Official ICS & Galaxy Nexus Launch Thread

[runawayprisoner]

I'm just distracted is all. Overall, I am sincerely loving this phone, and the screen is definitely not a deal breaker for me.

It doesn't feel as smooth as the 4S or even my old 4, but for what it's worth, the software is starting to shape up pretty nice, and I am enjoying the stock web browser more than I thought I would. Dolphin is now scratched off my list.

Also installed Lux Autobrightness for the time being. Stock autobrightness isn't responsive and useful enough.

 

[dlock13]

I wish I had my Nexus still. I need to get rid of this iPhone 4. Ugh.

 

[bucwylde23]

I'm just distracted is all. Overall, I am sincerely loving this phone, and the screen is definitely not a deal breaker for me.

It doesn't feel as smooth as the 4S or even my old 4, but for what it's worth, the software is starting to shape up pretty nice, and I am enjoying the stock web browser more than I thought I would. Dolphin is now scratched off my list.

Also installed Lux Autobrightness for the time being. Stock autobrightness isn't responsive and useful enough.

4.0.4 is smoother, if VZW will ever push an official build.

You should try out Google Chrome as well.

I"m running AOKP 4.0.4 and Franco kernel and the nexus is smooth as hell.

 

[trmiv]

I said I wasn't going to ROM this phone after getting tired of it with my Droid 1, but Verizon/Google dragging their feet on the OTA is starting to push me in that direction.

 

[ponyo]

4.0.4 is nice. Fixed the minor issues I had with 4.0.2. Though I've heard GSM 4.0.4 OTA has been temporarily suspended due to some radio issues.

Still running stock everything. I'm rooted for Stickmount and Voodoo OTA Rootkeeper.

 

[hans007]

4.0.4 is smoother, if VZW will ever push an official build.

You should try out Google Chrome as well.

I"m running AOKP 4.0.4 and Franco kernel and the nexus is smooth as hell.

4.0.4 is smoother. its weird i didn't think it could get smoother, but its noticeably so.

for me it fixed a few issues where hitting some app icons woudl cause the wrong app to start. i'm running the google OTA (which is on their servers hosted even) with the leankernel and its great.

didnt bother unlocking / rooting until a couple days ago, but yeah its probably worth it.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Well, I just flashed 4.0.4 AOSP. Then there was a kernel that claimed color correction, so I couldn't resist the thought.

Half an hour of eyeballing later, I have now gotten the display to proper colors (at least comparable to my MacBook Pro), and what the hell? It also eliminated the artifacts! Looks like default display calibration profile did something funky to subpixel and made them display random weird colors. I can now say that the screen is nigh perfect!

Aside from that, 4.0.4 is indeed smoother. Still not iPhone 4 smooth in some cases, but it's quite a major improvement over 4.0.2. And I'm liking the phone more and more.

 

[trmiv]

So what's the ROM to use for a Verizon Nexus if I don't want all the extra crap? I just want a stock like 4.0.4 ROM that's stable. I don't need all the extra crap a lot of these ROMs add in.

 

[Chocu1a]

So what's the ROM to use for a Verizon Nexus if I don't want all the extra crap? I just want a stock like 4.0.4 ROM that's stable. I don't need all the extra crap a lot of these ROMs add in.

I use redemption rom. It is a pretty no frill aosp . There are a couple of pure aosp roms out there.Check out rootwiki.

Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2

 

[Bateluer]

1 Sale a Day has the GSM Galaxy Nexus for 430 right now under Wireless.

 

[dguy6789]

Something I have wondered. The Galaxy Nexus runs a TI Omap 4460 processor which is rated for 1.5Ghz at 1.2Ghz. Does anyone know if it's using a lower voltage at 1.2 than 1.2Ghz Omap 4430 phones?

 

[novasatori]

still waiting for the sprint version... rumored the 22nd, going to finally be getting it when it comes

 

[runawayprisoner]

Something I have wondered. The Galaxy Nexus runs a TI Omap 4460 processor which is rated for 1.5Ghz at 1.2Ghz. Does anyone know if it's using a lower voltage at 1.2 than 1.2Ghz Omap 4430 phones?

Nope. Seems the same to me.

You can unlock the bootloader and flash new kernels that unlock the 1.5GHz speed, which... doesn't really do anything to the overall performance of the phone from what I can see. The difference is so minimal that I wonder if it's there at all.

