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After Seeing Other ICS Implementations, Are You Happy with the Gnex?

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daygo718

Member
Back in the old Gnex pre-launch mega thread, one of the topics that was debated (especially while we anxiously awaited release) was whether or not one should opt for the RAZR, Rezound, Galaxy S2 on another carrier, etc. because Google/Samsung/Verizon were taking too long to release the Gnex. Now that it is nearly April and there are barely any devices with ICS for sale, are you happy with your Gnex purchase or if you did not purchase do you have any regrets for not doing so?

In addition, the integration of ICS with Sense, Blur and TouchWiz makes ICS almost unrecognizable to stock. When I see pics or videos on what is coming out, whether it be a new device or an update to a current device, it makes me very happy that I chose to go with my Gnex. This is one of the main reasons I waited for the Gnex...a stock ICS experience in December '11, not waiting 6 months or more for a skinned version of ICS. Let's leave rooting phones and putting stock ICS out of this conversation. Just talking about stock phones out of the box that comes with ICS or current phones receiving the ICS update. I would be going crazy if I didn't purchase in December. There is nothing on the horizon that is appealing to me other than maybe the HTC One X or Galaxy S3 and who knows when those are coming out plus you have to deal with Sense/TouchWiz.
 
I bought the Nexus because its stock without any tweaking or overlays from manufacturers in hopes there will be less bugs. So far it has worked much better than other phones I have owned, even without the 4.0.5 updates.
 
I think it was a great buy for me. I had an HTC and man those custom skins really slow down android. Engadget showed what sence was going to do with ICS and it made me love my GNex even more. If these guys could just leave things alone then their phones could be much better. Like I said I am very glad I went with the GNex. Good luck to all those people that have HTC, Motorola, and samsung.
 
That and HTC CONTINUES to keep using capacitive buttons! That was the huge draw for me to the Nexus. At first I really missed the search button, but I was able to add it back with a custom ROM. And yeah, the new Sense looks terrible with ICS.
Now, I'm definitely curious to see what the S3 will look like and the leaked photos of the Droid Fighter look intriguing (but, until Moto unlocks their bootloaders, I'll never own another Moto phone).
 
I love ICS and I love it being unmodified. I like the size and feel of the phone. I hate the battery life and radios. When the next killer phone comes out I'm likely to jump ship to avoid those 2 problems.
 
I upgraded from the HTC-Thunderbolt.
At first I thought I would not root the Gnex since it already had vanilla ICS which is what I would want in a custom rom anyway. But after using it stock for just 2 days, I started missing all the custom settings and whatnot, so I rooted.
Rooted or unrooted, it's the best phone I've owned to date.

Sense was sluggish and ugly.
When are manufacturers going to figure out we buy Android phones because we like Android OS not because we like Sense or Touchwiz or whatever?
Android OS is awesome as is. These overlays don't improve anything.

What they need to do is produce phones with vanilla Android OS, and put Sense and Touchwiz on the market as downloadable launchers and let them compete with LauncherPro and GoLauncher and the like and see how they do. I'll bet very few people download them. But at least that way it would be optional, which would make everybody happy. If you love sense, you could still have it. But if you don't, you wouldn't have to resort to rooting to get rid of it. Just a thought.
 
RichSz said:
I love ICS and I love it being unmodified. I like the size and feel of the phone. I hate the battery life and radios.
Click to expand...
+1

Turn-by-turn voice nav. "out of the box" is a big plus also. My wife has an iphone and she's green with envy over that feature alone.
 
Rezound changed my perception on HTC quite positively from Evo, Tbolt. But Sensed ICS doesn't look anything like stock ICS and that's not my favorite. I think ICS is the first android that can stand alone enough without any UI skin.

Battery life of Gnex out of box is probably a little below average of 4G phones. But it's surely possible to tweak it to last all day easily without even rooting. Also updated ICS is going to improve it further by addressing android OS battery drain problem.
 
Yeah, loved my SGN, interface was very slick, usable, and cutting edge.

But the VZW version has issues, and at the 90 day mark I called VZW to complain. Supervisor almost immediately suggested that we swap for a RAZR MAXX. So my day to day phone was a RAZR MAXX, I just swapped sims into the SGN, and I told him to make it happen.

Replacement came on monday, it will either be a second line or sold to someone who loves a working phone. MY SGN is on it's way back to VZW as of today. It was a good relationship, it just didn't work out because she couldn't do some basic things that any phone should do.
 
I just love this phone. I hate that others are having problems, but mine is running great and I am just stock. Sure battery life is not great, and if that had been my biggest worry I would have bought the Razor Max. Which I understand those that do buy the Razor Max for that reason. Anyway, love the phone more every day and look forward to updates.
 
syntrix said:
Yeah, loved my SGN, interface was very slick, usable, and cutting edge.

But the VZW version has issues, and at the 90 day mark I called VZW to complain. Supervisor almost immediately suggested that we swap for a RAZR MAXX. So my day to day phone was a RAZR MAXX, I just swapped sims into the SGN, and I told him to make it happen.

Replacement came on monday, it will either be a second line or sold to someone who loves a working phone. MY SGN is on it's way back to VZW as of today. It was a good relationship, it just didn't work out because she couldn't do some basic things that any phone should do.
Click to expand...

Huh? Confused. Did u add a line to get the razr maax? Or did they offer to you to send in your nexus back to Verizon and than they sent u a razr maax as a replacement?
 
I had this phone since launch. So 3 months on Verizon.

It's a love hate relationship. I owned multiple android phones but they were all gsm phones. All had great reception.

But Samsung has an antenna issue with their CDMA phones.

My final straw was when I put my galaxy nexus sim into my new Verizon LTE iPad.

On my GN at home I get 2 bars CDMA. Not LTE at all. If I walk down the street LTE will light up one bar.

Now when I put it in the LTE iPad inside the home I got 3 bars of LTE. Wtf? My galaxy nexus can't pick up the LTE signal at home but the LTE iPad can? Than my buddy comes over with his razr and he's got 2 bars LTE inside my home.

It's gotta be a Samsung CDMA problem.
 
I bought the Nexus because of the screen and size.
ICS is was not a factor, faster, more frequently updates was thankfully not a factor. Not having a skin UI on it was not a factor.
I liked Blur on my DX and I liked Sense on my ex-gf's incredible.
 
aneftp said:
I had this phone since launch. So 3 months on Verizon.

It's a love hate relationship. I owned multiple android phones but they were all gsm phones. All had great reception.

But Samsung has an antenna issue with their CDMA phones.

My final straw was when I put my galaxy nexus sim into my new Verizon LTE iPad.

On my GN at home I get 2 bars CDMA. Not LTE at all. If I walk down the street LTE will light up one bar.

Now when I put it in the LTE iPad inside the home I got 3 bars of LTE. Wtf? My galaxy nexus can't pick up the LTE signal at home but the LTE iPad can? Than my buddy comes over with his razr and he's got 2 bars LTE inside my home.

It's gotta be a Samsung CDMA problem.
Click to expand...

That's a great theory, except that wouldn't be a CDMA problem at all. LTE and CDMA are two entirely different technologies.

But you are right in the sense that there are radio reception issues. Sort of odd though, I still manage to get LTE in my basement, when I barely even got 3G with my old phone.
 
I think it's somewhat true that Samsung has more issues with CDMA phones than GSM phones. Maybe that's because most major carriers in Asia, Europe are all GSM/HSPA based and samsung sells ton of phones for them. My work friend's SGSII on at&t gets pretty impressive reception inside our buildings. Motorola is probably opposite as they have strong tie with VZW, but their GSM phones oversea seem just so so.
 
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