yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
Here's my POV with my experience with the Nexus S 4G.

Phones I had used/over the last year: iPhone 4, AT&T Nexus One, EVO 4G, and Nexus S 4G.

In terms of hardware performance: Android sucks no matter what phone you have. That's the cold hard truth. I've played with the Atrix and G2X, and both still lag in the same usual areas. The EVO 3D is no special case either and by all accounts lags just the same. Fact is: Android performance w/ no HW acceleration sucks, and no dual core phone or powerful GPU will help it. The consolation with the Nexus S is that it comes with a stock HW accelerated launcher. Silky smooth with even a live wallpaper on; the XOOM can't even claim that (mostly because of the much higher resolution but obviously has more HW acceleration overall). GPU wise the Nexus S hangs with the Tegra 2 and latest dual core Snapdragon found in the EVO 3D. So gaming hardware potential is just the same. Other phones have better specs but Android itself is a major bottleneck.

To me the only thing that makes an Android phone good is the Google services - Google Voice, Gmail, Talk, Docs, and soon, Google Wallet. Many will disagree but as a dual iOS users, it's what I see as the true differentiation. The Nexus S is obviously the best phone for this, and the reason why I own it. So if you want better specs, get whatever is the latest Android phone, if you want the best Android experience, get the latest Nexus. I personally don't see the point in having a worse Android experience and better specs that make practically no real world difference, but thats just me.

I have a full upgrade available and will probably wait for the next Nexus or maybe even a next gen Windows Phone (Windows looks like it's going to be killer across the board next year).
[Nexus S General] ronnienyc:
@Award, I do not experience any lag to speak of with either the Nexus or the Evo. They are both very responsive. The Hero and Optimus S did have noticeable lag, however.
[Nexus S General] jonnythan:
Use an iPhone for a week and you'll see what he's talking about.
[Nexus S General] ronnienyc:
My girlfriend has an iphone and I have used it plenty. I guess the tenth of a second in speed difference is of little consequence to me. Especially since her iphone locks up, and she has to reboot it regularly. Overall the androids have been a much smoother experience for us.
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
It's not even close. Browsing the web on an Android phone is absolutely terrible. In general you will experience lag that you won't find in iOS even from simple things like scrolling through lists. Android is like a game running at a steady 30 FPS with dips at 20. Good but when you sit down on a machine that can play a steady 60+ at a higher res, and well, you notice the difference.

No reason to turn this into a iOS vs. Android thread.

Anyway, there's no real point in having a dual core Android phone right now. Android just sucks at rendering; and even if it did have HW acceleration, you still don't need a dual core. Look at Windows Phone 7 devices. They run the same Snapdragon as the EVO/N1 and are silky smooth -- very simliar CPU as the NS but with a GPU that's about 5x slower. The iPhone 4 has a similar CPU but a GPU that is about 2x slower than the NS AND pushes about 30% more pixels, yet it runs circles around the Nexus S.

When HW acceleration does come, the NS has a GPU that is more than capable. Which brings me to my main point, when Ice Cream Sandwich drops late this year, the Nexus 3 will be released. We all know that it's going to be a dual core, maybe even quad core via the Tegra 3. If it was all about hardware, I wouldn't have gotten a Nexus S 4G. The EVO 4G / 3D is officially running 2.3, and the Nexus S wont get ICS until very late in the year. Most phones have been running 2.3 via CM7, albeit with very annoying bugs, for months. So to me it's all about having a bug free stock Android experience with direct attention from the makers of Android themselves. Getting things like Google Wallet first being some of the clearer benefits.
[Nexus S General] dreamsforgotten:
The last two phones I had, Epic and Moment. Moment was a horrible android experience. Epic and Nexus have 0 lag. The hardware in both exceed most any available now on any os from screen, gpu, touch sensors,etc. The major companies tainting pure google with their overlay ui, sense and tw create the lag otherwise not present so I wouldn't blame android as an os but the companies developing on top of android with sloppy bloated code. My experience with the Nexus is 100% what I thought getting into it.
[Nexus S General] namelok:
I'm giving up on Nexus S, the signal strength is just a deal breaker for me (mobile & gps & wifi). Today I was on a road trip with two of my coworkers and through out the trip I kept losing signal while both of them didn't and constant searching for network drained my battery from 100% to 30% in 3h. Also we stopped for a lunch so we tested the gas station's wifi strength on all 3 phones.

