#askmodaco - Galaxy Nexus

[Guest Karucifer]

It's been a while since we did one of these, but considering the interest levels in the Galaxy Nexus we thought it was time to revive the 'ask' posts :lol:

So, I've received my Galaxy Nexus and Paul will have his shortly, we're going to update this topic with initial impressions, photos and anything else we thing might be of interest.

If you've any questions, leave them in the comments and we'll answer them as/when we're able.

All we ask is that it's not something we've already covered, check our article from the launch here.

I'll also be tweeting stuff here and Paul here, tagged #askmodaco - if you're not a registered user feel free to send questions via twitter and the best will be included in this post.

Questions and answers, photos and everything else will be posted after the break :D

Q. Where can I buy one?

A. We've confirmed that most O2 and Phones4U have stock today, but only a limited quantity. Most Phones4U stores only got 2 phones today and the simfree price was increased to £629(!) as most of the launch day stock was sold simfree rather than contract. O2 are offering the phones both on contract (prices vary) and prepaid (£529). There has been an update on pricing at Phones 4U here.

Q. Is the Battery removable? Which capacity is it?

A. 1750mAh, yes it's removable, so potentially upgradable.

Q. How are the softkeys working out? Do they take away too much of the screen?

A. The virtual buttons are basically where the old softkeys were, so you get more screen not less when not in use.

Q. Does it support arabic?

A. Yes (pic)

Q. Does the Galaxy Nexus have an micro sd slot?

A. No, unfortunately not. There is a 32GB variant if you need more than 16GB, personally I'm using Google Music for a lot of my media so I didn't hit the 16GB ceiling of my Galaxy S II and never used the 32GB micro-sd I installed.

Q. Does the higher resolution offer any more screen real-estate?

A. The launcher is still a 4x4 affair, but if you were to use a third party launcher you could comfortably fit more with this size screen and resolution.

Q. How is the PenTile screen

A. No complaints at all so far, it's crisp, bright and very sharp. The one screen-related thing we're seeing is that the auto brightness is a tad over-enthusiastic.

Q. Any radio issues?

A. I've not been able to death-grip the phone as yet, I've tried several different ways.

Q. Does the O2 PAYG phone come sim-locked to O2.

A. Yes

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[Guest mavrik64]

How well does it handle phone calls?

e.g clarity & reliability (does it crash after 10 mins on the same call)

Saw one in P4U just now and looks lovely.

MAv

[Guest pascanu]

Can the camera record in background?

Here's the idea: while navigating with your phone, with the phone mounted on the wind-shield, the camera could record a video in time lapse mode. So if you are involved in some incident you could have proof of what exactly happened. Eh?!

[Guest Zarch1972]

Screen - Any concerns with all this pentile stuff doing the rounds? Any chance of some of those real those up text shots?

Battery - A tough one to give answers on without a few days use, but obviously a big concern how it lasts.

Camera - Reviews suggest not a world beater, but is it still pretty good? Could you post some examples?

Notification LED - Nice?

Size - Saw a mock up of it in P4U the other day.....seemed very big... as you have the SG2, how does it compare?

[Guest Rocky7]

Can I have it?

[Guest matiuos44]

Say if I put CM9 (or any ICS ROM) on the Galaxy Note, what does the Nexus have over the Note?for someonewho doesn't mind a 5.3 inch what other benefits of having the Nexus over thw Note?

[Guest djfoo000]

Can you confirm if there isn't radio issues (wifi or phone) when held in landscape, both hands in contact with the respective left and right edges of the phone?

[Guest craigacgomez]

Is the any part of the body something like many Samsung phone... Plastic & prone to fine scratches? How does the phone feel in the hand... Natural or a bit obtrusive?

[Guest SilentMobius]

In the tethering options does the NS have an option for bluetooth tethering? Honeycomb added support for bwing on the client side of a bluetooth PAN connection, I'm hoping that the GN can be the router side. If you're rooted does call recording work? finally does the GN provide POWERED usb host support, that is if you plug a USB thumb drive into a usb-a-female to microusb cable and into the NS does it light up and after that does it mount?

Edited November 18, 2011 by SilentMobius

[Guest elroy944]

does the galaxy nexus have an micro sd slot?

[Guest Graeme Faulkner]

Does the new resolution have mode screen real estate over a nexus s running ICS? or is it just a higher pixel density with the same icon spacing etc?

From the pictures i have seen it looks no different but i was kinda hoping it would be so i can justify upgrading from my galaxy s2.

[Guest mamoulian]

Does anyone know if the O2 PAYG one is SIM/network locked to O2?

[Guest yellathcir]

I've been trying to find out what will replace long pressing the search button to activate voice actions now that they are doing away with the search key. I know that there is a google search widget other home screen but is there a way to get to voice actions with one press from anywhere on the phone?