---------------------------

That said, having lived with a G Nex for several days, and trying to use it alongside my iPhone 4, I think I can sum it up in a few sentences:

1) iOS 5 is smoother than ICS, or iPhone 4 is smoother than G Nex. That's 4.0.4 running Franco's kernel milestone 2, which as far as I know is the latest of its breed already.

2) ICS is more convenient than iOS 5. Unlock once and all of my toggles are there. Quick tasks are done quicker on ICS. No contest. If "Smoked by Windows Phone" was still around, I would smoke them in ALL of the challenges. Tasker is highly critical here.

3) iPhone 4 with cellular network on has 3 - 4x better battery life than G Nex with only WIFI on, and the difference is still 2.5 - 3x with the extended battery pack on the G Nex. I have done every tweak possible that XDA suggested, and also tested undervolting. There is just no way around this. Seems more like an OS issue than radio issue (since there is no 4G/LTE sim in my G Nex). Well, at least now you won't have to blame 4G for bad battery life. I firmly believe some software updates may fix this, though, since I've noticed different ROMs give different battery life (worst case had the G Nex drain 30 - 40% in 1 hour just browsing the web)

4) Flash on G Nex runs a hell of a lot smoother than I expected. In fact, I don't think Flash affected the performance of the browser at all. It may drain battery life, but hell, now I have full desktop browsing (save for Hulu) in my pocket at acceptable performance, so I wouldn't mind losing battery. It's not even a "phone" to me right now anyway. I'm a Flash developer myself, so this is a huge plus. iPhone 4 doesn't support Flash, and I think you can draw the conclusion.

5) I have a ton of apps and games on my iPhone 4, I have... a ton of widgets on my G Nex right now. Lack of G Nex apps is quite... perplexing. Random things like storing Wikipedia database offline is still done in a manner that's not quite as elegant as I would like. Sure, it cost money on the iPhone 4, but... it works, and I can accomplish at least something. Also, some widgets on G Nex look like hell. It was fun blaming the devs last year, though, but it's getting old, and obviously the OS itself still has minor flaws (see above), so... I'm placing the blame on this one on Google as well.

6) I have learned to test my apps on the G Nex wirelessly over WIFI, so I don't have to plug the device into my MacBook anymore. Mighty neat stuff! I still have to plug my phone into Xcode to see debug information, and I haven't found any solution to do it wirelessly. Also iPhone development is a bunch of crazy certificate management. Not really all fun and games.

7) iPhone 4 screen looks sharper than the pentile SAMOLED screen on the G Nex. iPhone 4 has imminently more natural and accurate colors than the G Nex (note: my G Nex also has a yellow tint, but I'm not basing my assessment on just that). At low brightness, SAMOLED on G Nex exhibits annoying visible artifacts that look like someone slotted in a crumpled piece of paper underneath a transparent display. Calibrating the display helped at slightly higher brightness settings, but at the minimum brightness settings for night reading, the G Nex is nigh unbearable with a white background. Sadly, most websites I visit have white backgrounds (like this one). Conclusion: white is bad on G Nex, black is bad on iPhone 4, but not as bad as white on G Nex. BUT (big but) as far as auto brightness go, I'd rate ICS at 11/10 and iOS 5 at -1/10. It is THAT bad. I can only slightly tolerate it by jailbreaking the phone and installing a tweak that allows me to constantly adjust the brightness slider manually. Other than that, I would NEVER use an iPhone without that jailbreak tweak.

8) Camera of iPhone 4 takes more grainy photos that don't lack details. Camera of G Nex takes smoother photos with a bit of details lost but... I prefer G Nex's photos. Neither phone holds a candle to the 4S, either way, and I would use the iPhone 4 more because it's more convenient to pull out of the pocket. G Nex's larger size puts it at a disadvantage here.

9) More a jab at Samsung than at Google: the charger brick and USB cable definitely took design cues from Apple.

10) Overall, I'd say... I prefer iPhone 4 as a phone with more advanced functionality, and G Nex as more of a miniature limited computer terminal. Both are fun to play with, and I can't believe I'm saying this... but... I finally understand why Joshua Topolsky of The Verge carry both a G Nex and an iPhone 4S at any random time. That's exactly what I'm gonna do, and I won't miss out on anything of either side.

And that's it.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

10) Overall, I'd say... I prefer iPhone 4 as a phone with more advanced functionality, and G Nex as more of a miniature limited computer terminal.

