Nexus S quick experiences

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lchiu7

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#74204 27-Dec-2010 12:11

As I am in the US I popped into a Best Buys and tried out the Nexus S. It has a gorgeous screen, good cameras and nice touch to it. I only looked at it for about 15 minutes (the store was crazy) but liked it enough to buy one to possibly replace my Nexus 1. Gingerbread seems like it has a new nice features and the lack of a trackball didn't seem to be a hindrance since the editing functionality in Gingerbread is more like what you get with IOS4.

The lack of a memory card option isn't a major for me since 16G should be enough since I have lived within 8G okay with the N1.

I also like the size since I tried a number of HTC and Samsung phones while in BB and I find the larger screens just a bit too bulky for me.

You can read full reviews on other sights but so far it seems like a nice upgrade from the N1.

I have had problems with my N1 but am I am waiting for a replacement from HTC. If the replacement works fine and I know Gingerbread is coming to it, I might just sell the Nexus S when I get home. It's still in the case unopened and I don't expect to open it until I get home and I might not even do that if the replacement N1 works fine. (My N1 has had a problem with the camera imparting a pink tinge to all pictures and erratic touch).

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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#421845 27-Dec-2010 12:32

Look forward to your reviews on the nexus s!

Can I also put my hand up as first consideration if you do decide to sell the s?

Cheers

Steve

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lchiu7

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#421849 27-Dec-2010 13:00

Sure. At the moment I am happily using my N1 with Google Voice which is a nice combination. I was able to tell folks before I left what my US number would be and then just get the local T-Mobile SIM card and route the GV calls to it.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

kiwijunglist

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#421872 27-Dec-2010 15:55

yup im having a hard time deciding if i should buy a nexus s, worried about not enough free memory. I reckon i would need atleast 10gb for music, and i would like the ability to store the odd HD movie which would be around 8-15gb each.

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Neets

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#421883 27-Dec-2010 17:00

kiwijunglist: yup im having a hard time deciding if i should buy a nexus s, worried about not enough free memory. I reckon i would need atleast 10gb for music, and i would like the ability to store the odd HD movie which would be around 8-15gb each.

The non-existent external SD card is a draw back for me too. I really don't have much music and only 2 videos and I'm already over 8gb of my internal SD. I think R2D2 is buying one while he's over in the States. At least that's the impression I got.

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Neets

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#421884 27-Dec-2010 17:04

Damager: Look forward to your reviews on the nexus s!

Can I also put my hand up as first consideration if you do decide to sell the s?

Cheers

Steve

Hmmm, jumping ship already

Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900I

lchiu7

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#421905 27-Dec-2010 18:01

Neets:
kiwijunglist: yup im having a hard time deciding if i should buy a nexus s, worried about not enough free memory. I reckon i would need atleast 10gb for music, and i would like the ability to store the odd HD movie which would be around 8-15gb each.

The non-existent external SD card is a draw back for me too. I really don't have much music and only 2 videos and I'm already over 8gb of my internal SD. I think R2D2 is buying one while he's over in the States. At least that's the impression I got.

The non existent SD didn't bother me since I have never filled up the 8G card I have on my N1 but others may want to put their entire music collection on one and face problems.

The Nexus S can only be bought at Best Buys at the moment. They didn't have many left when I was there at one in Dublin, CA and there wasn't one on display - I had to ask for the store demo to play around with. But I got to use it for a bit so it wasn't a blind purchase as was the N1 when I got that. And I saved on shipping but not of course local sales tax.

Why would you store a 8-15G HD movie on it? With that size screen and no ability to play HD audio, you could probably compress a video down to about 1G and still have good quality.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

kiwijunglist

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#421911 27-Dec-2010 18:19

i've been in several situations where i want to watch a movie from my htpc at a friends house, but they have no htpc or divx player. nearly all my movie files are in 720p or 1080p format. You can use the phone to either stream movies to DLNA tv or via the video out cable. Also if I did want to watch a movie on the phone (eg. on an airplane flight), i might not want to waste time transcoding to a smaller file.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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lchiu7

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#421922 27-Dec-2010 18:54

While I sort of understand that, this would be a less common usage for a phone. If placed in this situation I would probably just take along my popcorn hour to view content.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

kiwijunglist

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#421924 27-Dec-2010 18:58

my htpc is silverstone lc16-m it's HUGE!!, and it would take me 15min to reach around the back of the cabinet and replug everything in.

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Damager

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#421939 27-Dec-2010 19:36

Neets:
Damager: Look forward to your reviews on the nexus s!

Can I also put my hand up as first consideration if you do decide to sell the s?

Cheers

Steve

Hmmm, jumping ship already

Shhh not yet Neets, I'll still be Galaxy S a while yet

lchiu7

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#421949 27-Dec-2010 20:11

kiwijunglist: my htpc is silverstone lc16-m it's HUGE!!, and it would take me 15min to reach around the back of the cabinet and replug everything in.

My popcorn hour weighs only 800gm and is easily removed. The alternative is to take a light weight laptop and store the content on that and just transfer the file to the phone for viewing while removing other content from the phone and storing it on the laptop.

I would not make that a major decision factor for me to choose a phone.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

kiwijunglist

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#421954 27-Dec-2010 20:27

for me being limited to 16gb is a major consideration, as i mentioned also only being able to have a small proportion of my music collection on the phone. it's so hard to choose between Galaxy S, Nexus S & HTC Desire HD.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

lchiu7

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#422413 29-Dec-2010 16:04

Well I got N1 replaced and the new unit seems to have none of the faults my other one had. This means little or no pink tinge on photos, faster wireless access and improved GPS reception.

But no new battery or new back since NTC only send you the phone without a battery or the battery cover.

So it's likely that I won't be using the Nexus S though I might hit Best Buys again to play with it a bit more rather than opening the one I purchased before making a final decision.

As an side when I put my SIM and SD card in the new N1 and reconnected to Google, while most of the apps downloaded again for some reason I lost all contacts which is strange and I had to go back to my old phone and export to a vcf file and import them. I thought I had all my contacts backed up on my Gmail account. Furthermore many appliations I run lost all their data which I guess is stored on the phone memory rather than the SD cards. I did try using Backup Everything but that didn't backup data. I am not sure if something like MyBackup (or Pro) would work. That was annoying.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Neets

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#422430 29-Dec-2010 18:29

lchiu7: Well I got N1 replaced and the new unit seems to have none of the faults my other one had. This means little or no pink tinge on photos, faster wireless access and improved GPS reception.

But no new battery or new back since NTC only send you the phone without a battery or the battery cover.

So it's likely that I won't be using the Nexus S though I might hit Best Buys again to play with it a bit more rather than opening the one I purchased before making a final decision.

As an side when I put my SIM and SD card in the new N1 and reconnected to Google, while most of the apps downloaded again for some reason I lost all contacts which is strange and I had to go back to my old phone and export to a vcf file and import them. I thought I had all my contacts backed up on my Gmail account. Furthermore many appliations I run lost all their data which I guess is stored on the phone memory rather than the SD cards. I did try using Backup Everything but that didn't backup data. I am not sure if something like MyBackup (or Pro) would work. That was annoying.

I use Titanium Backup (free on the market). And if you "donate" then you can restore in one hit rather accepting each application one by one to restore.

Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900I

lchiu7

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#422459 29-Dec-2010 20:06

Seems to require root so wont work for me. Any other suggestions?

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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