Galaxy Nexus new in box, defects and all.

This is my first phone review/rant for Eat Sleep Android. I know that the G nexus has been out a little bit too long for a justifiable review, but I really feel like I need to put my 2 cents in. I recently switched to the Galaxy Nexus from the Motorola DROID RAZR. Right off the bat I love Ice Cream Sandwich. I CANNOT stress that enough, it is honestly the most intuitive, powerful mobile OS that I have ever used. That being said, I do have my grievances.

Let’s start with the basics here. A Galaxy phone is Samsung’s flagship phone. A Nexus phone is a pure google phone (no manufacture UI). So a Galaxy Nexus is a high-end pure Google phone made by Samsung. It was also the very first phone to run Android 4.0. It’s got a dual-core 1.2 Ghz cpu and a HD superAMOLED display, which makes it plenty capable of anything. Needless to say this is a premium smartphone with some decent power.

The display is really something to write home about. HD video from any source looks great when displayed on the 4.6″ screen. The touch sensitivity is damn near perfect; the camera (even though it’s only 5mp) is lag free and has more features than you can shake a stick at. The phone, being a Nexus, is pre-loaded only with Google apps. This is a wonderful thing for a Google junkie like myself. Overall the phone is beautiful, fast, and capable. As a said before, though, I have grievances.

Things Got Real Ugly

The phone constantly loses voice and data connection. It was very common for my phone to not have any internet connection. The wifi signal also leaves a whole lot to be desired. With all of these connection problems you can bet your rear end that the battery life was sub-par. I wanted to swap it out to get another, hopefully less defective, one. After some research on the issue I found out that a warranty replacement was useless, and often came with more problems since they are refurbished.These problems occurred constantly, and never really seemed to get any better. After some research I found out that these problems were a result of some sort of metering issue. Basically, the phone is getting service, but some poorly written software tells the phone that it isn’t getting service. Simple problem right? Wrong! Nothing is simple when you rely on Verizon to send you an OTA update. It made me hate my phone, and I’ve never used such strong words towards a phone.

Then Things Got Better

I decided that I was going to do something about all of this defectiveness. So I did some googling and stumbled across galaxynexusroot.com. They have a very easy to follow universal root guide, so if you are new to rooting fear not! Once I rooted, I threw Cyanogenmod 9 on and it instantly remedied all of my problems! If you own this device and would like it to go faster with better connections and battery life, you should do the same. The guys at Cyanogenmod are always working on making the software better, and the rooting guide could not be simplier. Click here to go to the universal rooting guide from GalaxyNexusRoot.com. Lastly, if you need any assistance, just ask in the comments and we’ll take real good care of you =D.

-ZJ