I think that's a good way of describing the difference between Android and iOS in a single sentence. I'd argue that Android could be just as good as being a phone as iOS but it clearly attempts to be as close to a pc in functionality as it reasonably can while iOS does not.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I think both are equally viable as far as phone functionality goes, but iOS has an edge because it lasts longer on battery. I would use the iPhone 4 as a phone more just because of that one reason, otherwise, I think I can make do with either since as a phone, it only has to make calls, send and receive texts.

In the ideal world, I would love to see the two converge, where Android inherits the optimizations, UI polish and consistency of iOS, plus the huge app library, and iOS inherits the versatility of Android.

As they are, I think they are on equal footing, with iOS a bit ahead in the mobile game just because... mobile needs battery and ICS is still not quite there in terms of power management yet. But I must say... it's hard to go back to stock iOS after using ICS, rooted or not. The only reasons I would root my G Nex is for the screen calibration functionality and to use adbwireless. But other than that, there isn't much of a reason for me to go outside the bounds of what was already offered with the phone, which is in stark contrast to what comes outside of the box with an iPhone.

To be fair, it might be that as an advanced user (and developer), I tend to like the amount of control I gain with Android, but... well, it's my personal opinions that matter more to me after all, so in my case, I think I tend to prefer one over the other for different things, and in general, ICS over stock iOS. It takes a jailbroken iOS to match ICS to me, and I think that still understates what Google has done to the OS. Kudos to them for this one.

Edit: some nagging stuffs that I would like to see addressed (because they are so silly):

1) Play Youtube or Flash in the background. It's silly that Android doesn't do this while iOS does it. I can play back Youtube in the background either with Safari or the stock Youtube app. Same goes for other things that iOS support (aside from Flash)

2) Even with 1GB of RAM, the G Nex closes apps in the background like crazy. I have tested this behavior extensively, and some ROMs are just worse than the others. While the iPhone 4 can at least keep 1 or 2 websites open in Safari after playing a game, ICS will close almost any random app down as soon as the home button is pushed, and the stock browser struggles to keep even 2 tabs open concurrently.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I think both are equally viable as far as phone functionality goes, but iOS has an edge because it lasts longer on battery. I would use the iPhone 4 as a phone more just because of that one reason, otherwise, I think I can make do with either since as a phone, it only has to make calls, send and receive texts.

In the ideal world, I would love to see the two converge, where Android inherits the optimizations, UI polish and consistency of iOS, plus the huge app library, and iOS inherits the versatility of Android.

As they are, I think they are on equal footing, with iOS a bit ahead in the mobile game just because... mobile needs battery and ICS is still not quite there in terms of power management yet. But I must say... it's hard to go back to stock iOS after using ICS, rooted or not. The only reasons I would root my G Nex is for the screen calibration functionality and to use adbwireless. But other than that, there isn't much of a reason for me to go outside the bounds of what was already offered with the phone, which is in stark contrast to what comes outside of the box with an iPhone.

To be fair, it might be that as an advanced user (and developer), I tend to like the amount of control I gain with Android, but... well, it's my personal opinions that matter more to me after all, so in my case, I think I tend to prefer one over the other for different things, and in general, ICS over stock iOS. It takes a jailbroken iOS to match ICS to me, and I think that still understates what Google has done to the OS. Kudos to them for this one.

Edit: some nagging stuffs that I would like to see addressed (because they are so silly):

1) Play Youtube or Flash in the background. It's silly that Android doesn't do this while iOS does it. I can play back Youtube in the background either with Safari or the stock Youtube app. Same goes for other things that iOS support (aside from Flash)

2) Even with 1GB of RAM, the G Nex closes apps in the background like crazy. I have tested this behavior extensively, and some ROMs are just worse than the others. While the iPhone 4 can at least keep 1 or 2 websites open in Safari after playing a game, ICS will close almost any random app down as soon as the home button is pushed, and the stock browser struggles to keep even 2 tabs open concurrently.

Closing apps that frequently is odd, my galaxy S2 can keep multiple apps and a absurd number of browser windows open, when I first moved to it from my Captivate I would often end up with 10+ windows open in the browser since I was used to the Captivate closing them on it's own.

I suspect that the rom developers might be doing that deliberately, a lot of people seem to prefer minimal resource usage even at the expense of multitasking.

 

[Bateluer]

1) Play Youtube or Flash in the background. It's silly that Android doesn't do this while iOS does it. I can play back Youtube in the background either with Safari or the stock Youtube app. Same goes for other things that iOS support (aside from Flash)

Wait . . . what do you mean? Why would you want to play a YouTube video in the background . . . you wouldn't be able to see it.

