Samsung Galaxy Nexus

[HC5]

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus looks to be one of the all-time great smartphones: large screen, thin body, Ice Cream Sandwich. I just hope I won't have to take out a 2nd mortgage to buy one.

[suwunk]

I'm impressed with the Ice Cream Sandwich :cool:

The most exciting thing about the Galaxy Nexus is that it's going to be the first phone to run Ice Cream Sandwich, the very latest edition of Google's Android operating system, following on from Gingerbread.

Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to be the operating system that unifies the smart phone and tablet versions of Android, tying the whole lot together in a whirl of Tron-style glowing blue boxes. With Ice Cream Sandwich you get on-screen buttons, 'back', 'home' and a multi-tasking button borrowed from Honeycomb.

When you tap that button all the apps you have running will appear, stacked on top of each other in little boxes. Scroll through this tower of apps and tap on the one you want to switch to.

It looks like a neat method of handling multi-tasking, and with any luck it'll make Android a bit easier to use. This rather geeky OS can sometimes feel a bit baffling if you're not used to its quirky behaviour.

Other treats include the ability to unlock your phone by letting your mobile recognise your face, and responding to incoming calls with pre-programmed texts, such as, "Not now, I'm in a meeting." Clever stuff.

The fact that the Galaxy Nexus is running raw Ice Cream Sandwich with no Samsung apps or skin is also appealing -- this is Android for purists, and means the Galaxy Nexus will likely get updates faster than other phones.