totally satisfied with it, which I'm sure I would be you guys recommending it to me have confirmed that feeling for sure, but then I find out 1 month from now the TB gets ICS and it pretty much makes it just as solid a phone, I don't know if I'd feel happy with using my NE2 contract discount on the GN =/ I'm like 50/50 right now on holding off and dealing with the TB for another year ish, or pulling the trigger in a week and just enjoying the GN for what it has now.

Well, you guys have been great and have given me all the feed back I could hope for, I believe the rest is up to me to make a decision and commit. God it's a cell phone hahaha why am I talking about it like I'm deciding if she's the right one for me to marry lol


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## WhataSpaz (Feb 20, 2012)

The only things I don't like about the nexus are the camera and the radios. I got a better signal with my Incredible and the 5mp camera could have been updated to the 8mp that the sgs2 is using


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## Snow02 (Jun 14, 2011)

If you're concerned about burning an upgrade. Sell the thunderbolt and pick up a used nexus. The difference will be about the upgrade price anyways.

And asurion has open enrollment until April, so you can still insure it if that's a concern.


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## johnhimm (Sep 6, 2011)

The GalNex is not super amoled either.


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## alatedseraph (Jan 23, 2012)

DaRkL3AD3R said:


> Thank you all for your responses. I read them all, and it looks like 90% of you recommend this phone to me over the Thunderbolt
> 
> Art Vandelay, your post did bring me the little bit of uncertainty that is left in me and made it really something. I did see that the TB is getting ICS sometime in the future. But no date was given, it could be in 2 weeks or it could be in 2 months, or maybe I won't even see it till summer. However, if I do get the GN now and am totally satisfied with it, which I'm sure I would be you guys recommending it to me have confirmed that feeling for sure, but then I find out 1 month from now the TB gets ICS and it pretty much makes it just as solid a phone, I don't know if I'd feel happy with using my NE2 contract discount on the GN =/ I'm like 50/50 right now on holding off and dealing with the TB for another year ish, or pulling the trigger in a week and just enjoying the GN for what it has now.
> 
> Well, you guys have been great and have given me all the feed back I could hope for, I believe the rest is up to me to make a decision and commit. God it's a cell phone hahaha why am I talking about it like I'm deciding if she's the right one for me to marry lol


there is no promise of the new google phone being on verizon, and its probably a toss up to everyone on whats going to happen with google acquiring motorola


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Hmm good points.

I went into my local VZW retail store today and took a look at the GN.

My first impression? The screen sucks







I didn't believe my eyes. There's no way thats at 100% brightness. So I pulled up the Display settings and sure enough, max brightness. Wow maybe there's a screen protector on it? Nope, just plain old glass. It was setup next to a Rezound and the difference in contrast/brightness was astonishing. The Rezound had perfect bright whites, accurate colors and decent blacks (although no LCD can compare to AMOLEDs for deep dark black colors) and I just felt really disappointed







is the screen really as bad as it looked in the store? It had an almost orange tint to everything, even the white background of web pages. It definitely wasn't some effect like Cyanogenmod has with a full screen color overlay, but it certainly felt like a weak version of it









Anyway, really not certain anymore. Between seeing that screen and then realizing the TBolt is getting ICS in the relatively near future, I think I may just end up holding off afterall =( Shame too, because aside the screen I genuinely liked playing around with the GN


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## alatedseraph (Jan 23, 2012)

Well the wonderful thing about the GN is that in most of our kernels have color control you can make it the perfect tints for your eyes


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Color control? Never heard of that before in my 3ish years in Android  does it make a big difference? Because it seems that screen would need a miracle to solve its color problems


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## alatedseraph (Jan 23, 2012)

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/13092-leankernel-minimalistic-kernel-241-3712/page__st__4560__p__485620#entry485620


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## jrobi25 (Aug 3, 2011)

Love my GNex.... I sure would love Hdmi mirror though
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## darkpark (Jul 24, 2011)

you didn't like the screen? I'm surprised because I was/am very happy with having moved from the TB to the Gnex. i have forgotten how the screen on the TB compares to the Gnex, but Gnex definitely has more detail/resolution. 
anyway, i don't think that ICS is going to do anything magical for the TB. is the TB going to get plain ICS or will it get a sense/ICS mix? 
I would take the plunge and get the Gnex. If you're still unsure than why not look at the razr maxx? it has a really big battery and very little bulk.

anyway, i'm very happy with my Gnex purchase but as someone said... battery life could be better. 
based on my phone's battery stats, the screen has been the biggest drain on the battery. it is a shame to have to lower the brightness just to get through the day.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Well for me personally battery life isn't a concern. I have always bought the biggest baddest battery on the market and for the GN it would be the seidio 3800mah one. I really don't mind and even like the bulk, even though it screws up making it pocketable.

