yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
I think the real issue for most people is having to drop $529 dollars on a phone that isn't as future-proof as it should be, at least into the year 2011. I suspect the Google/Sammy partnership came mid-year, either during or right after the success of the Galaxy S, and they rushed to get us a Nexus branded phone with Gingerbread shipped before Xmas. This isn't even so much about dual-core vs. single-core, it's more about the lack of HSPA+ support. All four major carriers are pushing "4G" for the standard in 2011, and there are even handsets out currently that already support it. If dual-core is that important (and it is to some people), they are literally just around the corner. 2011 is weeks away, and it's suspected dual-cores will start coming out Jan/February. It's true that technology moves at a breakneck speed, but a month or two away may be worth waiting for, considering the hefty price tag for an un-contracted Nexus S. Along with other detractors - ranging from small to big depending on people's preferences - like lack of expandable SD card slot, lack of LED light, Bluetooth downgrade, 480p HD recording, it makes it a very difficult buy. In other words, the price isn't only about money anymore. It feels like you're giving up a lot more.

And I'm not sure Google/Sammy should get away with it.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DKYang:
Future-proof? Really? Might as well not buy anything.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
"...as future-proof as it should be, at least into the year 2011"

DKYang, the Nexus brand is said to represent and pave the way for all other Android devices to follow. Given this standard, it's baffling that dual-cores may be available as Jan/Feb 2011, mere months away. Yes, technology advances at breakneck speeds, but a couple of months may be worth waiting for to see what else is available. Not supporting "4G" seems odd too when you consider where all four major carriers are going, and given handsets exist now that support it. Downgrades to the HD video recording, expandable SD slot, bluetooth, and omission of LED light are other detractors. It seems to me, there is more than the hefty $529 dollar price tag to pay. You'd have to give up a lot more.

And the reason for all this, I suspect, is because Google/Sammy rushed a Nexus branded phone.

Related: Is one of the [few] things that sets the Nexus S apart, the NFC chip, read-only as reported by Android Police? http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/1...led-its-one-way-only-and-not-the-way-we-want/ If so, that would be disappointing. It would mean the NFC is just a more convenient bar code scanner. I hope they are wrong.

The advantage of getting the Nexus S at those prices (meaning both money and what has to be given up) keeps dwindling down; down to essentially getting direct and clean Android updates. To some this may be worth it.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] neok44:
the one-way is a software issue only, not a hardware one.

The hardware supports both sending and reading, gingerbread only has the API to read.

So all google has to do is add the send API in honeycomb or ice cream.

And regarding the dual cores, they are not coming out in january/february. they're being shown of at CES and MWC. Nothing will be released until at least summer, if not later, because most likely gingerbread does not support dual core so any phone with a dual core will have to be honeycomb which is confirmed to have dual core support, but also has no release period for phones.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
Neo, great clarifications. I hope that is true regarding the NFC chip. If it is, it would make sense considering making credit card payments isn't widely used yet.

As for the dual-core, personally, I'm not so bothered by the single-core of the Nexus S. What's deterring me the most is the lack of HSPA+ support. But that's nice to know about the dual-cores.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] The Jones:
Have you bought the phone and found out that it does not perform as advertised? And have you not got a refund for that? Otherwise, I dont understand your issue.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zorak950:
As I posted in yet another thread on this same general topic, I'm of the opinion the Nexus S is more Samsung's baby than Google's. Samsung has remained largely out of Google's inner circle up to now, which is doubtless partly (how large a part is up for debate) why they've stumbled a bit in pushing updates. I think Samsung asked to build this phone for Google.

Also, I'm not sure it's really true that the Nexus line is intended to pave the way forward hardware-wise. If anything, it's Google's way of promoting whichever goal for Android they have at the time of release. With the Nexus One- as atlp99 points out- that was largely a leap forward in hardware. With the Nexus S, I don't think it was Google's intention (or even feasible) to create a device which would, for months to come, match or exceed the specifications of other devices in what is now a large and rapidly-progressing lineup.