2) Even with 1GB of RAM, the G Nex closes apps in the background like crazy. I have tested this behavior extensively, and some ROMs are just worse than the others. While the iPhone 4 can at least keep 1 or 2 websites open in Safari after playing a game, ICS will close almost any random app down as soon as the home button is pushed, and the stock browser struggles to keep even 2 tabs open concurrently.

Funny, I was about to say the opposite. The Chrome browser keeps every tab open unless I either A)reboot, and B)Manually close them. Stupid thing has had more than a dozen tabs open before.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Wait . . . what do you mean? Why would you want to play a YouTube video in the background . . . you wouldn't be able to see it.



Funny, I was about to say the opposite. The Chrome browser keeps every tab open unless I either A)reboot, and B)Manually close them. Stupid thing has had more than a dozen tabs open before.

For music in the car, in the gym etc. Its annoying when I turn my screen off youtube stops.

I think I might give Windows 8 a shot with my next phone if unlockable tethering is around. As much as I love my android, there are some huge glaring issues such as battery life and UI lag.

 

[WelshBloke]

For music in the car, in the gym etc. Its annoying when I turn my screen off youtube stops.

.. .

Why don't you use a proper audio streaming app?
You'll get better quality audio and better battery life.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Why don't you use a proper audio streaming app?
You'll get better quality audio and better battery life.

Its for those random songs that I recently heard and I want to hear. Normally I have everything already on google music or on my phone.

Its something where spotify is good for but Im not going to pay $10 a month for that.

 

[WelshBloke]

Its for those random songs that I recently heard and I want to hear. Normally I have everything already on google music or on my phone.

Its something where spotify is good for but Im not going to pay $10 a month for that.

Just sounds quite a hassle to queue up music on youtube when you're driving or working out.
Why don't you use a youtube downloader?

 

[Bateluer]

For music in the car, in the gym etc. Its annoying when I turn my screen off youtube stops.

YouTube is for video, its supposed to stop playing if you turn the screen off. Download the audio from YouTube or use a actual music streaming app.

Oh, we're not half way through April and the only Nexus left on 4.0.2 is the Verizon spin. Next time they strike a deal to get a Nexus on carriers, it needs to come inked with Google providing the software updates without the carrier spending a month picking their nose looking at it.

Ars has an article on AT&T's vetting process, and they basically ignore all point releases submitted by manufacturers. Even if its a crucial security patch or bug fix.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Wait . . . what do you mean? Why would you want to play a YouTube video in the background . . . you wouldn't be able to see it.

Sometimes there is a video review or something that I would like to listen to while I'm doing other things... like driving the car for instance. It's arbitrary, but since I can do it on iOS, I was expecting the same functionality out of... at least the Youtube app.

Funny, I was about to say the opposite. The Chrome browser keeps every tab open unless I either A)reboot, and B)Manually close them. Stupid thing has had more than a dozen tabs open before.

True, but Chrome browser doesn't have Flash support. That's the biggest drawback to me. Worse yet, many websites also refuse to serve anything but Flash to Android, so I don't get a nice h.264 MP4 container in Chrome.

If I have to deal with a browser with no Flash support, then I would rather choose Mobile Safari, which pans and zooms around any random website a lot smoother and more responsive than anything I can find on the G Nex, and it also has those h.264 containers on websites that support it.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Ars has an article on AT&T's vetting process, and they basically ignore all point releases submitted by manufacturers. Even if its a crucial security patch or bug fix.

Link?

They did put out a 2.3.6 update for the SGS2 i777 however the only thing it really accomplished was ruining the phones battery life. It's kind of funny how the US carriers spend months on "testing" yet consistently push out broken releases than are significantly lower quality than the ones international devices get.

 

[trmiv]

YouTube is for video, its supposed to stop playing if you turn the screen off. Download the audio from YouTube or use a actual music streaming app.

Oh, we're not half way through April and the only Nexus left on 4.0.2 is the Verizon spin. Next time they strike a deal to get a Nexus on carriers, it needs to come inked with Google providing the software updates without the carrier spending a month picking their nose looking at it.

Ars has an article on AT&T's vetting process, and they basically ignore all point releases submitted by manufacturers. Even if its a crucial security patch or bug fix.

Seems crazy we're still waiting for an update for a supposed developer phone. I wanted the Galaxy Nexus so I could remain stock and still get timely updates, but doesn't look like that's the case. I really didn't want to play the rom game like I did with my Droid 1, but I'm headed that way. I'll wait until early May and see what Verizon does, then I'll go ahead and rom it.