[hugh]

Google announced today that it will be launching the Nexus S smartphone later this month and will be the first device to ship with Gingerbread, the latest version of Google's Android operating system.

Features include: a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, a 4 inch Super AMOLED 480×800 touchscreen, front and rear facing cameras, gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS, proximity sensor, haptic feedback, light sensor, Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity and 16 GB of internal flash memory. The Nexus S can also function as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to six portable devices such as laptops or tablets.

The Nexus S will be available in the United States after December 16th. The unlocked version will sell for $529 USD unlocked or for $199 USD with a two-year T-Mobile USA contract.

 

[TorontoColin]

As a T-Mobile 3G (aka AWS) device this phone will work with Wind, Mobilicity, and Videotron at the moment in Canada, or Rogers/Fido/chatr on 2G.

Canadian availability has not yet been announced, but don't expect any of those three to pick it up any time soon. It may come to BestBuy Canada, or you might have to get it from the US. As will be sold unlocked for 530USD it should be fairly easy to walk into a BestBuy USA store and pick one up.

 

[Danster]

Holy cow! Smartphones are turning out to be nothing more than a swiss army knife type of phone. That phone just about has all what you need for gadgetry a la James Bond!!

Q couldn't even come up with that many gadgets under one item.

 

[eimaj]

Looks to me like they dropped the ball on this one. They could have had the first dual core phone out there, but all it is is a Galaxy S phone with gingerbread, which is great, but no big deal really. How is this phone going to be any better than the Nexus One with 2.3? Or any other 1ghz phone with 2.3 in the next little while? And with the list growing of soon to be released dual core phones with 2.3, this phone is soon to be outdated. But that is the price of technology...

 

[hugh]

I'm not sure you can bring out a smartphone that is revolutionary anymore.

Benefits: Can be purchased unlocked; supports Gingerbread; much faster than Nexus One.

I'm not sure why you would say it will soon be outdated. It seems to me that it will be the state of the art for the next year or two.

 

[recneps77]

Hardware-wise, NS has an NFC chip and front-facing camera, N1/GalaxyS do not.
It also adds another sensor, I believe there's no gyroscope in N1/GS

Other than that, it's pretty much just a slight modification of those, with gingerbread.

Though I just read this
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/07/visa-clears-devicefidelity-s-in2pay-mobile-payment-microsd-card/
which would make the NFC point irrelevant, as you can just buy a microSD with that capability..

Personally, I'm happy with my N1.. won't be ditching it any time soon.

 

[TorontoColin]

They could have had the first dual core phone out there, but all it is is a Galaxy S phone with gingerbread, which is great, but no big deal really.

You're assuming dual-core phones are ready for mass consumption, which isn't necessarily the case. Adding a dual-core processor may have delayed it by months.

As for the Nexus S vs the Nexus One, it's better in the same ways the other Galaxy S are better than the Nexus One. Bigger and better screen, faster processor, etc, but without the older version of Android, GPS issues, and touchwiz UI.

Besides, who says they wanted to stray too far from the Nexus One? I think this clearly isn't being sold to Nexus One users, it's being sold to people who have never used an Android phone or who are frustrated with something like an Xperia X10 that's constantly out of date.

Being on the bleeding edge of technology also carries risks too. Using unproven hardware with your Google experience phone risks having major problems that damage your brand. You also risk upsetting your partners who are playing catch-up and will have trouble competing. What Google is doing is making the Nexus S the top of the software chain and letting the manufacturers continue to fight over the top of the hardware chain. And there's also the fact that if you're going to sell them unlocked they need to be a reasonable price.

Personally, as a Nexus One user, if I needed to replace my phone now I'd get a Nexus S. Using my Nexus One I've never felt jealous of the new hardware coming out since because I know I'll still get software first and straight from Google, which is more important for me.

 

[eimaj]

Benefits: Can be purchased unlocked; supports Gingerbread; much faster than Nexus One.

I'm not sure why you would say it will soon be outdated. It seems to me that it will be the state of the art for the next year or two.

State of the art for the next 2 years is very optimistic, even at 1 year (6 months even?) that is a stretch the way this market is moving forward. Look at the N1 for example. It hasn't even been out a year and it has been caught and surpassed by many phones already, if not a few months ago.

Dual core and 1.2+ ghz single core (if not released already in the world market, http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_2_global-3636.php) are just around the corner, with many of them with 2.3 installed or getting it very soon.

I agree with you being able to buy it unlocked is a plus, but for an extra $10-20 you can buy any phone and get it unlocked.

The only benefit will be that you should be able to get updates as soon as possible which would be nice. It just seems they rushed it out in order to get the xmas rush of new phone buyer/upgraders. I was hoping for a greater phone, not a galaxy s.

...Adding a dual-core processor may have delayed it by months.

As for the Nexus S vs the Nexus One, it's better in the same ways the other Galaxy S are better than the Nexus One. Bigger and better screen, faster processor, etc, but without the older version of Android, GPS issues, and touchwiz UI.

I'm finding bigger is not necessarily better. Even going from my 3.7" milestone screen to my brothers 4" vibrant screen I have troubles doing certain operations with one hand, like touching the top of the screen with my thumb if I'm doing something else with my other hand. As for better, doesn't the N1 have an amoled screen as well?