As I keep saying, the Nexus S probably isn't a good choice for hardware junkies. What it is, though, is a solid phone that provides the option of vanilla Android to the mass market for the first time. And considering that one of Google's recently stated goals for Android is (paraphrased) demonstrating that Android has matured enough as a platform that it no longer requires manufacturers and carriers to tack on their own features and apps, it's precisely what they want it to be.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] irishrally:
When someone with an HSPA+ supported phone shows me download speeds greater than 7.2Mbps, I may wish I had such support. I don't even have HSPA+ support in my area, but when I do I look forward to maxing out my 7.2Mbps download speed, a ~7 times improvement over my current speeds.

For further thoughtful consideration of the NS specs: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=867112
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
The OP was dated Dec 7th. I think those who were on the fence have either come to terms with the hardware specs and have committed themselves to the phone, or have decided to wait until a while longer before making a decision, or have flat out decided against purchasing the Nexus S

In other words, hardware concerns are indeed an old hat.

Unfortunately, there is still too much opportunity to criticize the software. Gingerbread 2.3 is chalk full of glitches (the ones which annoy me personally are the random ringtone/alarm tone changes, difficulty sometimes in moving icons on the home screen, sometimes disappearing app icons, sometimes disappearing photographs from Gallery, screen scrolling hiccups/freezes, keyboard not registering keys when typing fast, to just name a few). I think people have had enough time to get more familiar with Gingerbread; it's unfortunate to discovery these issues. I think it still falls into my theory that Gingerbread (and the Nexus S) was rushed. Hopefully these issues will be addressed in due time.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lewy10:
I think Google should have waited and placed the the dual core processor in there Nexus Dev phone. Looking at the Nexus S dev phone is great eye candy, but with no micro SD slot to upgrade to 32GB cards and a subpar battery life didnt win me over at all.

Nexus One hands down a great dev phone. :)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zorak950:
Although it sort of is a dev phone in practice I suppose, I don't think developers were Google's main target with the Nexus S.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] distortedloop:
Is there an official statement from Google that this phone is intended for developers (only)? Odd way to market/sale it, if there is.

I agree, it's not a "dev" phone...why do people insist on saying that it is? Why do they try to excuse away all the little bugs by saying "it's a dev phone, you should expect bugs"? The only thing that makes it a "dev" phone is the easy to unlock bootloader.

The thing is sold in a big box general consumer store, with advertising to attract walk-by, casual users, and there's no warning on the box or receipt along the lines of "this phone is designed for developers only and you should expect it to be a buggy beta experience."

I got mine first day of sale, and trust me, I could tell just by their conversation that many of the folks behind me in line at Best Buy were not developers.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shep211:
From what I have read they where unhappy with the nexus s so they tried to push out a orion based nexus s. Gingerbread would not play nice with orion duel core so they just released the nexus s. If Google would have been happy with the original nexus s then there would have been no delays in releasing it.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kindiboy:
This is idiotic....I hate conspiracy theories and theorists.

Google don't give a rat ass about hardware their first priority is SOFTWARE

so let's ask Google why they chose the Galaxy, by checking this video

So they wanted to make gaming more serious on Android (which makes sense from a strategic perspective because gaming is the most obvious edge iOS have over Android) , so that's why we have Gingerbread. So the obvious scenario is this... we need to give developers something better for games to develop on..we don't have enough time to develop something completely new. so we looked around, we need a proven serious GPU for mobile phones in the market, it didn't take them a long time to think O hummingbird! who makes them, Samsung! ok we need a better screen it should be bigger so games would be better on, who makes those now Samsung.....let's talk to Samsung and they did.

So we have Nexus S....case closed.

move on...

It wasn't for any other reason on this thread.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] distortedloop:
An otherwise fine post with an informative link attached is ruined by starting out it with such negative vibes...

