Nokia Lumia 800 review

You might hear it said that Nokia is on a knife-edge, and that this old king of mobiles will live or die based on the success of its latest flagship phone. We love melodrama as much as the next guy, but such talk is overplaying it. Sure, the great manufacturer has its troubles, and yes, the Lumia 800 bears a heavy burden of responsibility on its 3.7-inch shoulders. However, now that Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop has set his company on a new path, there will no doubt be a slew of new products -- both hardware and software -- over the next few years. In fact, the Lumia 800 was probably rushed to market, having been designed and built within the space of six months and intended as a placeholder for greater things to come. Nokia simply grabbed the overall design of its orphaned N9 handset, threw it together with Windows Phone Mango and then whatever the Finnish is for baddaboom, baddabing. So, does the Lumia feel rushed? Or is this the first stirring of something special? Read on and we'll tell you what we think.

Nokia Lumia 800 review

Hardware

Elop has gone on record claiming that the Lumia 800 is a "refinement" of the N9. That's not a good use of English and we can't let it slide, because every hardware difference between the two devices leaves the Lumia 800 worse off. There's no globetrotting pentaband 3G, which means no AWS support for T-Mo USA's network. The front-facing camera and notification LED have evaporated. The screen is slightly smaller due to the intrusion of the Windows Phone buttons. There's only 512MB of RAM instead of 1GB. Onboard storage maxes out at 16GB rather than 64GB with the N9. NFC is also inexplicably lacking, so the phone can't pair up with Nokia accessories and it probably won't be able to keep up future innovations that Nokia says its working on for Windows Phone 8 (aka Apollo).

On the other hand, many of the best features of the N9 have made it through. The machined polycarbonate shell radiates precisely the same industrial style, while simultaneously giggling in the face of scratches. The convex Gorilla Glass screen flaunts some of the best workmanship we've ever seen on a mobile device and it fits so perfectly that barely a speck of dust can get caught in its frame. The proximity and light sensors are neatly hidden behind the glass, leaving the front face of the phone almost entirely undisturbed, except for the earpiece, Nokia logo and Windows Phone symbols.

The left side of the device is a blank expanse, while the volume rocker, power / lock button and camera button are all on the right side -- and they're made of metal, not plastic. There's a neatly drilled speaker grill on the bottom, which also houses the mic. On top we find the 3.5mm jack and next to it a flap for the MicroUSB port, which you push on one side to open. Only when the flap is open can you slide and pop the micro SIM slot.

It's hard to contemplate the overall beauty of this device without getting emotional, and we already blubbered enough in our N9 review. Nevertheless, this design is not without its failings, and some of those make us want to cry too. Most importantly, the plastic flap over the microUSB port is too fragile. We managed to bend it trying to close it will the drawer was still slightly open -- and we didn't jam on it hard, mind you. Exactly the same thing happened with our N9, so it's no freak accident. If you buy this device, please be careful -- the flap is replaceable, luckily, but we envisage a long queue for spares.

The absence of a notification LED is annoying. The N9 had a faint 'always on' clock and notification area on the screen, but that's gone here. Aside from the fact that you have to switch the device on to see any notifications, there's another drawback: if the device is totally discharged, it doesn't even have enough energy to tell you whether it's charging when you plug it in. At that point it's pure guesswork as to when or if your device will be ready to use again.

We had a couple of random power-related incidents. The phone once died suddenly in the middle of a call and flashed the battery warning, but then it switched itself back on and revealed that the battery was still at 52 percent. On another occasion, the phone initially refused to charge with an official Nokia micro-USB charger -- albeit not the one that came in the package. Both issues were short-lived, but we're keeping an eye on the behavior of our review sample and will update if anything new arises.

One more thing: the sharp corners and relatively thick 12.1mm (0.48-inch) profile might not suit everyone's pocket. If we look at HTC's rival Windows Phone, the Titan, it has rounded corners and a mere 9.9mm waistline, so it manages to pack a 4.7-inch display without feeling much chunkier than the Lumia 800. As we said in our full review, the aluminum also has extremely high build quality, albeit with a completely different design.

