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Nexus One vs Samsung Galaxy S i9000 (aka Captivate, Vibrant, etc)

post #1 of 8
7/27/10 at 5:43am
Thread Starter 
I have gone from a Nexus One running Android 2.2 -> Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.1 and the latest JM2 firmware. Had the phone for about three days now, a few comments: 1. Android 2.2 is significantly faster and nicer than 2.1. Manufacturers need to get on 2.2 ASAP, it's a real disservice to customers to still be releasing old versions. Ahem Dell Streak. 2. The Galaxy S's internal memory is strangely slow, there has a hack available to rejig portions of the system into a faster external SD card but it's a hack and somewhat annoying to implement as well. Not nice. Hopefully this will be resolved in 2.2 3. The Galaxy S's screen is very nice. 4" is noticeably larger than 3.7" and the colours are richer. Resolution is the same on both screens so the Galaxy S's text will seem a tiny bit fuzzier as a result. 4. The Galaxy S's add-on bullshit is generally very annoying coming from a vanilla Android build. For instance, their calendar app is unnecessarily complicated and defaults to storing items on the phone's internal memory instead of to your GMail calendar. I have since hacked out the Samsung Calendar and replaced it with the vanilla Calendar. The Samsung launcher is not that great either, I have switched in ADW Launcher (a nice upgrade from vanilla Launcher). 5. The Galaxy S's touchscreen seems better than the Nexus One's. Hard to explain but it seems more accurate. I had a similar experience with the iPhone 3G vs the Nexus One, I had better accuracy with typing and touching icons on the iPhone 3G vs the Nexus One. 6. The Galaxy S's casing is very slippery and the buttons are a little awkwardly positioned. The rubberized Nexus One casing is far, far superior. Also, the lack of a trackball is a little annoying when you are trying to reposition your text cursor. 7. Battery life is about the same. 8. The Galaxy S's included media player plays xvids and mkvs straight out the box. And it plays them very, very well. 9. The Galaxy S's sound quality via 3.5mm jack is much, much better than the Nexus One. 10. The Galaxy S has no flash on its camera. Conclusion: I am still on the fence on whether I'm giving up my Nexus One. The casing of the phone is driving me nuts. I ended up putting duct tape on the back to give a little more friction. The larger screen is absolutely wonderful, even 3.7" seems small now. Plus the quality of the screen is outstanding and does well in sunlight. Samsung really need to get their shit together and release 2.2, though. There is a Pro version of this phone that has a sliding keyboard that I will probably consider when it comes out.
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post #2 of 8
7/27/10 at 6:29am
Good review. Thanks for that. Stick with the Nexus One. Give poor Slim some company. My take - I had a Vibrant for a week and returned it. Too laggy, no flash, cheap build design, power port on top (so if you want to charge it in the car while driving you've got to have the cord hanging down from your ear.), camera was only so-so, and the screen is still difficult to see in the sunlight (although much much better). Now the lag will be fixed through mods and rooting. The rest of the issues you're pretty much stuck with. It was a good first effort by Samsung but not enough. There's already specs for the Galaxy S successor floating around so if you can wait a bit you might be able to snag one of those. I think the Droid 2 is going to be where its at for the time being. That or one of the new Windows 7 phones in the fall.
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post #3 of 8
7/27/10 at 1:22pm
That thing looks damn good.
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post #4 of 8
7/28/10 at 11:40am
I've read quite some reviews comparing the HTC Desire (which is more or less identical to Nexus One), Samsung Galaxy S and iPhone4. According to the tests they're on par, so I'm not sure if jumping from Nexus One to Galaxy S isn't just a sidegrade instead of an upgrade.

I'm waiting for the HTC Desire successor until I decide if I go for the iPhone 4, the HTC or wait to see what next summer brings (and suffer with my HTC Touch Pro2 in the time being).
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post #5 of 8
7/28/10 at 8:42pm
Thread Starter 
^^

The specs appear similar but are subtly different. The 1ghz proc. in the Desire is a Snapdragon, it's something else in the Samsung (I believe the Hummingbird?) and it is faster. The Samsung can decode 720p video with no issues, AFAIK the Desire can't. Other than that, you probably won't perceive a performance difference. The screen has an extra .3 inches and has nicer colour and is more effective outdoors. The audio on the Samsung is much, much better. The Desire/Nexus One was pretty crap as a music player.

All pretty marginal improvements but I was itching for a larger screen because I spend so much time with my Kindle app. That and I guess I just had to waste some money like a big fool.

I just upgraded to beta firmware JP2 and responsiveness is finally approaching the Nexus One on Froyo. Pretty buggy for the time being though. I seriously hope Google keeps releasing "their own" devices because the Nexus One was a great piece of kit that just needed a hardware keyboard to be the best thing ever since ever. I was hoping there would be a Nexus Two :'(
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post #6 of 8
7/31/10 at 11:38am
I had the Vibrant on T-mob for about 2 weeks. Coming from a BB Curve I was a little disappointed in the quality of Android and T-mob's 3g service.
Android - there were two glaring problems for me 1) the stock email program couldn't parse a vBulletin link properly. It would divide up the link into smaller links. 2) no mark all as read 3) no spell check! you're using a touch screen, you're going to make spelling mistakes. This is crap you expect coming from a BB. 1 &2 can be fixed with K9 mail. 3 you're hosed. predictive text on the keyboard can help. I ended up replacing all the stock programs (ADW, Dolphin, K9, & Swype)

Tmob 3g service - I travel for work. I've been really darn satisfied with their EDGE service, so I figured the 3g service would be acceptable. It wasn't I was dropping calls left and right. May have been the phone too. I didn't have this problem with my Verizon EVDO USB modem or 2g Curve.

Phone - The screen is the best on the market. Anyone complaining about pixelation, is looking at it all to closely. The contrast ratio is OUTSTANDING. For outdoor use, install a widget to go from 11% brightness to 100% The GPS and location services are slow even with the fix. Sound volume is only about 80% of the volume compared to my Curve. t-mobile's installed program base is annoying. TW 3.0 has some issues - for example my weather and time widgets wouldn't update sometimes.
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post #7 of 8
8/23/10 at 4:03pm
Ok, so I've changed from my HTC Touch Pro 2 to the Samsung Galaxy S I9000. It's so ridiculously better in nearly every regards except the missing keyboard and that I was used to HTC Sense.

It works quite nice except the GPS speed and that it's kinda filled with stuff my provider puts on the phone as default (but it has no branding or stuff). Can't wait to get the Froyo update and I'm thinking about going for another firmware for the time being.
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post #8 of 8
8/26/10 at 5:46am
Removed. Problem wasn't the phone but me.
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