Phone: SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro

2 out of 3 bars

Download: 3235 kbps

Upload: 425 kbps

Ping: 24 ms

Phone: iPhone 4

3 out of 3 bars

Download: 3250 kbps

Upload: 390 kbps

Ping: 43 ms

Phone: Nexus S

0 out of 3 bars

Download: 2142 kbps

Upload: 431 kbps

Ping: 39 ms

I have to add that I kept disconnecting because of the 0 out of 3 bars thing.

I bought this phone because I thought I would have a pure android experience but if this is it...

I'm going for a 2 week trip next month and I just don't know if I can trust this phone. I think I'm going to switch to an iphone (don't own any apple product) or nokia/wp7 this fall :(
[Nexus S General] fallenguru:
Sorry, but now you're just trolling. Admittedly the last version of iOS that I've used extensively was 3.2, but browsing of all things was absolutely terrible.

No text reflow. That alone made it nearly unusable for actually reading anything. Well, at least you can look at pretty pictures. :D

It couldn't display nearly all (non-flash, obviously) sites for some reason. I was constantly reminded that I was only uning a limited mobile browser.

The lack of flash didn't bother me, I don't even use flash (regularly) on Android.

It crashed all the time, on the order of minutes, not hours.

So, thanks but no thanks on the iOS browser, even though some other things about the iDevices are quite nice.

The lags you mention - they just aren't there on my Nexus S.

Agreed.

I don't know, I've no complaints about the rendering, but then I use Opera Mini for browsing, which is hw accelerated. The second part of your statement is trivially true. Hardware acceleration typically refers to offloading tasks from the general purpose cores to more specialised ones, e. g. the GPU or various DSPs.

I'd rather not :eek:. Seriously, WP7 is so far behind in terms of functionality ... Let's just say it's much more than a dumbphone but not quite a modern smartphone. A half-witted phone, then? (Yes, now I'm trolling, I know, but I just couldn't resist. :D)
[Nexus S General] ronnienyc:
I agree, Award is just full of nonsense now. I will hereby stop responding to him.
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
Really? Notice how he speaks of content rendering and not rendering performance which was being discussed. It's not even comparable to mobile safari in terms of rendering speed. The guy mentioned Opera Mobile on Android which does have HW acceleration and runs MUCH better than the stock Android browser but ironically has awful CSS/HTML rendering.

I consider myself to be a impartial, unbiased user. I try everything and will call out deficiencies without a problem. Nobody who is neutral would dare to call the Android rendering performance to be as smooth as iOS or WP7. That's not to say that it's WinMo 6 terrible, or terrible at all (except the stock browser IMO), but it's obviously nowhere near as good as WP7/iOS. Some people just can't accept that Android isn't perfect.

As for the WP7 trolling - the Mango update puts WP on pretty level functionality. Obviously it's still young and has a lot to go but Mango is a great improvement. I'm mostly interested in seeing the Windows/Live ecosystem in 2012 (Windows 8 laptop, desktop, tablets + WP + Xbox Live + Zune). Google just won't offer the kind of broad integration that MS will be capable of then. It will be hard to move away from tight Google service integration though.
[Nexus S General] gmap516:
I agree. I love Android, but I still think Apple makes a great product. I just can't STAND their marketing, PR, arrogance, or general pompousness that seems to permeate every bit of that company... But I definitely still want to find my iPod touch I lost 6 months ago :(
[Nexus S General] fallenguru:
In case you mean me - I mentioned both. And I don't know what you mean by rendering speed, but in terms of delay between clicking a link and having the page loaded, Opera wins. With the stock browser it really depends on the page.

Well, ok, to each his own. I pretty much avoid Microsoft products nowadays, except for Windows XP (which is decent) and their mice (which are unequalled).
[Nexus S General] detusueno:
no, I think he means the redraw rate - how long it takes to redraw when scrolling. the stock nexus s browser is notoriously laggy. opera mobile has GPU acceleration but renders a lot of pages terribly. most annoyingly, at least for me, the mobile Google search page.
[Nexus S General] dreamsforgotten:
Anyone using dolphin hd I don't experience any of this lag on Either my nexus or epic
[Nexus S General] fallenguru:
Ah, ok.