Performance and battery life

The Lumia 800 packs a Qualcomm MSM8255 single-core processor -- exactly the same System-on-Chip that powers the Titan, except that Nokia has decided to clock the Lumia slightly slower at 1.4GHz instead of 1.5GHz. Does this make a difference? Not really. In everyday use, we sometimes experienced minor lags when opening up Nokia Drive or Nokia Music, and occasional judders when using a processor-intensive app like Local Scout, but the Titan was no better.

We don't expect to see any Lumia-owning geeks on the performance leaderboards.

Surprisingly, though, the benchmarks gave the Titan a clearer lead than we might have predicted. WPBench gave the Lumia 800 an overall score of around 86, versus the Titan's 96. Part of this difference was in proportion to the slower CPU clock speed, but a bigger cause of the disparity was actually the Lumia 800's tardiness in shifting large chunks of data between its memory and storage. Likewise, the Sun Spider Javascript benchmark gave the Lumia 800 a score of 7200ms for surfing on the Web Kit browser, versus 6,500ms for the Titan. Overall, we don't think there's anything to be too concerned about here, but we don't expect to see any Lumia-owning geeks on the performance leaderboards.

The battery is only 1450mAh, compared to the Titan's 1750mAh behemoth. However, the Lumia's smaller and more power efficient display cancels out this disparity and the two phones end up being roughly on a par. With heavy use, with a fair amount of photography, e-book reading and so on, the 800 will probably die by late evening. With more normal use, involving calls, push email and a bit of music, it could stretch to a day and a half. In the WPBench battery test, the phone lasted two hours and 40 minutes -- against three hours from the Titan.

Nokia knows how to build phones, so reception and call quality were both reliably average when using the Vodafone network in and around London. There's no HSPA+, but the phone was quick to establish a 3G or HSDPA connection when available. Importantly though, the Lumia doesn't do internet tethering, whether by WiFi or cable, whereas the Titan does.

Display

Mango, say "hello" to AMOLED. The Lumia might not be the first to make this happy pairing, but it's a powerful union here nonetheless -- and if you've never used an AMOLED phone before, then you're in for a big treat.

The key selling point is that any black areas on the screen are completely black. Deep, true, outer space black. Nokia has its own name for this effect -- ClearBlack -- but it's really just the same end result as Samsung's Super AMOLED technology, which is not a bad thing.

In comparison, LCD panels are just a very dark grey. What's more, when you bump up the brightness on an LCD, you can take a hit on contrast, because that background grey gets steadily lighter. But with AMOLED, the blacks remain implacably perfect no matter how high you push the brightness -- producing a level of contrast on the Lumia 800 that can make your eyes throb if you deliberately mess with the settings while indoors.

In practice, AMOLED gives the Lumia's display much better outdoors performance. The brightness pierces through smudges and reflections on the glass, while also delivering powerful color saturation. We wouldn't want use it for reading e-books in direct sunlight -- we've got e-ink for that -- but the bold live tiles of Windows Phone seem tailor-made for the Lumia 800's display and we'd certainly choose it over LCD for everyday use in the fresh air.

The strange pixelation can be distracting.

Go indoors, however, and it's a different story. Nokia is an extremely savvy player when it comes to building smartphones to a price point. With the Lumia 800 it's opted to use the slightly cheaper PenTile type of AMOLED display. Some phone users take issue with this technology, because it lowers the sub-pixel count and can impact on color rendition due to the excess of green sub-pixels. In the case of the Lumia 800, the green tinge isn't awful, but the strange pixelation can be often be distracting, like a multicolored mesh or grid sitting on top of an otherwise high-res display.

Photos generally look fine, but fuzziness is clearly visible to the naked eye when it comes to text -- in particular, characters in a thin font seem to 'hum' slightly at their edges, which is a shame because such fonts are a big part of the Windows Phone aesthetic. The picture above shows a snapshot of a single word displayed on the Kindle app, shown on the Lumia 800's PenTile AMOLED, then the iPhone 4's Retina Display, and then the Titan's SLCD at the bottom. Ultimately, whether this is a cause for concern depends on your eye-sight and how you tend to use your phone. If you enjoy reading e-books on your phone, then it's worth trying the Lumia 800 in-store before you commit.