We're here to discuss the phone and educate each other, starting your comments with insults isn't really conducive to that, is it? ;)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
It's interesting too that he starts off by saying Google doesn't care about hardware at all, and then goes on to talk about how Google sought after the best producers of GPUs, processors, screens, etc.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chinstrap:
I’m astonished no one here is worried about battery life with all this talk of ‘dualcore’ around here. While I know its two entirely different product lines, Nvidia’s GeForce graphic cards aren’t exactly what I would call “energy efficient”. If the GPU portion of Tegra’s SoC carries that same power sucking nature, its curtains for us. I know I’m already in the minority here, but I’m happy NS was/is only a single core. As it stands now, I can barely get a day out of my phone when I’m on the go. I can’t imagine what a dualcore is going to do to that. Good lord.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zorak950:
I hadn't really thought about that, but you're right, it will certainly present an interesting challenge to maintain the decidedly mediocre battery life Android smartphones have currently, much less improve it, if they start seriously beefing up the hardware of their devices. In any case, I don't think I'll miss dual-core on my phone in the near future. Even if they do solve all the problems associated with that leap, I can't imagine any app I'd use normally would require anything near that level of power.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] spacemanspiff33:
I agree. I don't think many people truly understand how a dual core cpu works, they just think its 'better'. Battery life is a bigger issue to me than having a quad core xenon hyper ultra cpu in my cel phone (currently) :) considering we have still yet to have a 'smart' phone that has a battery life anywhere NEAR close to what we were used to in the past with 'standard' cel phones (razr etc.)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AndroidZ28:
I have none of these issues...

Sent from my Nexus S
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kindiboy:
Yes because hardware is only a medium to deliver their OS, OS is the main focus not the hardware. OS > hardware, they are not Texas Instruments, or RIM. It's ok if you don't see it what I mean, in all honestly didn't expect you too.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kindiboy:
Am not really trying to be constructive in this post, and it's really not bad to name things with their names. But you are right, it's little bit harsh. I apologize.

;) Happy Holidays!
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vapotrini:
What a lot of you are completely misunderstanding is that dual core processors are not going to use more power, they're going to use less. It seems to be a common misconception around here that dual cores are going to use more power. That is simply not the case. Dual core's are supposed to be substantially more energy efficient vs their single core brethren.

The future of mobiles isn't dual core only because they're more powerful, it's also because more importantly, they save more energy. While a single core will be at 100% during heavy multi-tasking, guess where the dual core will be? Chugging along at 50%, thus using less power and obviously saving on battery life.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/12/08/nvidia-dual-core-power-saving/1

You guys really need to stop down playing dual core chips. They ARE the future.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ap3604:
Battery life breakdown:

- 75 to 80% Lighting up the screen display (Nothing to do with dual core)

- 10 to 15% Cell / Wifi signal reception (Nothing to do with dual core)

- 5% Browser/Apps

- 5% Android operating system

Since 90% of battery use has nothing to do with a dual core processor how is the dual core going to significantly save on battery life?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vapotrini:
So let me get this right, 80% of your cell use is "lighting" up your screen and doing what... just staring at your phone? Get serious man.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ap3604:
Not sure if you understood what I was saying.

Even if I'm doing stuff that a dual core would affect (such as using apps or the browser) 75 to 80 percent of the power is being used to light up the screen while I use the browser. As soon as you turn your phone on and do anything with it 80% of the power is being used to light up the display. If you look at your android battery usage statistics you'll see what I mean.

Since lighting up the display (and the power used to get cellular reception) take about 90% of the battery and has nothing to do with dual core processors. The argument that dual core processors will increase battery life is faulty. Dual core processors will only affect the tiny 10% of battery life (apps and browser) left after cellular reception and display drainage.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vapotrini:
You're right, I did misunderstand you... I apologize.