[Guest CoolCheese]

+1 on settling the pentile issue and clarifying if any extra real estate is offered by the bump in resolution.

[Guest pascanu]

Is Flash working in browser? I'm reading a disturbing review that says it's not!

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-nexus-1039209/review?artc_pg=5

[Guest GriZlore]

Is Flash working in browser? I'm reading a disturbing review that says it's not!

http://www.techradar...eview?artc_pg=5

Adobe Flash and BBC iPlayer isn't compatible, according to the market. I guess this is the apps, and not the device.

[Guest djfoo000]

With regards to the lack of USB Mass Storage in the Galaxy Nexus: http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/11/18/impromptu-qa-session-with-android-engineer-dan-morrill-brings-to-light-reasons-behind-galaxy-nexus-lack-of-usb-mass-storage/

How is this going to affect the way I use the phone?

- Does 'connecting to the phone via USB then drag and drop files' still work?

- Does it mean that when i use a custom recovery and perform a full wipe, all my media files will be gone as well?

[Guest thla]

With regards to the lack of USB Mass Storage in the Galaxy Nexus: http://www.androidpo...b-mass-storage/

How is this going to affect the way I use the phone?

- Does 'connecting to the phone via USB then drag and drop files' still work?

- Does it mean that when i use a custom recovery and perform a full wipe, all my media files will be gone as well?

For the first question, provided that your OS supports it, it'll show up as portable media player of sorts in your system (Vista and later supports it natively, XP needs WMP 10 or higher and Linux/Mac needs some special software), and you'll still access it like it was any other drive.

As for the second question, i think they have something similar for the Asus Eee Pad, there the CWM recovery does not backup nor wipe your media when it is selected, not sure if the same can be done for this device, but i assume it's just a matter of excluding some partitions/folders from the scripts.

[Guest GrandAnse]

Does it support swedish?

[Guest pascanu]

Looks like Flash is indeed absent: http://www.slashgear.com/google-confirms-no-flash-for-ice-cream-sandwich-for-the-time-being-19196702/

I really don't understand how nobody noticed / mentioned this. And please don't tell me it's no big deal, it is, and since Adobe announced they are dropping development for Flash on ALL mobile devices I wonder if there will ever be a Flash player plugin for ICS...

[Guest thla]

Does it support swedish?

If the previous versions of Android did, then yes.

[Guest Karucifer]

@pascanu - I'm not sure I agree there, Flash has never been a big deal for me, I didn't miss it when it was absent and when it has arrived on devices I've typically removed it or used Easy Freezy to prevent it from being invoked.

Adobe entered the mobile space to protect their interests and it has never been a particularly good fit. Something that even they now admit to be the case, seeing HTML5 as a more suitable long-term solution.

So, in short, we noticed it but don't really feel its loss :lol:

[Guest thla]

@pascanu - I'm not sure I agree there, Flash has never been a big deal for me, I didn't miss it when it was absent and when it has arrived on devices I've typically removed it or used Easy Freezy to prevent it from being invoked.

Adobe entered the mobile space to protect their interests and it has never been a particularly good fit. Something that even they now admit to be the case, seeing HTML5 as a more suitable long-term solution.

So, in short, we noticed it but don't really feel its loss :lol:

How so? Everyone, including Adobe, knew it was a transitioning tool for HTML5, there's really noone who is denying that projects like Flash and Silverlight will be deprecated "soon", it was a pre-mature kill for Adobe, but it was an eventuality noone was really denying, unfortunately Apple didn't want to play ball, and given that many mobile sites are already written with the iphone/ipad in mind, it doesn't really make sense to introduce fragmentation.

I still use it, some of the sites i used still haven't remotely done any great mobile site, let alone one with the full multimedia experience, so for me it's still very useful, HTML5 just isn't ready for primetime, and it's a shame that Apple are more concerned about trying to kill Android than provide their customers with the choice of an experience not limited by some mobile sites.

[Guest Karucifer]

The lack of flash has hardly harmed 'other' platforms, can you name one 'killer' feature on Android that couldn't have been achieved by other means? (or wasn't already being done in other ways for other platforms)

You would be surprised how many HTML5 sites you use every day :-)

[Guest thla]

The lack of flash has hardly harmed 'other' platforms, can you name one 'killer' feature on Android that couldn't have been achieved by other means? (or wasn't already being done in other ways for other platforms)

You would be surprised how many HTML5 sites you use every day :-)

That it could be achieved does not mean that it was achieved.

As i said, in my case, the sites i visit have poor video support on their mobile sites, if any at all, the best i've seen sofar is one where they link directly to the movie making it open in the video app, so in most cases i fall back to changing my user agent for the sole purpose of getting the flash content so i can get proper video support.

Which of course brings me back to the original point, Flash for mobiles was intended as a transitionary tool until HTML5 had properly taken over, and while it's probably mature enough to take over basic video content, it's just not happening here.