Camera

The eight megapixel camera on the Lumia 800 is exactly the same unit that we reviewed on the N9. It's been around for a while and it suffers from a few foibles, but the underlying hardware is top-notch. The Carl Zeiss Tessar lens opens to f/2.2, which is up there with the best camera phones on the market and makes for relatively good low-light performance. Coupled with the Windows Phone OS, which has a fast and easy-to-use stock camera app, as well as the AMOLED screen which is great for framing and viewing pics, this Nokia is a capable stills shooter.

There are two ways to take a picture: you can either press down halfway on the two-stage dedicated camera button to set exposure and focus and then press fully to snap, or you can simply tap the screen on whichever subject you like and it will make all the necessary adjustments and take the shot all in one go. We found ourselves using the latter method more often, simply because it's so blazingly fast.

A tap on the 'cog' button provides ready access to flash control and a dream-like array of manual options, including ISO, exposure compensation, metering mode, white balance, contrast, saturation, focus mode and resolution. What's more, you can save your settings so they don't get lost when you exit the camera or switch to another scene mode. The only thing missing is a setting for how much compression you want. However, the camera software generally preserves a good level of information, with file sizes mostly ranging from 1MB to 1.3MB, but occasionally reaching 2.2MB for a shot with lots of detail. The same goes for video: 720p files generally came in at around 80MB to 100MB per minute, which is far in excess of many rivals and also slightly better than the HTC Titan.

Of course, the Titan also has a f/2.2 lens, the same maximum resolution and the same underlying camera software, so we took the two phones out for a spin in the British Museum in order to get a more detailed comparison. Our verdict? It was a close contest, and ultimately we'd be content with either camera in our pocket -- but there are a few differences worth mentioning.

The Lumia 800's auto white balance often struggled with the varied lighting at the museum, which has artificially lit displays underneath big tinted windows in the ceiling. We had to manually set white balance on a couple of occasions, whereas our Titan generally seemed to pick the right compromise. Below is a highly zoomed-in section from the Lumia shot, which shows a pink cast. Below that is the equivalent from the Titan, which is more accurate. In a our sample video below, we moved the camera from very blue light to very warm light and it actually coped quite well. It's the more the subtle stuff it struggles with.

Our sample video also shows that the Lumia's autofocus was occasionally slow during recording. It wasn't always that bad, but it was certainly inconsistent. Exactly the same can be said of the Titan, though. Neither camera handles autofocus very well during video, unless your subject is inorganic with lots of straight edges. Any fast motion or panning also destroyed the quality of our 720p video, largely because the compression couldn't keep up -- VGA mode handled motion a lot better, but who wants to shoot in that? But again, the Titan also suffers from this, and in fact the Lumia's compression system copes marginally better. Overall, we need better bit-rates and better autofocus on smartphones before we stop carrying our little video camera around with us.

Returning to still images briefly, we also found that the Titan's were generally sharper and had slightly higher contrast by default. The antelope eye below is from the Lumia, whereas the sharper one below that is from the Titan. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the Titan's pics were better, and in any case the Lumia could easily be re-configured to deliver the same results. However, the Titan also has useful Panorama and Burst Shots modes, which are missing on the Lumia 800. Factoring in the white balance issue, we'd have to give the Titan's camera a slight edge in this contest -- but phones on other platforms, like the iPhone 4S, Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note have all-round superior cameras.

Software

There's a good chance that the Lumia 800 will be your first Windows Phone, so it's worth checking out the quick overview in the software video above. If you want the full low-down, then please peruse our in-depth Mango preview, as well as our review that was updated when the OS update was finalized.

If you'd prefer a very quick summary, then take it from us that this OS is fast, fluid and nice on the eyes. Its visual design is a boon not only for ease-of-use -- particularly for people with poor eyesight -- but also in terms of its sheer sassiness, which will be appreciated by anyone who wants to stand out from the iOS and Android crowds.

This OS is fast, fluid and nice on the eyes.

The navigation system rarely throws too many options at you, and often cuts out more advanced options altogether. In particular, we miss USB mass storage -- a feature we rely on with our Android phones. It's also a shame that you can can't display multiple Google calendars -- the OS will only display the primary calendar for any account, which is out of keeping with this otherwise very productivity-focused OS.

