Faster and better for web despite minor flaws

Dubai Samsung's Galaxy Nexus has the honour of being the first device to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) available on the market.

On top of that, the specs include a Super Amoled HD screen, dual-core Cortex-A9 1.2GHz processor and NFC support, to name a few and backed up by 1GB of RAM.

One of the distinguishable features is its curved-screen design, adopted from its predecessor — Samsung/Google Nexus S.

The volume rocker is on the left side of the device. On the right side, you will find the power/lock key.

The 4.65-inch screen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 does not sport any of the capacitive buttons expected on the Android devices, but are instead displayed on the actual screen. These new buttons are visible when needed, but can fold away when doing something like watching a movie, which gives you more screen real-estate and gives 16:9 aspect ratio.

The applications menu has been split in to two areas — applications and widgets. Considering the new focus on fitting multiple widgets on one page in ICS I think this was a wise move.

Web browser

The web browser is very fast. Pages load incredibly fast. Tap to zoom works well as does pinching to enlarge or shrink pages. Text reflows well.

The keyboard was fast and very responsive, but lacks on-board Swype support. Contacts are synchronised with Google in the cloud.

One neat element is that when you get a call, you now have a button that you drag onto the relevant option — so you drag it on to ‘answer', ‘ignore' or SMS caller.

The real change you'll notice is with Gmail. The ICS comes with a new look Gmail experience.You swipe left and right to move between messages and there is a multitude of settings for you to customise the experience to your heart's content.

The voice dictation option gave poor results, not like Apple's Siri. It looks nice — the actual design of the app is spot on. But it just can't cope well. Maybe it learns gradually.

If there is one element bound to divide opinion, it's the camera, which clocks in at 5MP.

If you take a photo in bright daylight and stand still, it's fine. But in low light or snapping a moving subject, you'll be disappointed. There is a lot of colour and light oversaturation.

Camera

The camera takes photos unbelievably fast. You tap the capture button on screen and before you can remove your finger, the photo is taken and saved. There is also an inbuilt panoramic mode, but don't do it in a hurry.

The device has to stitch the photos together and it took almost 20 seconds to do this.

Video is captured in 1080p Full HD and looks fantastic on screen. It's not amazing when transferred back to a computer.

Unfortunately, there is no FM radio bundled on the Nexus.

In our battery test, the Nexus performed rather average. The 1,750mAh battery lasted only 31 hours of combined usage. It gives just above eight hours of talk time and six hours of video playback time.

It is priced at Dh2,449.

Pros

• Facial unlock is a fun feature
• Contacts integration is excellent
• Gmail app is better than before
• Keyboard and internet fantastic
• Future-proofed with NFC

Cons

• Voice dictation is a step behind Siri
• No FM radio or microSD card slot
• Battery life needs to be improved
• Limited apps
• 5MP camera