[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mythamp:
I am just listing down a few thoughts for prospective Galaxy Nexus buyers, its not a review but my finding on what the Galaxy Nexus does well and what it doesnt!

I am confident that most of you have read every online review of the Galaxy Nexus by now - starting from http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/17/2568348/galaxy-nexus-review

So I will try to make it short and based on my personal experience. Mostly it will be compared to iOS/iPhone 4 as it is the viable competitor in the market and what people most definitely want to know about!

Just to give a brief about myself: I work as a Communications Specialist for a global logistics company (one of the top 3). My first phone was a Nokia 3310 - from there I have used mostly all the milestone mobile phones released imo (Including, SE T610/S700i/W900 - most of the N-series, Complete iPhone lineup, Compete Nexus lineup) I had to mention these just to ensure my credibility :P

So here goes:

Screen

The Good

Pentile vs. RGB - I am quite picky about this - I hated all Pentile iterations of screens till now - Yes the 720p resolution is sooo packed that you will not notice the pixels - it is as good as Retina. Colors are beautiful, vibrant and bright. So if you thought that you will miss your sharp retina display moving to Galaxy Nexus, its not the case.

The Size: if you are 6 feet and taller - this is a perfect phone for you.

The Bad

1. Grains on darker shades, I do not agree with most here who say grains exists in low brightness. I feel grains are there, its a default fault of the screen, you cannot get out of this, it gives a light textured look in darker color images (grey/blue) no matter the brightness. If you have a white background (as with websites) - grains are not visible if you increase the brightness to midway and above. If you are coming from an iPhone 4/4s, you will be impacted as I was - but I lived with it for the phone offers much better options than the iPhone 4 for me. I would also not categorize the graininess as a major issue on a daily usage, unless you are extremely picky but just knowing is still a pain.

2. Color tone was slightly off at default - to the more warmer tone

I had to root my phone only for fixing this issue - I installed franco's kernel and changed the color tone (using his update tool from market) to a slightly more cooler blue. Thanks Franco!

Speakers/Voice/Call Clarity: This is a "Phone", right?

The Good

Clear sound, beats iPhone in my opinion and is louder for the internal speakers.

The Bad

External speakers are not loud by default. There is an easy software solution though, installing Volume+. Volume+ really made the external speakers loud, even louder than the iPhone's I would say.

OS

The Good

Fantastic. Android is alot smarter now with ICS, it is faster - near blazing. One should realize, installing a thousand widgets and themes does not help the cause - my feedback is based on rooted/stock (w/franco kernel). if you play around and install various Roms here, you most definitely will complain regarding compatibility issues, over all snappiness and performance. I suggest dont do it unless you have nothing better to do all day! App switching between multiple apps is brilliant - swiping away or moving to the next is made so simple. Brilliant work hiring the webOS guys, Google!

Moving from iOS - Do not be fooled by people saying its not smooth as iOS. For me Speed is more important than smoothness and ICS is definitely FASTER than iOS. Its like, closing a window in MAC/Windows, you can either take 2 seconds to close it with a nice animation or in 1 sec, it just closes within blinking of an eye. ICS is sharp and quick. Now it might not do the animations/transitions in a SEXY WAY (so cool APPLE) - and you might feel lags while swiping between home screens (personally I havnt, yet), but you do not have to wait at any given time. I remember switching between apps/phones/contacts in my iPhone requires a slight wait - though smooth transition, in ICS that wait does not exist. You will enjoy the experience. eg. The ICS Music app is smoother at viewing album covers than the laggy coverflow implementation in iOS.

The Bad

The only small gripe I have is with the Phone app! It has improved significantly from gingerbread with the whole swiping from the Dialer to Recent Calls and Contacts/Frequent Calls. "Favorites" are setup in such a way that they take up a large portion of the screen realestate (for what good reasons ?:S) and all the contacts follow after them.

Browser

The Best

The best browsing experience on a mobile device I had in this generation of devices. The screen size is a major player, previously on my iPhones, I would just browse if I was in a desperate situation such as finding a review, text being so tiny - but with the Galaxy Nexus, you feel like browsing the net when you have time in hand.

The Browser itself is much better than Mobile Safari in every way (performance/tab switching). You will love the experience moving from iOS!

Apps

I was never a heavy user of apps, so I will not compare iOS and Android eco-systems as such. There is no doubt iOS has more sexier looking apps/more polished but android is catching up. If you are coming from iOS and a heavy app user - this might not be the most convenient move for you, my personal suggestion would be for you to wait till iPhone 5 is released please. No TheGood/TheBad here!

Battery

The Bad

Unfortunately, there is no TheGood section here, obviously the battery google/samsung have placed in here is not adequate for a device with such a large screen. You can at max survive a day (using facebook/browsing/gmail/twitter). I am not sure how long it will survive with locations/geo tracking on though. 1 day is good enough for me, so not sure about you. I keep my screen brightness to 65% bright. The battery life on the iPhone 4 is relatively the same.

Camera

The Good

It takes really quick shots.

The Bad

The image quality is not upto par with the iPhone 4, let alone 4s!

File Transfer/Mount Storage Device

The Good

You can delete/update/change files on the go while connected through usb so that you do not need to unplug and remount the storage in order to view the files on your phone.

The Bad

If you want to view/transfer files from your Phone to a Mac, such as the case with myself, I needed to install an Android File Transfer app to edit/transfer files to the phone. This is painful if you want to plug the phone into another Mac (you will have to install that app again on the machine). For PC, I believe no such app needs to be installed though.

An alternative to this is using the AirDroid app which allows you to access your files/folders/contacts and much more through wifi. A great free app indeed, thanks Alkidweller for pointing it out!

Overall Verdict

The Galaxy Nexus is a great device, it has some issues most definitely (grainy screen/mediocre battery and camera). But the ICS shines, the large screen realestate, fantastic UX coupled with an amazing browsing experience is worth the upgrade from an iPhone and with a price of $399 it gives the most bang for the buck, compare that with the $650 for iPhone 4s.

- Two modifications I used were - Franco Kernel & Franco Updater App, Volume+

- For Mac Users: Android File Transfer App/ AirDroid

Here is a snapshot of my setup - ICS stock just works!

If you like the

wallpaper

you can download it from mediafire.

Its a slightly modified version of Galaxy NGC 3190 by `-kol (in deviantart)