[Nexus S General] Androyed:
Every day new smartphones come out. Faster phones. Better phones. Slicker phones. Especially since Google introduced Android, the smartphone market has got a big boost. Before you know it, your o so special phone isn't so special anymore. You are getting more and more jealous, and then you can't resist anymore. After using phone 1.0 for half a year, you decide to buy phone 2.0, which is faster, better and slicker.

This is probably a recognizable story for some people. Still having the same phone after two years is not done. Besides, getting jealous is inevitable. The trick as a manufacturer is to create a smartphone that is special enough to last even if there are other phones that are faster, better and slicker. Inventing such feature is very hard. If you bring a phone on the market with a dual-core processor today, you can't expect it to be special after a year.

Remaining special is a very common problem for smartphones. You can't prevent phones from getting more advanced technology, but you can try to delay the 'aging' for as long as possible. People will always be complaining though. And within this forum, I've seen this attitude more than ever. For the Nexus S, the 'aging' seems to begin even before the phone is for sale. A 1Ghz processor isn't very special when dual-core's are lurking around the corner. Therefore, the most common question on this forum is 'which phone is better, the Nexus S or ...?' The snag is to buy a smartphone that will last as long as possible. This topic is about the question how long the Nexus S will last.

Faster

Speed is the most important feature of a smartphone. We don't want lag. We want fluent animations, fast multi-touching and smooth browsing. The 1Ghz processor in the Nexus S is certainly not new. In fact, the Nexus One even had a 1Ghz processor, although that was a Snapdragon, and not a Hummingbird. Where the processor in the Nexus One was something new, in the Nexus S it is not so special anymore. Yet the Nexus S is very fast, certainly faster than the Nexus One. It is the fastest device on the market, for the moment at least.

This year will bring us a lot of dual-core phones. Will the Nexus S be outrunned? I don't think so. It is already fast. There is no feature that really needs a stronger processor. Maybe battery-life will be improved with dual-core, but regarding speed, I am not worried. The only thing you need a better processor for, is games. It is going the same way as it did with computers. You don't need quad-core to browse on the web, use Google Maps or edit a Word document. The only reason computers are getting faster and faster is because of the gaming industry. It will go the same way with smartphones. I personally don't need to play big games on my phone. Why would I want that? The screen is too small, and a touchscreen isn't very gaming-friendly. Besides, I have a Xbox 360 at home. I only want to play games like Angry Birds, and Worms on my smartphone. Games you can play in the bus, train or while waiting.

I would rather see every single flash game on the internet playable on my smartphone, then better processors to be able to play games that are more fun to play on my Xbox 360. At the moment there are no features that need a dual-core processor, at least not for me.

Better

You can't be special with speed. If you bring out a 2Ghz dual-core device, you can be sure that within a couple of months somebody else will also bring a 2Ghz dual-core smartphone on the market. An option is to invent your own screen. Samsung has got his 'Super AMOLED', for example, and Apple got the 'Retina' display.

The Super AMOLED on the Nexus S is pretty good. Vibrant, high-contrast colours appeal to a lot of people. Sure, there are some (including me) who like the sharper and more realistic LCD, but you can't say Super AMOLED isn't beautiful. The Nexus S has actually two versions, also one with Super Clear LCD. This is nothing more than a pimped S-LCD, but it's pretty nice, looking at the Samsung Wave II.

But new displays continue to be invented. Super AMOLED plus is coming, as is Sony's 'Reality Display' with Bravia technology, and LG comes with the crystal clear (at least, that is what they claim)

NOVIA display. Whether these displays are really that nice remains to be seen. You can name it whatever you want, in most technologies I don't see much difference.

Is there any threat for the Nexus S regarding the display? Not more than for any other device. The Super AMOLED and the Super Clear LCD are both very good displays, and I don't see anything special enough invented in the next two years that makes the display of the Nexus S look rubbish.

Nexus

As already mentioned, more than ever people seem to complain about the Nexus S. Complaining stems from dissapointment. Dissapointment stems from expectations. And the expectations of the Nexus S were pretty high. This was mostly due to the fact that it's a Nexus, an Android's flagship. The Nexus One had the same expectations. At that time, the whole Nexus-line was unknown, but it was known that the Nexus One would be a 'Google phone'. It was assumed that this possible iPhone Killer would have top-notch hardware and would be very special. The Nexus One was a good device indeed, but not so special as previously thought. There is, of course, a small group who loves the Nexus One, and I may be one of them. But it didn't have the kind of specialty that people where hoping for.

Being special doesn't seem to be the point for a Nexus. I think it's supposed to draw a line. A Nexus shows what Android is capable of at the moment of sale, but that doesn't mean that it got to have the latest hardware.

Anyway, the same mistake people made with the Nexus One, is now made with the Nexus S. The expectations where just to high. I don't think you need the latest hardware to make a good device, but if you don't come up with something special, people will be dissapointed.

P.S. I'll finish this topic later