Google Nexus S review

We thought Google wasn't going to release any more handsets under its own brand? Well, it seems Google tricked us by saying there would be no Nexus Two, but then launching the Nexus S.

The letter S, presumably to copy the iPhone 3G 'S' that stood for Speed, is also used by Samsung on the Galaxy S – the company that makes this phone for Google.

The Nexus S is really nothing more than an update of the Galaxy S, but by becoming the next Google phone, it has been given the privilege of being the first to come with Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread.

There was a time when everyone assumed this would be Android 3 (which will come in early 2011 as Honeycomb) and expected major changes.

In reality, the changes are fairly minimal and it's not clear that a simple software revision is enough to get us all excited over a new phone – especially considering 2.3 can and will be rolled out to other phones, both new and existing in the coming months.

The only major hardware change is the inclusion of a NFC (Near Field Communications) reader, a 3-axis gyroscope for better control of future games, plus a LED flash for the 5-megapixel camera. The casing is still plastic, and despite its high price (£550 SIM-free? You must be joking!) it isn't in the same class as the iPhone for build-quality.

The screen is the same 4-inch Super AM-OLED display from the Galaxy S, but this time the front is curved slightly inwards to give Samsung the ability to create a new name for it; 'Contour Display'. This is an obvious attempt to take on 'Retina Display', yet the iPhone 4 has the higher pixel density and better colour reproduction.

The Nexus S screen is still excellent, and when turned up to full brightness, looks stunning – especially with the solid blacks only achievable with OLED display technology.

For some reason, Samsung has allowed the auto brightness control to turn the screen brightness down far too low. Samsung claims the phone greatly reduces glare, and so can be used with a dimmer screen, but you'll probably opt to control the brightness manually to get the best experience.

With the huge 1,500mAh (removable) battery inside, and a series of power management improvements on 2.3, there doesn't seem to be any good reason for turning down the brightness so much.

Another downside of turning down the brightness is that the colours, in particular white, become slightly green in appearance. But, despite this, the screen is still stunning and the viewing angle amazing - you can tilt and twist the phone any which way and you'll still see everything clearly (as will anyone next to you when you're using it out and about!).

The Nexus S is fast too. If you ever needed proof that you shouldn't merely look at high numbers as being a measure of quality, this is it.

Although on paper, the Nexus S runs at the same 1GHz speed as many other smartphones, the 'Hummingbird' processor outperforms models using Qualcomm's Snapdragon CPU primarily because of the inclusion of an improved graphics co-processor. This doesn't just improve video playback, 3D gaming or running Adobe Flash, but also improves every aspect of using the phone.

Some of the speed could be down to the latest version of the OS, and it will be interesting to see how other models, such as the HTC Desire HD or the Galaxy S, benefit from Gingerbread if they get an update in the new year.

As it stands, the phone simply doesn't lag at all (I'll ignore badly coded apps that you might download that would mess up any device). As you open up menus and swap apps, or fire up the on-screen keyboard, everything is every bit as slick as you'd expect from a device sporting an Apple logo.

Although there are still a few inconsistencies from one app to the next (partly due to Google being in the process of updating some core apps, such as Google Mail, Maps and Android Market), the user interface is still getting better all the time. On the Nexus S, the notification bar at the top of the screen is now black, with grey and green icons that are more subtle than before.

However, this isn't really much more than a theme. A new effect has been added when scrolling up and down through lists, making it clearer when you've reached the end, but all of these things will filter down to other models in due course.

The virtual keyboard has been improved to make it easier to enter secondary characters (such as holding down q to enter 1, or holding full stop for a comma), as well offering multi-touch support so you can now hold shift while entering characters, just like an ordinary keyboard. You can of course add any third-party keyboard you might prefer, but as a stock Android device, none of them come installed from the beginning.

Not having loads of preinstalled apps you neither want or need is another big advantage of having a Google device, along with no network operator branding and customisation to bog things down. For installing apps, there's 1GB of internal memory, plus 16GB of 'external' memory. What you don't get is any means to expand the storage space, as the external memory is not removable and Google has negated to include a memory card slot.

Google has also introduced a new camera interface, which does away with a separate menu for settings such as geolocation, focus mode and flash. It also brings support for secondary cameras (the Nexus S has a front-facing VGA camera for video calling) and simplifies video recording too.

The 5-megapixel sensor benefits from getting a flash, but it still takes noisy and, frankly, disappointing photos. What's more, it only records video at 720x480 pixels – some way off the HD video you'd now expect, especially given the hardware specs. Google doesn't appear that bothered about the imaging aspect of the phone, as clearly demonstrated by the lack of a camera button on the side.

Having mentioned video calling, it should be pointed out that the phone doesn't support 3G video calling, but Android 2.3 does now have native support for VoIP services and the camera can be used with third party apps that can make use of the front facing camera.

And what of NFC? I've left this to the end, even though it's currently unique in the Android world. Well, there's a good reason. I'm really not convinced we're ready to go out and start pressing our phone next to NFC enabled posters and 'smart' tags to get information.

We may have embraced smartcards for public transport, and some people are dabbling with payments using their contactless payment cards, but there's little reason to buy this phone on the basis that a few companies might start using tags to save you manually typing in a URL in order to go to a promotional website or YouTube video.

Of course, there's no harm in having it and we'll probably see many phones in 2011 with NFC reader, but until you can actually use the phone to travel, or buy things in shops, this will be nothing more than a gimmick. If you can think of the last time you scanned a QR Code, you'll know exactly what I mean.

So, is the Nexus S the best phone on the market today? Well, in terms of hardware, yes it is – but only just. The HTC Desire HD has an even bigger screen, with brighter and more vivid colours, plus all the benefits of HTC Sense. HTC hasn't confirmed it will get 2.3, but if it does then there will be a lot less reason to look upon the Nexus S so favourably.

The Nexus S will be favoured by people who want to take the phone and make it their own, perhaps by adding a new homescreen launcher, a snazzier web browser and a more powerful messaging app, but if you leave it as it is, it lacks the excitement as HTC's Sense UI, or even the Samsung TouchWiz front-end that comes on the Galaxy S.

But, in terms of future proofing, and taking into account the blistering performance, we must acknowledge that it's the best Android phone out there today, even if its time at the top of the table may be short lived when a load of new models are announced in the coming months.

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