[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] KWKSLVR:
This is probably coming off as much more of a rant than intended, but oh well.

First off, TouchWiz is not a launcher, it's a framework. There's a difference. Second off, this device has the camera, and the setup, that it has to allow for zero lag. I'd rather have zero lag.

That said:

Some of you guys are WAY to hung up on spec sheets. A Nexus is a reference device. Christ, I don't understand why this concept is difficult to grasp. It's not suppose to be about ground breaking hardware. It's a development platform. You don't buy a Nexus because it's a hardware benchmark, you buy it for development and to be first in line for updates. Part of being first in line for updates means dealing with bugs. Congratulations, as Nexus owner's, we are all Beta testers, and I'll beta test for Google any day of the week. The Gnex hit Verizon on December 15th. It's March 13th. It's be 3 months and people are whining about updates? You guys have got to be kidding me. I mean seriously. YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Since I've owned my GNex I've gotten 1 official OTA update and I've gotten to play with 4.0.3 and 4.0.4, which I'm currently on. I do not expect an update every freaking month. Where the hell does this idea come from that updates are coming "slow" on this device? It's utter hogwash. In almost 2 years with my Vibrant, I got one official update from Eclair to Froyo and it wasn't that great of an improvement.

Some of you guys have lunatic caliber brains when it comes to mobile devices. I'm more than willing and happy to play with whatever version of Android that Google decides to roll out. However, I do NOT want it OTA if it isn't ready for the masses. Just because there is an XXXXXX version of Android Binaries released, it doesn't mean that it's an "update" that is being held back. For the love of God, please RTFM or just go back to playing WOW all afternoon. If you're pouting because it's been 3 months and you've only gotten 1 update then I seriously suggest a reevaluation of life priorities and learning to not cry a river over 1st World Problems.

I remember when the SGS came out. It was suppose to be ground breaking hardware. Samsung's new uber amazing processor was gonna be a "game changer". What happened? It was dog slow. Was it TouchWiz's fault? No, not really. My mother has my Vibrant rocking TouchWiz on top of ext4. It's blazing fast. Don't blame TouchWiz, blame the implementation of the RFS file system. It made zero sense and it destroyed the device's experience in many ways. Coming from a Blackberry, I was quite pleased with my stock SGS. As I got more and more into the community I learned how lacking it really was. And to be fair to Samsung, the new TouchWiz is actually pretty nice for the "average" user. It's not my preference and I wouldn't want it in a million years, but I can be objective about it.

Hardware specs mean very little. What could a 1Ghz Quad Core run right now that a Gnex can't? What can an SGSII run right now that a GNex can't? What can a Rezound run right now that a GNex can't? There's nothing. Zip, zero, ziltch, and there never will be. If I'm an app developer, I'm not interested in developing a game or app that only runs on a handful of devices that have 4 cores. It's not profitable, and if the OS doesn't provide groundwork to use that hardware in the first place then it's doubly pointless. It's kind of like how PC gamers sit around wanting bigger, greater games watching while Playstation's and Xbox's hold everything back. It's also kind of like living in a trailer park and leasing a new Corvette to show off how much money you have - completely and utterly moronic. It is what it is. It's like whining because the earth rotates on it's axis. Get over it.

When the SGSIII (or whatever Samsung calls it) comes out, it'll probably be a great device. A lot of devices rolling out will probably be great devices. I think stuff like Tegra 3 is super cool. At the same time, none of them will get updates before the Gnex. You will NOT see an OTA update to a new Android version in the first 3 months, nor will you see two additional leaks in that timeframe to go with it.

There is nothing wrong with a device that has modified framework, if that's what you like. But the notion that Quad Core is gonna make ICS/JB/KrispyKreme/blah blah blah blazing fast and soooo much better than the GNex is complete nonsense diarrhea of keyboard fingers. ICS does not need 4 Cores to run as fast as it was designed to run. The next iteration of Android won't either. It's wasted hardware that the core of Android can't even use. It's the false notion that you can "future proof" yourself. You can't. Every device has a limited development life before manufacturer's abandon it and developers (and the majority of users) move on to the next greatest thing. What we will most likely see are Quad Cores pushing all of the framework bloat, widgets and other custom stuff that manufacturers choose to include in their devices. If that's your cup of tea, then great! But don't act like it means that the GNex and Google is somehow lacking.

The Nexus exists to provide a platform that allows for further Android development, and that's exactly what it does. If you bought it expecting anything else then it's your own fault for not educating yourself before hand.

/pseudo rant