Galaxy Nexus Review • Hacker News Board

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#81

Post by polshaw » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 2:59 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #54

polshaw wrote: post #33

I can't believe how much everything is still framed around the iphone. I think its crazy to call this phone just 'competetive' with the iphone 4S; especially the screen-- it is clearly a significant step up IMO. ICS is surely at a point where it can, currently, safely be considered to be ahead of iOS- especially in its unadulterated 'nexus' form. And whilst pentile isn't perfect, its 720p FFS. If that wasn't enough O…

single area where the 4S beats out the nexus The review doesn't mention it but the GN has a rather weak GPU. Quite a lot slower than the iPhone 4S and actually slower than some of Samsung's other recent Android phones. If you plan to play any 3D games, especially at 720P, the GN is probably not the best choice. We'll have to wait and see what the benchmarks and real world performance are like though.

Noted (can't edit anymore). Thats a shame, especially given the high res display.

Having said that, there is really not widespread use of the GPUs out there today. I hope that will change, but 3d gaming on phones (especially that pushes the GPUs to the limit) is very much niche right now.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#82

Post by donaq » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 3:13 AM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #21

dman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in good taste.

So, I was nervous of that but decided to post anyway. I think HN seems okay with this post (it currently has 9 points, for full disclosure) but if this type of post isn't welcome here, I will take it down. I'm not profiting off this and the project is entirely open source, so I felt okay about it. Does HN want it deleted?

I think the post was relevant. I don't mind self-promotion if the thing being promoted has hack value.

[Edit] Re dsman's comment: "... if every iphone post here attracted comments by all of us who were building an iphone app then HN would be the worse for it"

It depends, IMO, on the nature of the app. Trying to crowdsource weather prediction is a sufficiently interesting hack that I think HN would very much not be the worse for knowing about this. I would only find it objectionable if cryptoz starts promoting in every Galaxy Nexus thread.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#83

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 3:51 AM UTC

mikeknoop wrote: post #10

juliano_q wrote: post #2

Quite impressive. 10 for performance and software (iPhone 4S received 8 and 9). The device seems to be very good, but ICS is the star here. I am eagerly waiting to receive the update at my Nexus S.

What's the current rumor for ICS release to other phone/tablet models? Such as the Nexus S?

It looks like many (most / all?) Honeycomb tablets will be upgrading to ICS. I don't find this terribly surprising given (a) the general opinion about Honeycomb (b) that (naturally) Honeycomb is closer to ICS than Gingerbread is.

Tablets I've heard about:

- ASUS Transformer (and Transformer Prime if necessary) update "soon" after the Transformer Prime launch (possibly before the end of the year) [1] I believe the Slider is also being upgraded, but I'm not sure whether or not it is on the same schedule.

- Acer Iconia tablets update January 2012

- Motorola XOOM confirmed (no ETA except for a retracted 6 weeks after source release). Surprisingly (for a launch device), it sounds like the XOOM won't be the first Android tablet to ICS.

- Samsung Galaxy Tab - all Honeycomb models are getting ICS (no ETA)

- Lenovo's working on a Tegra 3 ICS tablet (rumored to be out late this year), but I haven't seen anything about their existing Honeycomb tablets

[1] That probably sounds incredible if you haven't seen ASUS's stunning update history so far (beating the XOOM to worldwide rollouts of new Honeycomb versions and several feature/bugfix upgrades, to boot). I'm one happy ASUS customer.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#84

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 3:55 AM UTC

mikeknoop wrote: post #10

juliano_q wrote: post #2

Quite impressive. 10 for performance and software (iPhone 4S received 8 and 9). The device seems to be very good, but ICS is the star here. I am eagerly waiting to receive the update at my Nexus S.

What's the current rumor for ICS release to other phone/tablet models? Such as the Nexus S?

For phones, most of the current "flagship" models (e.g. SGS2, Galaxy Note, Motorola/Droid RAZR, HTC Sensation, Amaze, etc.) have been promised ICS upgrades. The best manufacturer so far is Sony Ericsson, who has promised that their entire 2011 Xperia lineup will get ICS. If only they had some higher-end phones...