The screen was underwhelming for me to say the least. I took a look at that Color Control stuff and I haven't found any before/after screenshots but it sounds promising. I think I will take the plunge and give it a shot. I can always return it though so if it doesn't feel right overall I'll just return it and hold out for TB ICS. Which will be a Sense 3.6/4.0 skin over ICS. I don't mind that though because the only thing holding the TB back from getting ICS is radio drivers. Once VZW/HTC release official ICS then we'll start seeing CM9 for TB which really is all I need. The GN is a bit overkill for my needs but I am up for a new phone and figured I'd want to get the GN as it fits my list of what I'd expect from a new phone.

The TB screen comparatively in the store wasn't much better, but it was better. The Rezounds screen just really blew me away with how bright and accurate the colors were. Next to the orange/red GN screen (stock) I was just confused :S figured a Super AMOLED would trump LCD anyday, but guess I was wrong.

What was that about Mirror HDMI? I thought the GN could do it with an MHL adapter? I was planning on picking one up if I did grab the GN, it's part of my "why this phone is better than TB" mental note list lol


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## MistaWolfe (Oct 10, 2011)

Turdbogls said:


> I also came from a thunderbolt with CM7.2
> the signal is a slight issue. if you are in a building with marginal 4g signal on the TB, you will probably have 50/50 4G on the nexus.
> the speaker is a little weak
> camera is actually pretty good. if you are happy with the TB camera, the nexus camera wont let you down.
> ...


TONS of accessories? Was that a typo? If not, please link to said accessories. Lol.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## Pakmann2k (Feb 4, 2012)

Coming from a long list of phones, I can attest, I never thought I would give my droidx up for anything. Since June I went from droidx to tbolt to charge back to Droid x then to Razr, back to Droid x and now the Nexus. I finally sold my X knowing I won't look back. Out of the box, this thing has a crappy camera, poor reception, and worse battery life. Luckily, 2 out of those 3 problems are easy to fix once rooted and the third.... well, this will never replace a real camera anyway so who cares, buy a Nikon. The screen on these guys are pretty darn nice and given a couple days staring at one, it is perfect on the eyes. Another thing you will grow accustomed to and never look back are the on screen nav buttons. To me, that is what really made this phone stand out. Watching a movie that sucks up every inch of this screen and leaves a clean empty border all around is simply the cats meow! That's the way it should be. I like things clean and uncluttered, this phone definitely has that appeal. I was not super picky about Android when I bought this phone but once spoiled at this level, it is going to make it very difficult to stray away from in the future.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## DaRkL3AD3R (Aug 6, 2011)

Ok guys I made the plunge! Order's in and my phone will be here tomorrow before 10:30 AM









I'm hoping that the Color Control in the kernels will fix that wierd screen issue. Better yet I hope my particular screen doesn't suffer from the issue as much as the display models did. I've done so much research on this phone, that combined with this thread I feel confident I will be happy with this device.

Thank you all again for your input and I'll see you all tomorrow when I come back to root + unlock my new baby


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## paedz718 (Feb 12, 2012)

if you are all about rooting and flashing roms, then you cannot go wrong w/ this baby. its so much fun what you can do to it. sure the battery life isnt the best but if you are rocking LTE all day, its expected. once i flashed to the AOKP milestone 4 rom, i knew i was in heaven. it has all the notification toggles that you'd think the nexus right out of the box would have. top that w/ a custom kernel, lean kernel, the phone sips battery and is twice as good as the store bought version. why wait for the OEM OTA updates when the dev community is months ahead all the time. if you are a flasher/rommer, buy the gnex, you cant go wrong


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