Samsung Nexus S 4G Review

A few months ago, I transitioned into the smartphone world with the purchase of the Samsung Nexus S 4G Google phone from Sprint. Baffled by the concept of having the Internet at my fingertips everywhere I went, at first I thought that this phone could do no wrong. While I quickly realized that this wasn’t the case, the Samsung Nexus S 4G is nevertheless a sleek device with two cameras, a virtual keyboard, thousands of apps, e-reader capabilities, and many other interesting features. This review will discuss the pros and cons of these features, among others, and will also explain why this phone is an excellent choice for any current or future smartphone user. 

Attractive yet durable

Shiny, lightweight and smooth, the Samsung Nexus S 4G looks nice. The back of the phone is slightly curved, making it fit nicely in your hand. While it is a touch-screen smartphone and should probably not be thrown or treated it less-than-carefully, I have dropped mine multiple times on both tile and concrete from three to four feet above ground and it has survived without a scratch. In contrast, according to a test by iFixyouri, the iPhone 4 fails to respond to commands after being dropped only two times from about the same distance above ground. After another two drops, the screen shatters completely. Even though the Samsung Nexus S 4G doesn’t have the chemically-strengthened glass of the iPhone 4, it still seems to hold up better when roughhoused with!

Inexpensive 

Durability is not the only thing that the Samsung Nexus S 4G has on the iPhone. With a two-year contract with Sprint, the iPhone 4S rings up at a whopping $399.99, four times the price of purchasing the Samsung Nexus S 4G with a two-year contract. The initial cost of purchasing an iPhone is nothing compared to the special data plan that iPhones require. On all fronts, the cost of the Samsung Nexus S 4G is much less than the cost of the iPhone 4S.

Camera(s)

Having a “camera phone” meant pretty much nothing for a long time – who wants blurry photos that can’t be transferred off of the phone? The Samsung Nexus S 4G, however, does a lot more than those dinosaur camera phones did. With a 5-megapixel camera that faces both ways, the photo quality rivals that of some early model digital cameras. As the options for sharing photos include sending via email, text message, Facebook, Quick Response (QR) code, Bluetooth and Picasa, it is simple and quick to transfer photos from the phone to another location, making it unnecessary to carry a camera around everywhere. While it’s sometimes difficult to hold the phone steady while pressing the virtual shutter button, which can cause blurry photos, both cameras take high-quality photos, allowing for everything from self-portraits to Skype calls to landscape shots in the palm of your hand. As an avid do-it-yourself blogger, I find the Samsung Nexus S 4G’s camera to be especially useful for photographing my craft projects, as it allows me to upload photos to my blog in seconds.

Google App Market

My main reason for purchasing a smartphone was that I wanted to have access to an app called My Fitness Pal no matter where I was. At first, I thought that I had to have an iPhone in order to have access to this and many other fun apps. Because most cell phone carriers require special (more expensive) data plans for iPhone users, I thought I would have to pay upwards of $100 per month in order to get the apps I wanted. Thankfully, I was wrong. The Google App Market that comes pre-loaded on the Samsung Nexus S 4G has apps for every taste, and many of them are free. From Skype to Tetris to Words With Friends, the Google App Market has it all – and with a much smaller monthly price tag than the iPhone.

Virtual keyboard

The virtual keyboard feature of the Samsung Nexus S 4G allows the phone to have only two physical buttons protruding from its sides (power and volume), but it also makes navigation require much more focus than is necessary when using old-fashioned numeric or QWERTY keyboards. With no bumps like those that appear on physical numeric and QWERTY keyboards, the virtual numeric and QWERTY keyboards actually require the user to look at the screen as they type. This seemingly insignificant detail can be a huge burden as walking while texting (and paying attention to your surroundings) is no longer a simple task. Having spent the past two years using the Samsung Gravity 2 (on which I could type without even looking at the screen), I was disappointed to realize that using my fancy new smartphone also means complicating the simple task of text messaging and entering in phone numbers. That being said, it is a small burden that I am willing to bear.