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#85

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 3:58 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #54

polshaw wrote: post #33

I can't believe how much everything is still framed around the iphone. I think its crazy to call this phone just 'competetive' with the iphone 4S; especially the screen-- it is clearly a significant step up IMO. ICS is surely at a point where it can, currently, safely be considered to be ahead of iOS- especially in its unadulterated 'nexus' form. And whilst pentile isn't perfect, its 720p FFS. If that wasn't enough O…

single area where the 4S beats out the nexus The review doesn't mention it but the GN has a rather weak GPU. Quite a lot slower than the iPhone 4S and actually slower than some of Samsung's other recent Android phones. If you plan to play any 3D games, especially at 720P, the GN is probably not the best choice. We'll have to wait and see what the benchmarks and real world performance are like though.

Odd, given that a GPU-accelerated UI is one of the headline features of ICS. Perhaps they chose a GPU that's better for UI than gaming (but is there such a thing?).

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#86

Post by makeramen » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 4:12 AM UTC

icarus_drowning wrote: post #39

Is it just me, or is anyone else incredibly impressed with The Verge? Their reviews are incredibly detailed, and yet they still manage to make extremely interesting, short, and informative video reviews for many products. Add to that the fact that the site, at least to me, is absolutely gorgeous, and I think I've found my new favorite gadget site.

When the top 8 people at Engadget leave to start their own site, you can bet it'll be beautiful.

according to wikipedia:

On April 3, 2011, The New York Times posted an article on their website announcing that "eight of the more prominent editorial and technology staff members at Engadget have left or are leaving AOL and are about to build a new gadget site". The group included former Engadget editor in chief Joshua Topolsky, managing editor Nilay Patel, editors Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Chris Ziegler, and Ross Miller, product manager Justin Glow, and developer Dan Chilton.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Verge_(website)

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#87

Post by portentint » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 5:14 AM UTC

Great. Another blindingly fast phone that sucks batteries dry. I love the zippiness, really, but I need a phone that runs longer than 4 hours, K? I actually use my phone TO MAKE PHONE CALLS.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#88

Post by orangecat » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 5:53 AM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #80

joebadmo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's debatable. I'm an Android fanboy, but the retina display is a year old and is still debatably the best screen out there. 720p is awesome, but pixel density is still not as high as the retina display, and the sub-pixel density is definitely not. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to figuring out a way to convince myself it's worth paying full price for this phone, and I love a huge screen (Droid X owner).…

You have somewhat proved my point in that some how 'pixel density' is often used as the go-to stat. It makes no sense to hold this in higher standing than the actual pixel count-- nobody is asking for smaller screens with the same resolution. Simply holding your phone further away would have the same effect as a smaller, more pixel-dense screen. Increased pixel density naturally comes with increased resolution, it is…

The subpixel count is about the same as the iP4

Exactly the same, 1280x720x2 = 960x640x3.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#89

Post by barrkel » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 6:25 AM UTC

icarus_drowning wrote: post #39

Is it just me, or is anyone else incredibly impressed with The Verge? Their reviews are incredibly detailed, and yet they still manage to make extremely interesting, short, and informative video reviews for many products. Add to that the fact that the site, at least to me, is absolutely gorgeous, and I think I've found my new favorite gadget site.

I must dissent on gorgeous: to me, it's a triumph of style over practicality.

It looks like a magazine page (perhaps one you'd see advertising architecture, or furniture) made flesh in the browser: the pictures are too big, the headlines are too big, the text column wanders from the left side of the page to the right, and it does all of this with highly excessive CPU consumption.

On Firefox it's particularly painful - on an i7 920, merely selecting text takes over a second - while even on Chrome, the fans start up and blare as a core hits 100% for several seconds as the page loads.

It's not down to custom fonts either, as I have those disabled in Firefox.

It all adds up to make me want to avoid the site in future, knowing I'll be assured of a laggy unpleasant experience.

Re: Galaxy Nexus Review

#90

Post by gcb » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 6:45 AM UTC

darshan wrote: post #73

gcb wrote: post #66

And if you bought ANY dock (desktop, car) for your other 200 nexus models, get ready to buy a new one for the latest one.

This is the third Nexus; there are only two (not 200) other Nexus models. The form factors are quite different between the devices, so I wouldn't expect dock compatibility in any case.

I know but i still have a point.

They decided Not to implement USB host. Create a custom dumb one write port. Its so dumb it doesn't last one single generation (all docks had production ceased ... except nexus one's that are back)