Galaxy Nexus (Verizon LTE) review

So this is a little later than i planned on doing this, but i felt like waiting til i've had it for a couple days before writing a review would be better. Now, i have rooted my phone and can change certain settings that i wish you could with stock, but for my review i'll base things off being just stock and no root (except for a comment about battery). Without further ado, here we go!

Hardware: There are certain parts of the hardware that i don't like. The back cover is super thin and feels pretty cheap.

I got the Otter Box Defender case as an early Christmas present. It definitely adds some bulk to the phone (and the phone is pretty big to begin with) but i feel like if i drop it now, it won't break into a million pieces.

There are only 2 physical "buttons" on the phone: power and the volume rocker. I don't really mind the absence of a dedicated camera button because i would accidentally hit it sometimes on my OG Droid. The headphone jack and microusb slot are on the bottom of the phone which is pretty nice. I always drop my phone into my pocket "top first" so this is nice for me to be able to plug headphones into the bottom of it. There is an NFC chip on the battery but i haven't tried doing anything with that yet so i can't comment on how well it works. The phone is lighter than my old OG Droid (which makes sense because it had a full keyboard slideout). It's also pretty thin which is good. It rests very nicely in your hand. The notification light is centered in the middle towards the bottom of the phone. It fades in and out of a white circle. It's pretty cool looking but i wish you could change the color of it for different notifications (email, missed call, text message, etc).

Display: With all the talk about it being a pentile screen, i thought it was going to be a let down. Thankfully it's not. The screen is gorgeous. It has an almost 180° viewing angle. It's not gorilla glass but the screen still feels very durable and like it can take some damage. It's pretty big too. I have to kinda stretch my thumb to get to the upper left corner sometimes. I defnitely like having all the screen space though and am more than happy to take that slight inconvenience. The screen is slightly curved and it makes talking on it feel pretty nice. Not much else to really say.

Performance: Android 4.0 (here on out referred to ICS {Ice Cream Sandwich}) is by far the best Android experience. From little touch ups here and there, and graphical changes everywhere, ICS is what you want to have. The font was designed specifically for ICS and i think it looks very clean. It's really easy to read and easy on the eyes. There is now a screenshot feature built into the OS which is just awesome. Apps are quick to load and the browser is very fast. I haven't noticed any kind of lagging or anything like that when i'm trying to run an app. The settings are grouped a lot better than on previous versions of Android also. The dropdown menu now has a feature where you swipe to the left or right to clear only certain notifications that you want to. This feature is also applied to the "previous applications" list and kills them when you swipe them away. 4G is amazing. Here's some speed tests (first one is by Best Buy, the second one is by Stevenson School):

Camera: Everybody has knocked the camera on this phone. I really don't think it's that terrible. There have been some pictures i've taken that appear "hazy" but it could have been user error. I don't know what all the hate is about. Here are a couple pictures i've taken (the last one is with the front facing camera).

 

 

 

Battery: I can get through the whole day without charging it, but that's with switching to wifi while at work and at home. You can switch to just 3G, but that's just silly to me. I guess if you wanted to conserve battery it's a good idea. Now since i am rooted i have installed SetCPU which is an over/underclocker for the processor. I have it clock down to 325MHZ when the screen is off and while talking. I also bumped the max down to only 920MHZ (stock is 1.2GHZ). I just don't really see the need to have it so high and it's only killing battery. Stock users probably have a different story than me is this case so maybe Sawsheezle can let us know what his typical experience with battery is.

Wrap Up: Overall this is a great phone. Best phone i've ever used. Only things i would change is a thicker back cover, maybe a bigger battery, and a slightly SLIGHTLY smaller screen. Even with the high price point of $300, i still give this phone a 4.5/5.