I have also found that I like the tighter (and more) resolution of my phone and even the iphone 4 over the larger and lesser res of the galaxy line. I can see pixelation on my brothers phone with its 384000 pixels over 4" vs. the 410000 pixels at 3.7". The black levels are fantastic, but I also noticed it has a blue push making everything a little to bluish, especially whites and green. Maybe this is being done due to what I read about the blue in oled screens deteriorating faster than the other colours, so maybe it will fall into line eventually. Yes this is nitpicking a bit, but a higher res screen on this phone would have been great.

Also, we don't know about the gps yet as there is yet to be any extensive testing, and being that this phone seems to be just another version of the galaxy s line I hope they got the glitches figured out.

 

[TorontoColin]

I thought the Nexus One was AMOLED and the Galaxy S was SAMOLED (thus the Galaxy 'S') but I could be totally wrong about that.

Here's what I take out of this. The Nexus S, when launched, will arguably be the most powerful on the market (maybe the G2/Desire Z and Desire HD). It is unlikely that we'll see any dual-core phones until at least mid-January, so that means it'll be tops for at least a month, and probably longer in Canada. By the time those dual-core phones are launched with Gingerbread, everyone will be pining for Honeycomb, which will likely be unveiled at CES2011. When Honeycomb is released, which phone do you think will get it while all the others wait months?

As a Nexus One owner, I can tell you that there will always be something better around the corner. By the time I had my Nexus One, which was days after they started shipping to Canada, I was already hearing about the EVO 4G, Galaxy S, and iPhone 4. As soon as dual-core phones are out we'll start hearing about better speeds and quad-cores around the corner.

The key to me though is this: what advantages will dual-core bring? Maybe nominal speed improvements? Who knows what it will do to battery life. But all my apps run fine on my Nexus One. Clearly, future versions of Android will run fine on the Nexus S, as it's the dev phone. It already plays HD video, and I don't see myself playing high-end 3D games on it. I'm not really sure what capability dual-cores will make available that has them so highly anticipated. Certainly I doubt it will top the improvements I got when I updated from Eclair to FroYo.

But what I do know is that if you had offered me a Galaxy S or a (fictional) Milestone X, or a Desire HD straight up for my Nexus One the answer would be no. Having FroYo first was easily worth the reduced speeds and smaller screen, and it will almost certainly be the second phone with Gingerbread. I think you can feel pretty safe that the Nexus S will continue to get updates (and quickly) for at least two years. Meanwhile, Galaxy S owners aren't sure if they'll ever get Gingerbread.

I understand being annoyed at the lack of an indicator LED or a microSD slot, but personally I don't care about dual-core until someone shows me the enhanced functionality they'll bring.

 

[hugh]

As a Nexus One owner, I can tell you that there will always be something better around the corner.

Exactly.

The vast majority of cellphone users hang onto their phones for at least 2 to 3 years. By definition then any recent smartphone will be state of the art for several years.

I consider my iPhone 3GS to be state of the art despite the fact that its an incredible 17 months old and was announced almost 20 months ago!

 

[coolin]

I wonder if they will do the same thing as with the Nexus One and eventually release a version that will work on 3G AT&T/Rogers. I snap this up in a heartbeat if it wasn't 3G on Wind/Mobilicity.

I am waiting for my Rogers contract to expire. With the pace of change in mobile world, unlocked and contract free seem to be the best options if one wants to keep up with the latest and greatest.

 

[eimaj]

"The key to me though is this: what advantages will dual-core bring? Maybe nominal speed improvements? Who knows what it will do to battery life."

Dual core will make the phone run faster and more efficient, as well as from what I have researched, will not decrease battery life but possibly increase it as they are using smaller, more energy efficient tech. It will also help with 1080p video recording, better games, better everything pretty much.

 

[BGY11]

I'll believe the battery life claims when I see actual devices running longer. So far it seems each smartphone I get is lasting shorter and shorter between charges, so I think my skepticism is justified. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (iPhone 4 lasts longer than the 3GS), but aside from that, it's hard to find modern smartphones that last longer than their older siblings.

As for apps and games that will take advantage of multi-core processing/GPU advancements, it will take far more than one Android device for developers to respond. Given that we still have yet to see much that can truly show off the Galaxy S' GPU rendering performance (aside from something like the Neocore benchmark), it seems developers would rather scale things back so that more devices can support their apps. Eventually more dual-core handsets will be released, and at that point developers will have a viable reason to optimize their apps for them.

Given how the Android platform is often criticized for being too fragmented, I think Google took the right approach to releasing the Nexus S as it is.

 

[TKG26]

its a good thing the developers are holding back... Nothing more annoying that going to the app store and now having to meet OS and "hardware" requirements..

 

[taxtwit]

As a T-Mobile 3G (aka AWS) device this phone will work with Wind, Mobilicity, and Videotron at the moment in Canada, or Rogers/Fido/chatr on 2G.

I wonder if they will do the same thing as with the Nexus One and eventually release a version that will work on 3G AT&T/Rogers. I snap this up in a heartbeat if it wasn't 3G on Wind/Mobilicity.

Are you sure it won't work on Rogers/Fido/Chatr @ 3G? The specs are as follows:

Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700
HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps)

Don't the quad-band GSM frequencies mean it will work @ 3G on Rogers?

 

[Veee]

Don't the quad-band GSM frequencies mean it will work @ 3G on Rogers?

No. GSM is 2G