The WP keyboard, as always, gets a special mention for being extremely easy to use. It works great on the Lumia 800's screen, but we found ourselves making slightly more mistakes compared to the Titan, whose keys are easier to hit simply because they're bigger.

Although Windows Phone is still lacking many of the apps that have become popular on other platforms, including Spotify, Dropbox and countless others, it handles core functions rather well, such that you don't necessarily need extra apps in order to handle basic social networking, photography, maps, search, music recognition and purchasing, cloud storage, folder syncing, and other daily tasks. These functions aren't perfect -- advanced Tweeters may struggle with the limitations of the integrated software, for example, which requires you to use SkyDrive for hosting your pictures. However, the Marketplace is growing daily and will offer more dedicated apps over time -- after all, it has the full weight of Microsoft behind it.

Nokia is going way beyond the call of duty in providing its own apps, which already help to distinguish the Lumia 800 from the competition and will certainly become more of a selling point over time -- particularly when Nokia's Pulse social networking platform emerges from beta testing. In the meantime, Nokia's proprietary offering amounts to three key apps.

First and foremost, Nokia Drive turns your handset into a fully featured sat nav, based on the Navteq platform that covers 90 countries and also works with offline maps. Need to get from A to B in Mozambique? Then download the 15MB file and off you go. The coverage puts Google Maps and TomTom to shame. You get full voice instructions too.

Nokia Music adds to the stock player by giving you access to Mix Radio. This is a neat little radio player with eclectically titled categories (e.g., "Golden Era Hip-hop"), which let you narrow down your genre while still leaving it open enough for some unexpected tunes -- so long as you have WiFi access or a cheap cell data plan. The audio quality is on a par with the free version of Spotify, for example, so it won't satisfy audiophiles, but it's fine for listening on the go or plugging into a small dock.

Finally, Nokia also supplies an app discovery tool called App Highlights, which suggests essential apps like Kindle, eBay and AccuWeather as well as promoting others you might not be aware of. It also has a little gimmick where you shake your phone to be shown a surprise app -- completely pointless, but it emphasizes the underlying purpose, which is simply to encourage to savor the generally high-quality offerings cherry-picked from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Wrap-up

Nokia's Lumia 800 is a sophisticated and capable smartphone that melds its hardware beautifully with the Windows Phone OS. Whether it's the best phone for you right now depends on certain factors.

First, you need to establish whether you're a Windows Phone type of person. If you're thrilled by dual-core processors, extremely high-res screens, large camera sensors, customizable widgets, expandable storage, USB mass storage and other such features, then you'll be better off with Android or -- to a slightly lesser extent -- iOS, because that cutting-edge stuff is currently absent on Redmond's OS. On the other other hand, if you want to be part of a carefully crafted, simple and generally happy emerging ecosystem, then look no further.

The next question is whether you'd choose the Lumia 800 over another Windows Phone, such as the Titan. The Titan's camera is slightly better, but not enough to be a deciding factor. Conversely, the Lumia 800's design is arguably superior, but not massively so. Instead, it's the display that's the more important issue. If you want a bright and colorful screen for media and general use, and you're not too fussed about the PenTile pixel issue (which you ought to see for yourself before buying), then the Lumia 800's AMOLED display wins hands-down. However, if you prefer a bigger screen that does a better job of displaying text, then go with the Titan.

Some people will notice that Nokia is building a special relationship with Microsoft, to the point where the manufacturer is able to deliver more exclusive features in its phones and push for things to be added in later revisions. If you're a WP fan, then there might be an argument for committing to Nokia in order to benefit from all those good things to come. However, we think that's premature. Drive is a nice exclusive feature, but there's not much else yet. If anything, the Lumia 800's hardware risks being left behind as Nokia develops apps and platforms based on NFC, front-facing cameras and other (unknown) features that are likely being prepared for Windows 8 Apollo. The Nokia-Microsoft relationship will certainly become more important, but that's not enough to sway a purchasing decision today.

Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ review

Each year, several dozen smartphones land on our collective desks. They come in different shapes and sizes, boast different features and sell at different price points. We take each of them for a spin and review most of them, but only a handful really stand out. This is especially true with Android handsets, where incremental updates appear to be the modus operandi. Every now and then a device comes along that we really look forward to getting our hands on. Google's line of Nexus smartphones falls into this category, setting the new standard for Android each year.