Hm, the mobile Google search page looks different in Opera, but it doesn't seem to be missing any functionality. My preferred kanji dictionary on the other hand (http://www.bibiko.de/kanji/) doesn't work at all in either browser. :(
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
I use dolphin too, and it *seems* better than stock but doesn't come close to Opera Mobile, and definitely not mobile safari or ie in WP7. Scroll through a long page with a lot of images and the Nexus S with dolphin will be nowhere near 60 FPS.

Try this: open up the full desktop page of engadget.com (link at the bottom), now flick the page down. Can you honestly call that smooth and lag free?
[Nexus S General] dreamsforgotten:
I made a video here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9718693/video-2011-06-12-08-57-09.mp4

I could have converted it to gif and played it right in the thread but didn't want glitching. This is engadget.com full desktop mode. This is about how I expect a mobile browser in a smartphone to scroll. I'm not doubting there's a phone that would be even smoother but I don't think it's necessary. 60 FPS from a browser scrolling? Seems excessive lol.
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
As someone else has said, if you spend a significant amount of time with a HW accelerated OS like iOS or WP7, Android seems downright choppy. It'll all about expectations. When I use Android that's how I feel and it's painfully obvious.

Anyway, this is going in the completely wrong direction. My point is that Android is at this point still a performance bottle neck, and throwing faster HW at it doesn't make a significant difference once you get to a certain point. Considering that a second core is pretty much unused in Android right now, dual cores don't make much of a difference since an A9 core is not super significantly faster than the A8 core found in all post-2009 high end Android phones. And if Android needs a 2 GHz core CPU to smoothly redraw the OS at WVGA, there's no point. They are all pretty much performing the same, plus the GPU on the NS is pretty damn good. This will hopefully change with ICS, but then you realize that's a half year away and the Nexus S will be a year old by then.

2011 was a year full of super powered Android phones but none those specs really made a real world use difference. So right now it all comes to the software and IMO the Nexus S is where you want to have a full Android/Google experience.
[Nexus S General] vulcanrav3n:
thanks for the suggestion. it definitely helped with the stock whisper-level output of the speaker.
[Nexus S General] Arcadia310:
Exactly. Good post. I'm just wondering why Google hasn't added in hardware acceleration yet, makes no sense. How can WP7 which uses the super old QSD8x50 Snapdragons still have smoother web browsing than a powerhouse HTC Sensation? When I saw WP7 in action I was dumbfounded at how good the web browsing is. I really hope Google fixes these little nuances because it's ridiculous at how bad Android performs at times despite having the best hardware on the market.
[Nexus S General] rdbhalla:
I always loved the shape of NS and hence I ditched my SGS to go for it. Based on my initial reading (I agree that I didn't do very detailed research), I thought NS is going to be a better SGS.

After used NS for 2 weeks, and came back to SGS for following main reasons -

1. Camera Quality: Yes, both are 5MPs made by Samsung. But comparing side by side on my laptop SGS pictures had richer and deeper colors than NS pictures. I don't know why, but it was a consistent observation.

2. Video Quality: I missed the smoothness and detail of 720p recording. And 3GP format from Nexus S is so early 2000.

3. Gorilla Glass: I had the SLCD version with so called oleophobic coating. But I wanted gorilla glass. I knew it before buying, but didn't realize that I would miss it.

4. SAMOLED: I live in Australia and only i9023 was available locally. It doesn't stand a chance against SAMOLED. I know many would disagree, but I find SAMOLED much better in real life experience.

5. TouchWiz: Not the launcher, but other bits - Camera Interface, Video Player, Contacts integration with Facebook (2.3.4 blocked it in Nexus S only), etc. Not sure if all video codecs are available because of Touchwiz, but my SGS practically opens/plays anything I throw at it. I know I can install stuff to overcome this, but why do it.