There are undoubtedly going to be a lot of circumstances where there are no real/substantial gains. However, not everyone uses their phone in the same manner. While those stats may hold true for you, for someone else who does a lot of intensive stuff on their phone... I'd imagine they'd see a lot of benefits. I know I for one would do more gaming, multi-tasking, etc if my battery life permitted.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ap3604:
No worries brotha'! :)

Btw vapotrini you are right on the intense gaming / multitasking. My mistake I didn't really think about that since those new crazy unreal-engine games (Dungeon Defenders) will probably take up something like 30% of the battery power which might be saved with a dual core. Thanks for giving me your perspective :D
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
I'm not disagreeing with you. You're arguing against positions I don't hold, so I won't say too much. I'm just saying Google gives more than a "rat's ass" about hardware. Not sure the ad hominem was necessary, but to each his own.

I'd also like to reiterate that anyone responding directly to the OP should keep in mind that it was written on Dec 7th. Time has passed and as I said, people by now will have either accepted the Nexus S for what it is and made the purchase, or decided to wait or pass on it entirely. By now, complaints seem to be mostly about software (at least mine are). Gingerbread is in its infancy, and there are plenty of glitches that require Google's attention.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kindiboy:
Can't agree with you more there. It seems as if they cut out some parts of honeycomb and called that part gingerbread.
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
Gingerbread for Defrost 6.1a, CM 6.1.1 and Oxygen 1.0.4 AOSP

For those still running Froyo I’ve created a theme that replicates the stock gingerbread look.

This has taken me a long time to compile and maintain. It was not as simple as copying files from one APK to the other; it required xml editing, icon design and much probing into the gingerbread SDK to find all these files to bring you the most accurate Gingerbread look.

If you use this and like this please donate.

What you get:

Stock Gingerbread

Status icons – System, Gmail, Email, Messaging, Market

App Icons – Browser, Phone

Gingerbread keyboard

Nexus S live wallpapers (Thanks AdamG)

Black menu background with correct text colour and vertical dividers

General framework including tick-boxes, menu pop-up

New dialer

Launcher2 themed (DeFrost only, for Oxygen and Cyanogen(MOD) use this one)

Enhancements

Smooth 100 step charging and discharging animations

Smooth refresh

Smoother spinner animation

Green notification overflow background

Green progress bars

Ability to change lockscreen backgrounds

Gingerbread style notification power widget

Black MMS.apk (Oxygen – not CM port but modded stock)

Metamorphs

Battery percentage Mod 1 (square font)

Battery percentage Mod 2 (rounded font)

White Status icons (as if not connected to Google servers in GB)

Green Icons (Revert)

No Battery Percentage (Revert)

Downloads

Instructions – not for Metamorphs

You have to be rooted to install these custom roms – if you are not rooted head to XDA and they should be able to help.

I can only support ROMs for the HTC Desire, however the Cyanogen(MOD) framework is very similar across the board. I believe porting to other HDPI devices is not hard and you are free to attempt this with these files.

Download the desired files to your SD Card, if you are on Cyanogen(MOD) or DeFrost you will also need to place the Colour config file “Gingerbread.xml” in /sdcard/CMTheme/

As with all flashable zips a NANDROID backup is recommended.

Flash the *.zip file either with ROM Manager or through recover as you would a ROM. You do not need to unzip these files.

Reboot the phone

If using Cyanogen(MOD) or DeFrost you will need to apply the colour theme (Settings > CyanogenMod settings > User interface > Tweaks extras > “Select Theme” > “Gingerbread”)

Enjoy your Gingerthemed Froyo

Instructions – for Metamorphs

To use the Metamorphs you need to have you desire S-Off’d and you must download Metamorph from the Market. Once you have this it’s pretty straight forward.

If you don’t have S’Off or can’t get Metamorph to work you can merge the files from a Metamorph into a theme (framework-res.apk) and then flash the theme through recovery.