In early 2010, the Nexus One became the yardstick for all future Android handsets and, later that year, the launch vehicle for FroYo. A year ago, the Nexus S introduced us to Gingerbread on the popular Galaxy S platform. Now, a few weeks after being unveiled with much fanfare, we're finally able to sink our teeth into Ice Cream Sandwich with the Galaxy Nexus, arguably the latest addition to Samsung's critically acclaimed Galaxy S II family. So, does this highly anticipated device live up to our expectations? Is the Galaxy Nexus the smartphone to beat? Most importantly, is Ice Cream Sandwich ready to take Android to the next level? In a word, yes. Read on for our full review.

Galaxy Nexus review

Hardware

There's absolutely no doubt that the Galaxy Nexus is a big phone. Sure, it's not Galaxy Note large, but it's a smidgen taller (and narrower) than the HTC Titan. As such it dwarfs its predecessor, the Nexus S. While this could be an issue for some folks, we didn't have any trouble fitting the handset in our pockets. Despite its size, the Galaxy Nexus manages to be quite thin (8.94mm / 0.35in) and light (135g / 4.76oz). As a result, it feels wonderful in hand. Design-wise, the Galaxy Nexus looks like what we imagine would happen if we stacked a Nexus S and a Galaxy S II and flattened them with a rolling pin. Last year's shiny black lacquer gives way to a satiny gunmetal gray finish that manages to be at once more refined and more understated. Build quality is typical Samsung -- the plastic construction is durable but looks and feels cheap for such a flagship device.

The Galaxy Nexus looks like what we imagine would happen if we stacked a Nexus S and a Galaxy S II and flattened them with a rolling pin.

In front, the Galaxy Nexus is almost identical to the Nexus S, with a sheet of "reinforced" curved glass hiding sensors and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera to the right of the earpiece. Notably absent are the familiar capacitive buttons, which have been replaced with three softkeys in Ice Cream Sandwich. There's also a notification light just below the display, something we'd like to see on all phones. The back blends the curves from the Nexus S with a textured battery cover and oval camera pod reminiscent of the Epic 4G Touch. While the battery door uses the same snap-on design as most Galaxy S II variants, we found it harder to snap shut. The camera pod is home to a five megapixel autofocus shooter and single LED flash. A microphone is cleverly hidden in the seam of the battery cover, above and to the right of the camera pod, and the speaker is located on the signature chin at the bottom of the device. Google and Samsung's logos are stenciled on the battery door.

All the controls and ports follow the exact same layout as on the Nexus S. You'll find the headphone jack, micro-USB connector and main microphone along the bottom edge of the handset, the volume rocker on the left side, the power / lock key up along the right side and nothing on the top edge. There's a series of three gold contacts below the power / lock button, presumably for an optional charging dock -- something that Nexus One owners will be familiar with. Under the battery cover, this unlocked HSPA+ version is home to a 1,750mAh NFC-enabled battery and a standard SIM slot nestled to the right of the camera pod. Sadly, there's no removable storage on the Galaxy Nexus.

With its clean and rather plain design, the Galaxy Nexus doesn't exactly stand out in a crowd (except, perhaps, for its size), but this all changes the instant you see the screen. The 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display (1280 x 720 pixels) is simply beyond par. Gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe this screen -- try amazing, jaw-dropping, mind-boggling. As we mentioned in our first impressions, fonts are crisp, colors are vibrant, blacks are deep and viewing angles are exceptional. Yes, the panel is similar to that of the Galaxy Note, which means it's PenTile, and yes, the HTC Rezound features a beautiful 4.3-inch 720p TFT display with a proper RGB matrix, but the writing's on the wall: Super AMOLED is brilliant, and it's only getting better.

Considering most Galaxy S II variants are powered by Samsung's in-house Exynos SoC, with some models using Qualcomm's Snapdragon S3 and NVIDIA's Tegra 2, we were surprised to discover that the Galaxy Nexus eschew all of these in favor of TI's OMAP 4460, a dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex A9 CPU with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU, paired here with 1GB of RAM. Our unlocked HSPA+ review unit boasts 16GB of built-in storage (the LTE version comes with 32GB). Unfortunately -- and unlike Gingerbread -- Ice Cream Sandwich only supports USB Mass Storage on removable media, leaving MTP and PTP as the only options to transfer content to / from the phone via USB.