6. SD Card, Radio, etc: These are very minor difference, but why loose the functionality when NS was supposed to be an 'upgrade' over SGS. I missed SD Card coz I had a 16GB SD card in SGS which I loaded with movies for my train journey. I had to copy them to Phone SD in NS. Now, its just me but I wanted my movies not to take up space on my Phone. Anyway, its a minor and personal thing.

7. Yellowish whites: Has anyone compared whites on NS i9023 on 2.3.4 with whites on SGS on 2.3.4? SGS whites are so better.

Anyway, now I am happy happy SGS user waiting for NS3 to come out with a hope that it will get rid of all the issues current NS has.
[Nexus S General] ronnienyc:
For what its worth I have a new Sprint NS 4g and the whites are much whiter (less green /yellow) .
[Nexus S General] jrdatrackstar:
I actually started a post about HW accelearted UI in here...

According to Google I/O, the OS will be hardware accelerated in ICS. However, there were some conflicting statements about "dual core" and "more powerful phones" taking away the need of GPU usage for the UI. I was like "are you serious?!" But then they contradict themselves and say that the UI WILL be hardware accelerated and that developers can make their apps hardware accelerated from then on. The thing that worries me is how bad even the XOOM lagged with Hardware Acceleration with Honeycomb 3.1 (albeit, there XOOM has more drawing to do because of the larger screen's pixels). I played with one in the Sprint store, and with a Live Wallpaper it was terribly laggy. With a static one there was noticeable hardware acceleration and kinetic scrolling, but not "iOS acceleration" or "Windows Phone 7 acceleration". I would guess the FPS was around MAYBE like 50.....windows transitions were smooth though....

I totally agree, and I was actually contemplating a switch to Windows Phone 7 as well soon based on the fact that Google (at least to me) is outsourcing Android to these companies that sell devices based on "AWESOME SPECS" instead of quality user experience. The Nexus S is the closest thing I've used that compares to the smoothness of iOS and Windows Phone 7, but there is still lag every once in a while (albeit, small lag and the phone is still LIGHTNING FAST....to the point that I REFUSE to use anything other than a Nexus device. I will stick with this phone for a year, even 2, just to keep stock Android). I just can't leave the tight integration and power of Google services. Hopefully Windows Phone 7 will catch on, and Microsoft will compete again.

I also HAD hope for webOS again (came from a Sprint Pre) and the Pre3 with the Hardware Accelerated UI, but the future of HP with useful apps that have good API usage (barcode scanners, shazam microphone sound input, etc...) looks grim....very grim.....

It looks like us picky people are "stuck" with Android until:

a. ICS really DOES bring kinectic scrolling through the GPU and smoother browsing and framerate speed throughout the entire UI; and if it doesn't, Google begins to look into making it happen VERY SOON...

b. Windows Phone 7 does catch on (which it might).....

c. HP somehow miraculously turns things around (which won't happen.....ever...)

Of course.....there is always Apple......=(

No, never that lol
[Nexus S General] ptpoul:
I am really dumbfounded by the lack of essential software/driver support.

Installing the drivers on my windows7 machine was hell. I went through 4 different tutorials before I got it working via the PDAnet program. Not my first choice but the only I could get to work!

I was interested in rooting my phone so I had to install the SDK manager etc. anyway, but for the common users that simply want to use their phona as a modem and tranfer files it shouldn't be this hard. Plug the phone in, let microsoft provide the drivers.

The lack of a dictionary is very surprising. The phone has been available for a long time now! I had to unzip a cyanogen mod and plug in the dictionary from the cyanogen mod just to get a dictionary on my phone.

I like messing about, but basic stuff lika a driver and a dictionary just has to work out of the box. Google has miles to go before they have a legit user friendly product.

Hell I enjoy my purchase, but I thought buying a stock android phone would ensure the basics just worked!
[Nexus S General] jonnythan:
On my Win7 machine, all I had to do to use it as a modem was plug it in and select USB tethering. Done. Same for file transfers - Windows 7 has all the drivers built-in.

Using ADB, fastboot, etc, are a bit beyond the scope of "regular user" stuff.