I hope to write a tutorial on how to do this some time in the future.
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
Changelog

(4/01)

*Consolidated all themes to be the same

(7/12)

Added Green Icons

(7/12)

Initial Release
[Desire Themes and Apps] shockem:
Nice! thanks!
[Desire Themes and Apps] TickyDraconia:
Looks good! :)

Sorry to ask what is likely a silly question, but where are the global text colours defined? I can't for the life of me find the config for the menus - all my popup menus are black-on-black in my attempt at this for CM6.1. :/
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
Use the xml colour file from the blog (you need to right click and download)

You should be able to rip all the "drawable-hdpi" files with no probs.

Gas
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
For CM

Try these 2 files - You need this colour file too (Copy to /sdcard/CMTheme) then sellect in CMSettings. (Right click and save-as)

For CM6.1 - Desire - Flash in recovery then apply colour file.

Grey CM6.1

Green CM 6.1

If they work, please let me know!

Gas
[Desire Themes and Apps] TickyDraconia:
That works for most of the UI, but the CMtheme stuff doesn't affect menus;

Is there a workaround?
[Desire Themes and Apps] TickyDraconia:
Work fine. What did you modify in Gmail.apk?
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
Just the notification icon
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
I can't find the fix for this. I think it's in styles.xml search "panel" and remove the "inverse part", but this didn't recompile properly. I'm just using the old white menu pop-ups.

Gas
[Desire Themes and Apps] TickyDraconia:
Ah, OK. :)

Looking into it now.
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
http://db.tt/CVkH3Oj

Just for defrost

This is a more thoroughly themed file. Unfortunately I can't post screenshots as I'm not at my computer. To get the keyboard to work you might need to clear the cache of the keyboard app.

Let me know what you think.
[Desire Themes and Apps] _booty:
Freakn sweet! Using it for my desire right now, love it!!

//_b
[Desire Themes and Apps] alirezaafkar:
Wow ! It's amazing , I love it. Thx
[Desire Themes and Apps] Rennrg:
Gas will be made for this Theme graphite lockscreen and phone.apk?
[Desire Themes and Apps] KroonBerg:
It's good

Hello There!

I really like this new look, however I think there are a few things wrong.

First, the notifications bar is a really dark black in 2.3 (I have looked at the pictures and tried the GingerNinja ROM) while this is more grey.

Second, the headset icon (I know that you cannot do anything about it since you only have the SDK and not the source code)

I think that's about it..

As I said, I really love this, and I greatly appreciate the effort you have made to port this! I'd love to see some more of it.

Have a nice day/night Gas!
[Desire Themes and Apps] ClassicalGas:
I've taken the notification bar from the SDK and various screenshots (see arstechnica for example). I can resize and grey out the headset icon which I will look at doing tomorrow.

Re: incorporating this with other lockscreens, I will try and add them all to this through morphs, but it might take a while.

Gas
[Desire Themes and Apps] _booty:
As I said in an earlier post i LOVE this theme =) But i got a queston. Mine doesn't looke exactly like the screenshot I'm posting n image to show what i mean, on the right side is the screen shot and on the left is what mine look like, dunno if its maybe because I'm using CM power widget in notif... bar?

Also it looks like the alarm icon got and extra pixel on the top right side or something :)

//_b
[Desire Themes and Apps] Magic_Jamie:
Looking great. For some reason the keyboard keeps force closing but it's not a problem as I was going to switch to the HTC one anyway but might be something you want to look into. On a HTC Desire with DeFrost 6.1 if it helps. Anyway, keep up with the good work, can't wait to see what it looks like once it matures (or until CM and Defrost release a 2.3 ROM :p)

EDIT: It appears a second Android Keyboard has been installed as 2 of them appear on my apps list, one is 168KB and the other is 304KB, the 304KB one has a version number of 2.3 so I assume that it's yours. Might see if I can find a way to uninstall the stock one.
[Desire Themes and Apps] Caspian3011:
Just to make it clear, I agree with you about slider bar color ;) I noticed that the theme doesn't have the screen lock animation (as you posted) and the animation when the end of menu while scrolling is reached (in Oxygen 2 RC orange color appears). I wasn't thinking about those custom animations in some of the ROMs which are, in my opinion, plain ugly and distracting.