e-Reader

The Samsung Nexus S 4G has fully-fledged e-Reader capabilities. Certain books are free for download, like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and others are available for purchase, like Moneyball ($8.61). After downloading a book, it can be read anytime and can be recovered online should it somehow be lost – an excellent feature for those who are less-than-careful with their phones. Pages can be turned with a simple swipe of the finger to the left on the screen, requiring little effort. It is not only possible to zoom in quite a bit if the text isn’t large enough, but there are also several text sizes to choose from in the first place, which makes the e-Reader more accessible. With a screen display good enough to be seen clearly in direct sunlight, there’s no need to lug around heavy books everywhere – the Samsung Nexus S 4G is perfect for reading on the go!

Accessibility

For those who either can’t or don’t like using the virtual keyboard, the Samsung Nexus S 4G provides its users with the option not to. With the simple touch of an icon on the home screen, users can say anything from “call Jeff” to “send text to Lizzie,” and will quickly accomplish what they were trying to do. The voice-recognition feature is excellent, rarely mistaking words or names for anything other than what they are. Even uncommon names are recognized if there is a phone contact by the same name. If you say “send text to Lizzie,” you will then be able to speak the message you wish to send, click “Send,” and be done. Useful for people who too often run into things when attempting to walk and text simultaneously, this feature is definitely an asset to this device.

Connecting to a computer

One of the great things about smartphones like the HTC EVO is that information can easily be transferred between the phone and a computer with either a USB cable or a micro SD card. The user must simply click on “Connect to PC” in the “Settings” menu in order to connect the devices. I discovered, however, that this information transfer is not as simple with the Samsung Nexus S 4G. While the charger doubles as a USB cable, even when the USB cable is connected to both the phone and a computer, it does not enable data to be transferred between the two. The seemingly only way to transfer data is to use Bluetooth, making the process longer and more complicated on this device than it is on other similar devices.

Battery Life

For someone who plans on actually using the awesome features of this phone on a regular basis, I recommend keeping a charger nearby at all times. In my experience, with little to no Internet usage and moderate talk-time, the phone’s battery lasts about 16 hours. Using the phone a bit more (a game of Tetris here and there, a Google search or two, a few phone calls), however, depletes the battery in just a few hours. Many other smartphones have better battery life, but keeping a charger on-hand is a simple fix to this minor issue with an excellent device.

Navigation

As a faithful dependent on both Google Maps and MapQuest Maps, my only complaint was that if I decided to make a stop somewhere that wasn’t on my route, the directions become pretty useless. When I purchased the Samsung Nexus S 4G, I unwittingly solved this problem in my life. The Samsung Nexus S 4G has a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) that works very well. The GPS both speaks and shows the upcoming turns so that a user can either listen to it while driving or have a passenger read the directions aloud, making it safe and easy to use, regardless of the situation.

Unpredictable

All of the cool apps and technology that the Samsung Nexus S 4G has to offer work extremely well – most of the time. On occasion, I’ve looked down at my phone only to realize that it is calling a random contact, without me having done anything to initiate the call. This has only happened when I left the screen on, but could potentially be embarrassing depending on who is being called. One other unpredictable aspect of the Samsung Nexus S 4G is that it will, on occasion, randomly redirect to the home screen when I am in the middle of a task. For business users, this redirection could prove to be extremely inconvenient, depending on what task is being performed when the redirection takes place. For the everyday personal user, however, this redirection is annoying but not detrimental. In the two months that I’ve owned the phone, it has randomly redirected only twice, about the same number of times that random contacts have been called – definitely not a make-or-break aspect.

Conclusion

The Samsung Nexus S 4G is inexpensive, durable and attractive. It has two high-quality cameras, a large selection of apps on the Google App Market and awesome e-Reader and voice-recognition capabilities. These features as well as the built-in GPS more than make up for the awful battery life, lack of ability to connect to a computer, difficult-to-use virtual keyboard and occasional unpredictability. The Samsung Nexus S 4G is an excellent choice for any current or future smartphone user.