There is also a built-in dictionary on Android. I'm not sure why you're missing one. Probably has something to do with Cyanogenmod.
[Nexus S General] Award Tour:
I'm really looking towards the next major release of WP after Mango that will probably sync up with Windows 8. I can see MS really hitting it out of the park with Windows 8.
[Nexus S General] Eunidas:
Hi,

Sorry to jump in. I read your posts about hardware acceleration. I agree that nexus S is very laggy compared to the smooth experience of iphone 4. I like you, am also very eagerly awaiting ICS. But as google isnt going to release ICS before christmas, i decided to optimize my nexus S for a smoother experience.

1) A good kernel incredibly speeds up NS. I have found upon trying all the kernels that netarchy 1.3.5 is best at the moment, with trinity UV close at its heels.

2) Gingerbread's default launcher is crap. I use Go Launcher Ex and set the fling speed to around 25. Very smooth home screen srolling.

3) OC. I know the dangers, bt it sure helps nudging up the performance.
[Nexus S General] jrdatrackstar:
thanks for your post and tips....

however...i have resorted to not even rooting my Nexus because:

1. that's work I shouldn't have to do, and I'd rather have a "close to good without having to do extra work" experience than an "i hacked it and got what I wanted" experience; basically that I got what I was expecting to pay for in this device....

2. no matter how much hacking you do, you're never going to get the full experience you are looking for as far as scrolling with zero lag until the software is optimized for it (i.e. the dual cores don't mean anything because no software is written to optimize their power)

I also have read reports of worse battery life, bugs, etc. with different kernels...
[Nexus S General] Eunidas:
First of all, that is a rather personal choice. I am a perfectionist and i wud rather experience everything my device is capable of. However that doesnt mean driving it to the extreme. A little overclocking is perfectly safe. I never go beyond 1.2.

For battery life, I UV my device. Trinity11 UV is perfect with a slight OC and UV to offset the battery drain.

I agree with you on the software part. But thats hardly something we can do anything about. Better leave it the wise guys at google or our beloved devs.

And about about bugs, thats the whole point of flashing anyways :P

BTW, I do really respect your viewpoint on OC. No matter how much I overclock it, it ll still be the hummingbird, and not transform into an A9. Bt OC is useful if we just want that extra bit of performance
[Nexus S General] jrdatrackstar:
point well taken :)
[Nexus S General] -Nacho:
If the custom kernels are so much better than the stock ones, why doesn't Google just adopt them?
[Nexus S General] coheebc:
Thanks for your experience. I will keep my Evo 3d now:)
[Nexus S General] ronnienyc:
I now have an EVO 3d and it is solid! Screen is great, battery lasts a day easily, and It's fast. Waiting to.hear more about the recent Nexus update before I take that plunge again.
[Nexus S General] dreamsforgotten:
Phone's hardware tolerances they average what the clock all phones can handle some can handle more nicely some heat up and reboot
[Nexus S General] gkrawiec:
I like my Nexus S, but mostly for running pure android and getting the updates first. As far as the hardware goes, I think it was not well thought out. I dont mind the plastic feel (its my first smartphone so I have nothing to compare it to) plus I put on some best skins ever skins so its not even the natural feel...my issue is with the placement of things.

1) volume rocker oppposite of wake/off button. It took me a while to get my motions right so that waking the phone wouldnt have me changing the volume too. And also from turning it off when chaning the volume. Now I am ok, but I dont think i should have had to get used to that...it should be natural.

2)The ity bity tuny external speaker on the BACK!! of the phone!! if its sitting on a cushioned table or couch I cant hear the ringer. On a google talk video/speaker phone call i can barely hear the other person....etc etc..

3)not sure how this could be fixed but the touch buttons on the bottom tend to be very sensitive, which is good in some situations but not so much in others...i find myself pressing the back button while in the middle of something quite often. (maybe thats just me).

Other than that, i find it odd it doesnt have camera zoom...but I knew about that before getting it.

The OS I like as far as funcionality though I feel its a bit ugly (folders specifically...really ugly).

-gk
[Nexus S General] dreamsforgotten:
Try vignette from the market to get your zoom and volume + from the market for your speaker issue. The test I can't help much on.
[Nexus S General] gkrawiec:
will look into them...earlier i looked at volume+ but havent tested it yet...will look at vignette now...thanks.

-gk