The Samsung Galaxy Nexus in white.

 Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Wow where do I start? I have been using this phone ever since last December. I bought it with my savings for $650 from a local phone store. It was a price I was willing to pay to get my hands on this impressive spec phone. It was the first phone I believe to have a 720p resolution screen with the all new ICS.

Inside the Box:

• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
• Charger
• USB cable
• Samsung earbuds

Key Features of the phone:

• Quad-band GSM; penta-band 3G support
• HSDPA 21Mbps; HSUPA 5.76Mbps
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS with stock UI
• 4.65” Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with HD (720 x 1280 pixels) resolution; 16M colors; oleophobic surface
• Slim profile at 8.9mm
• Dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU; PowerVR SGX540 GPU; TI OMAP 4460 chipset
• 16/32GB built-in storage; 1GB RAM
• 5 MP camera (2592x1936 pixels) with autofocus, LED flash; 1.3MP front-facing unit
• 1080p video recording @30fps; touch-to-zoom while recording
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• DLNA; Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth 3.0 with ADP
• Charging MHL microUSB port with TV-out (1080p) support
• GPS receiver with A-GPS support
• NFC connectivity
• Accelerometer, gyro and proximity sensors; compass; barometer
• Back cover made of Hyper Skin material for increased grip
• Excellent audio quality

 Things I liked about the phone:

• Beautiful 720p screen
• Slim phone at 8.9mm
• Awesome camera and autofocus
• Lag free 99% of the time
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• Back cover feels great with the Hyper Skin
• Big 4.65" screen
• Notification light

Things I didn't like about the phone:

• BATTERY. 1750mAh is not going to do it
• No dedicated camera key
• No micro SD card slot for additional memory

Built Quality:
When I first unboxed the Nexus, I felt the thinness of the phone and the beautiful textured back plate. I loved everything about the phones built except that the phone is mainly plastic, but that's what you get from a Samsung product to retain the thinness and light weight on the phone. One thing that impressed me most about the phone was the weight, it definitely felt like it was a premium phone even though of the plastic. Other than that, this phone had a great built.

BUILT: 9/10

ICE CREAM SANDWICH: 
ICS is a huge improvement in the UI perspective. I love using ICS. It's easy to use and simple. I love how you can get right to the settings in the notification bar. This is just my opinion, but I like how ICS gives me this sort of Tron feeling to it. The way you can adjust widgets on the home screen creates a cool effect that you can only experience on a Nexus. The colours that they went with on the UI is a nice looking blue contrasting to the black. Out of the box, the Nexus comes with a really mellow looking live wallpaper which I thought was a really nice touch. Somethings I didn't like about it was that the Applications was linked to the widgets page and I wish that was separate. The face unlock was a cool touch to the phone but it was not a necessity for me. I loved it at first but stopped using it because I found it a hassle that if I wore my glasses it wouldn't recognize me as if I wasn't but that's just a personal opinion and the face unlock might come in very handy for those people who constantly have people around them trying to snoop inside your phone. The dialer also looks sick in my opinion, with a neon blue on black theme. Again, it gives it the Tron look and feel to it.

ICS: 9/10

Internet surfing:
I really like surfing the web on the Nexus because it had a very big screen so it was easy to watch videos and read articles. Having flash was definitely a plus coming from an Iphone user. Zoom to text was very smooth and responsive. Web speeds are decent on my wifi and good speeds on 3G. Not so sure about everyone elses speeds because every carrier and location may vary.

Internet: 10/10


Multitasking:
Multitasking. It was really a joy for me to use on the Nexus due to the way the multitasking was laid out. The dedicated button on the Nexus for multitask is a real plus to the phone. I love how you are able to just swipe away the unneeded applications with a swipe of your finger. Not to forget that also applies to the notification bar where you can get rid of the unneeded notifications with a simple swipe. Something that might annoy of people because the notifications you can't get rid off unless you click on it.

Multitask: 10/10


Keyboard:
I love the keyboard on the Nexus. It is really responsive and accurate. The 4.65" screen really does it justice. Each individual key is nicely spaced out. It is right up there with the iPhone keyboard or maybe even better, depends on the person. Writing a email or a long text should be a breeze on the Nexus, well at least it was for me.

Keyboard: 10/10

Email:
Love the email application on this phone. It is very simple and easy to use. Receiving emails and sending out emails are quick and accurate. The big screen and crisp text from the 720p display makes reading email so much more enjoyable. I really loved it especially when I'm getting emails throughout the day. A cool feature is that you can swipe left or right to move between messages in your inbox.

Email: 9/10



Camera:
For me, the camera was one of the best I have used. The pictures come out very crisp and clear. The 720p yet again helps with the look of the image that you have captured. The autofocus on the phone is really nice. It is something you have to experience yourself to know what it looks like. Flash was also good, taking decent looking photos in pitch dark. To me the camera seemed like an 8mp camera instead of a 5mp.

Camera: 9.5/10


Music:
The music player on the Nexus is nicely laid out. I like the format they chose which was nice and simple to use. It provided really good quality of music. I was using high end headphones such as V-modas, Pioneer Hdj 2000, and Senheissers to lower end headphones such as Beats and SOL Republic and they all sounded really good. The audio output on the phone is also impressive. Very loud, clean and crisp audio was coming out of the speaker on the Nexus, which is always a plus for music lovers and people who watch a lot of videos on their phones.

Music: 10/10

Battery:
1750 mAh sounds pretty good right? NOT. Battery is where I hated it with this phone. It will not last you through half the day with mild use. The beautiful 720p screen is one of the stars of the show on this phone which ends up being useless due to the battery life. If you have the screen at full brightness, and you use light to mild use it will drain your battery fast. I had to end up using my phone at low brightness for the next 2 months after I got the phone to make sure I have battery for the day. So what's the point of having a beautiful screen if you can't use it right? Thankfully there was a solution! I was able to get my hands on the 2000 mAh battery for the Nexus costing me $56 and also costing me a bit of thickness on the phone but that was okay. The extended battery life would last you just under a day with mild to heavy use on full brightness so no need to panic! Get two of these 2000 mAh batteries and you will be set with a powerful Android flag ship device!

Battery: 5/10

Conclusion:
Overall this was a great phone except the major flaw in battery life. I really enjoyed using the Nexus as my everyday phone. It is a very well rounded phone. Till today it still stacks up nicely when going up against other flag ship devices in the market. The Nexus line up and Android is heading the right direction in competing with Apple and other impressive phones out there. This review is based all on my experiences with the phone. If you got any questions feel free to contact me. Can't wait till the next Nexus phone!