In terms of radios, you'll find WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS / AGPS and NFC. Moreover, the Galaxy Nexus is the first Android device with a pentaband 21Mbps HSPA+ radio (that's 2100, 1700 / AWS, 1900, 900, and 850MHz bands), meaning it's compatible with both T-Mobile and AT&T's 3G / "4G" networks in the US. A quadband EDGE radio provides legacy support. Rounding up the spec list is the usual bevy of sensors -- accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, light and proximity -- along with a new kid of the block, known as a barometer. Speaking of sensors, we experienced problems with the auto-brightness setting, which would dim the screen too much in low light, while behaving normally in daylight. Hopefully, this will be fixed in a future software update.

Performance and battery life

The Galaxy Nexus is definitely one of the fastest Android handsets we've ever played with. Everything feels snappy, everything looks fluid -- Ice Cream Sandwich isn't just a new version of Google's mobile OS, it's what happens when Android hits the gym and becomes lean and mean. That being said, the Galaxy Note, with its dual-core 1.4GHz Exynos processor and optimized build of Samsung's TouchWiz 4.0 UI, still wins in terms of perceived speed. Getting the most performance from Android 4.0 requires a few tweaks. Not all the live wallpapers are fully optimized (for example, Phase Beam is, but Water isn't). Developers have to add a single line of code to their apps to take advantage of 2D hardware acceleration -- you're able to enable this as the default for all apps by checking "Force GPU rendering" in the Developer Options.

Ice Cream Sandwich is what happens when Android hits the gym and becomes lean and mean.

Looking at our benchmark results, it's clear the Galaxy Nexus is no slouch. We're not going to read too much into the Quadrant score, since we're not even sure the app works properly in Ice Cream Sandwich, but it's close to what we observed on the HTC Rezound. The results for most of the other tests match those from the Motorola Droid RAZR (similarly powered by TI's OMAP 4430 chip), except for Neocore, which would crash each time we tried running it. Most impressive is the Sunspider score, which is the lowest we've ever recorded on any phone. In fact, the entire web browser is blazingly fast -- gone is the signature lag that's familiar to anyone who's ever browsed the web on Android.

	Samsung Galaxy Nexus	Samsung Galaxy Note	Motorola Droid RAZR	HTC Rezound
Quadrant	2,032	3,998	2,798	2,347
Linpack Single-thread (MFLOPS)	42.85	64.30	50.0	52.0
Linpack Multi-thread (MFLOPS)	69.37	95.66	95.66	60.3
Nenamark 1 (fps)	53.03	56.67	50.34	53.5
Nenamark 2 (fps)	24.26	N/A	27.54	35.8
Neocore (fps)	Would not run	51.77	59.98	59.8
SunSpider 9.1 (ms)	1,985	2,902	2,140	2,961

We didn't experience any issues with network performance. Calls sounded loud and clear on both ends (thanks in part, no doubt, to the dual microphone setup), and data speeds on T-Mobile and AT&T matched our expectations for this type of radio, with results as high as 8Mbps down and 1.7Mbps up. Some European owners have documented erratic volume problems when connected to 900MHz GSM networks -- something we were unable to reproduce here in the US for lack of compatible bands -- but Google's already promised a fix. Audio quality is fine when listening to music. The Galaxy Nexus is able to drive a variety of headphones and earbuds without trouble, and the speaker is surprisingly decent.

Battery life is excellent. While we only managed to squeeze about five hours and 15 minutes from our battery rundown test (where we play a looped video starting from a full charge), it matches what we saw with the Droid RAZR, which features a similar battery and processor. Note that we switched video players since our usual app misbehaves in Ice Cream Sandwich. The 1,750mAh battery fared significantly better in our battery usage test (where we use the device normally until it shuts down), lasting an impressive 28 hours. Other than watching videos, it's unlikely most people will have to worry about running out of juice with the Galaxy Nexus.

Camera

We're just going to come right out and say it. The five megapixel autofocus camera on the Galaxy Nexus is underwhelming, and to be clear, we're not referring to the specs, but to the actual pictures. In the year since the introduction of the Nexus S, we've witnessed significant improvements in camera performance, first with Samsung's Galaxy S II, then with HTC's myTouch 4G Slide, and more recently, with Apple's iPhone 4S. Each of these handsets combines an eight megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with a fast wide-angle autofocus lens, and takes wonderful shots. It's not clear why Google passed on using Samsung's flagship camera module, but it's a real shame. While the Galaxy Nexus shooter is extremely fast and introduces plenty of new features, it provides little (if any) improvement in picture quality over the Nexus S.

Galaxy Nexus sample shots

While the Galaxy Nexus shooter is extremely fast, it provides little improvement in picture quality over the Nexus S.

The new camera app is incredibly quick and borrows a lot of functionality from existing third-party Android shooters, such as touch-to-focus, continuous autofocus, face tracking, zero shutter lag and panorama. It's easy to take several shots per second by repeatedly tapping the on-screen shutter key. Google clearly put a lot of effort into revamping the camera app. It's simple and intuitive, with three primary modes of operation -- video, stills, and panorama. Video recording now supports 1080p capture (720p using the front-facing sensor), real-time effects (think Photo Booth with face tracking) and time lapse (a feature we're particularly fond of). While there's no dedicated two-stage camera button, holding the on-screen shutter key locks focus and exposure, and releasing it snaps the picture. Sadly, the volume rocker doesn't double as a zoom control, but there's an on-screen slider.

Most of the time, it's possible to coax the Galaxy Nexus camera into taking reasonably nice shots. Color balance is quite good, but exposure is sometimes off due to the sensor's narrow dynamic range. We also noticed that bright images exhibit some haze. Pictures snapped in low light suffer from significant noise and loss of detail. The Galaxy Nexus captures 1080p video with mono audio (despite the dual microphone setup). While the frame rate maxes out at 24fps, the camera supports continuous autofocus. Ice Cream Sandwich features a comprehensive photo editor within the Gallery app (complete with Instagram-like filters) and a dedicated video editor called Movie Studio.

Software

Sure, the Galaxy Nexus is a beautiful and powerful piece of hardware, but that's only part of the story. More significantly, it's the launch device for Google's highly anticipated new version of Android -- Ice Cream Sandwich -- the company's most significant mobile OS update yet, with a laundry list of improvements. As such, we approached the new software with lofty expectations, and while we weren't disappointed, we were surprised by the extent of the changes, to the point where we found ourselves having to undo years of old Android habits.

There's a definite learning curve to Ice Cream Sandwich that's ultimately rewarded with a more attractive design and a more coherent user experience. Gingerbread's lime green-on-black color scheme gives way to a more subtle light blue-on-gray motif, and for the first time, we're getting a better sense for where Android is headed -- a clearer identity, which is fantastic news. That being said, we're not convinced that Android 4.0 will be more intuitive for first-time users -- it still feels geared towards people like us: the nerdy, tech-savvy, geeky and power-hungry set. Let's dive into the details.

Galaxy Nexus screenshots

With Ice Cream Sandwich we're getting a better sense for where Android is headed.

After turning the Nexus on for the first time, you're greeted with the familiar Android setup process. New accounts are invited to join Google+ and Google Wallet. There's also a slick tutorial that's sure to lower the learning curve for first-time users and seasoned aficionados alike -- something we initially skipped, but would have eased our transition to Ice Cream Sandwich. We were also pleased to see our settings restored and all of our apps downloaded and installed after logging into our Google account, something that never appears to work properly on the myriad Android devices we regularly get our hands on.

The first change you're likely to notice is the new lock screen, which shows the time and date using Android's lovely new font, Roboto, and displays album art and audio controls during music playback. Slide the padlock icon to the right and it unlocks the handset, slide it to the left and you're dropped into the camera app (a clear nod to HTC's Sense 3.0 UI). It's now possible to access notifications directly from the lock screen by pulling down the notification tray. Another interesting -- if perhaps somewhat gimmicky -- new feature is face unlock, which unlocks the Galaxy Nexus upon recognizing your face (or a picture of your face, as it turns out). Convenience and novelty are the name of the game here, not security.

More differences come to light when looking at the five home screens. As we already mentioned, the Nexus lacks hardware buttons, which have been replaced with three softkeys at the bottom of the screen -- back, home and recent apps. The latter lists recently accessed apps using thumbnails containing a snapshot of each app. Tapping on an app's thumbnail switches to it, and flicking apps to the side removes them from the list. Unlike a real task manager, there's no proper way of closing apps. Just like in Honeycomb, a virtual menu button (represented here by three vertically stacked dots) appears to the right of the main row of softkeys when running legacy apps. While this usually works, Facebook fails to display this virtual menu button for some reason, forcing us to live with the annoying default notification settings.

Ice Cream Sandwich includes additional persistent items across all five home screens -- the favorites tray just above the softkeys and the search bar just below the notification area. You're able to customize the favorites tray with four apps of your liking, two on either side of the app tray button -- something that's likely familiar to anyone who's used a third party launcher before. For better or for worse, the search bar now takes up a tiny sliver of real estate at the top of each home screen. Strangely, the search bar also lives on as an optional widget.

Speaking of which, the app tray now includes two tabs -- one for apps, and one for widgets, along with a button to access the Android Market. Gone is the ability to add widgets and shortcuts by long-pressing anywhere on the home screens, but just like in Honeycomb, many of the stock widgets are now resizable. The app tray no longer scrolls vertically, but consists of multiple pages that are accessed by swiping left or right -- complete with a nifty animation. A welcome feature is the ability to drag an app from the app tray on top of an existing app in the home screens to create app folders. While there's no way to create app folders within the app tray itself, it's now possible to uninstall apps without leaving the app tray.

The notification tray is more polished in Ice Cream Sandwich. It enables quick access to the settings menu (since there's no more hardware menu button) and allows the user to dismiss individual notifications by flicking them to the side. Audio controls have also been added to the notification tray, and only appear while listening to music. The settings menu also benefits from a welcome overhaul, with the controls grouped in three sections -- the oft-used wireless settings at the top, the device settings in the middle and the system settings at the bottom. Screenshots are now finally an integral part of Android -- just press the power / lock key and the volume down button simultaneously and observe the magic.

We're happy to report that Android 4.0 provides much improved text input and a consistent, system-wide clipboard. The keyboard is now significantly more accurate, with better word prediction and a spell checker that underlines mistyped words in red -- just touch any mistyped word to see a list of suggestions. Continuous voice input is now supported in any input field and displays spoken text in near-real-time. Long-pressing any text selects the current word, and brings up the selection carets along with a clipboard bar with buttons for select all, cut, copy and paste.

Google also fitted Ice Cream Sandwich with a comprehensive and intuitive set of tools to manage data usage. You're able to monitor total data usage and per-app data usage with separate counters for mobile networks and for WiFi. Better yet, it's possible to set a warning threshold as well as a hard limit beyond which the phone will stop using data over mobile networks altogether -- something sure to come in handy for anyone with one of those pesky tiered data plans. There's also a way to turn off background data for individual apps, forcing them to use WiFi instead.

Most of Android's core apps have been revamped as well, and feature a more intuitive layout. The Gmail app gains multiple text sizes, the calendar adds a neat pinch-to-zoom feature, and -- as we mentioned above -- the Web browser is much improved, especially in terms of performance. Expect a full-blown review of every intricate Ice Cream Sandwich detail in the days ahead.

Wrap-up

Let's not beat around the bush. The Galaxy Nexus is definitely the best Android phone available today -- it's possibly even the best phone available today, period. Sure, it's not perfect -- we're disappointed that the camera doesn't deliver the same wow factor as the rest of the handset. It's an alright shooter, but it's just no match for the state-of-the-art. There's also room for improvement in terms of build and materials quality. Still, there's no denying the satisfying look and feel, the stunning display, the impressive performance, the excellent battery life -- the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Ice Cream Sandwich is phenomenal -- it represents a giant leap forward for Android and brings a whole new level of style and substance to Google's mobile OS. Still, while the design is more refined and the user experience more polished, we're not sure it's intuitive enough for first-time users. At the core, it's clear that Android remains targeted squarely at tech-savvy, power-hungry folks like us. No matter -- the Galaxy Nexus is proof that we can have our Ice Cream Sandwich and eat it too.

Dana Wollman contributed to this report.