Official Avail. Nov 13th - Android 4.2 - LG Nexus 4 - Asus Nexus 7 - Samsung Nexus 10

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

swipe up from anywhere on the bottom buttons gets you google now (faster than long pressing). google now has a search box which will do phone-wide search of all your apps etc. so it's just a swipe a way.

Correct, but I miss the ability to search within apps, to use the in-app search feature. That's not the phone-wide search.

In foursquare I want to be able to quickly hit search and bring up the search dialog box instead of having to move my fingers to the top and go to the page that allows me to search for venues. Or take Yelp for instance. Or Maps.

The phone is big enough that I don't want to keep shifting my hands back and forth. That's what causes people to drop phones--when moving around.

I realize they're promoting Google Now heavily, but ditching in-app search for that seems impractical. That's why I still view the Search button as useful from old 4-button devices. 1 press for in-app search, long press for Google Now Search. Samsung phones kept in-app search AND voice search (was it double tap versus long press)?

Another thing I noticed is the Menu button's inconsistency in location. In Apex Launcher, Messaging, Play Store, it shows up at the top. On apps like Facebook, it shows up at the bottom. Your 3 main buttons are still spaced evenly but they insert a menu button at half spacing or something. Placement wise that's better, but honestly it looks out of place because the spacing's messed up. I prefer bottom versus top for the menu button placement, but perhaps Google needs to go with a consistent approach.

For what's worth, I never once accidentally pressed the home key when going for the space bar on my Galaxy Nexus, nor on the Nexus 4. I did however, accidentaly press the nav buttons on my S3 quite a bit, and on the smaller Galaxy Stellar (temporary phone) I do it multiple times a day.

But everyone on this board is clamoring for "no bezel no bezel." The Galaxy Nexus had a fat bottom bezel and coupled with the on screen buttons yeah the buttons were absurdly high up. The S3 tried to minimize bezel, and quite honestly it's more cramped than the S2 or S1 phones. You can tell based on the ugly shape of the home button. But if we're going for no bezel, your argument kinda then becomes useless as you're relying on a fat bezel to keep your buttons away from the bottom.

If you had a fatter bezel for capacitive buttons to push them up, you'd end up with the same thing. I just don't like how my 4.7" screen is closer to a 4.45" screen. It's only a 4.7" when watching movies. In fact I'd like to clarify a few issues I noticed on my Nexus 10. People have said that the buttons disappear or go into low profile mode or whatever. The black bar remains. The icons become dots. Great for making it less visible so I can focus on my content, but it doesn't change the fact that my effective screen size has shrunk.

 

[Red Storm]

Sorry I don't buy it. The Home button is not right up against the space bar. There is a dead zone between space and home that you can press which won't trigger either button. So unless you have really, really big thumbs, it is not an issue. Honestly If someone has trouble aiming for the big space bar, then I don't see how they could be typing at all on any smartphone keyboard.

 

[Eug]

After months with the Nexus 7, I still occasionally hit the home button. It's really, really irritating. It was very common when I first got it, and less common now, but it still happens once in a while. I have small hands, and no, I'm not a spaz.

As for typing, I'm not the greatest touchscreen typist, but then again if I make a mistake, autocorrect will correct it, and not send me to the home screen.

 

[Red Storm]

Another thing I noticed is the Menu button's inconsistency in location. In Apex Launcher, Messaging, Play Store, it shows up at the top. On apps like Facebook, it shows up at the bottom. Your 3 main buttons are still spaced evenly but they insert a menu button at half spacing or something. Placement wise that's better, but honestly it looks out of place because the spacing's messed up. I prefer bottom versus top for the menu button placement, but perhaps Google needs to go with a consistent approach.

Menu button placement is up to app devs, similar to iOS where not everyone puts their settings option in the same place.

Maps has a search button that's always there, as do Gmail and the Play Store.

Having to move your fingers from bottom to top only sucks on phones that use hardware keys at the very bottom of the bezel. On phones that use soft keys, it's much more comfortable to not only use, but to switch from bottom to top and vice versa.

 

[Eug]

I don't hate soft keys in general. I hate the way Google has implemented them.

 

[Red Storm]

But everyone on this board is clamoring for "no bezel no bezel." The Galaxy Nexus had a fat bottom bezel and coupled with the on screen buttons yeah the buttons were absurdly high up. The S3 tried to minimize bezel, and quite honestly it's more cramped than the S2 or S1 phones. You can tell based on the ugly shape of the home button. But if we're going for no bezel, your argument kinda then becomes useless as you're relying on a fat bezel to keep your buttons away from the bottom.

If you had a fatter bezel for capacitive buttons to push them up, you'd end up with the same thing. I just don't like how my 4.7" screen is closer to a 4.45" screen. It's only a 4.7" when watching movies. In fact I'd like to clarify a few issues I noticed on my Nexus 10. People have said that the buttons disappear or go into low profile mode or whatever. The black bar remains. The icons become dots. Great for making it less visible so I can focus on my content, but it doesn't change the fact that my effective screen size has shrunk.

Who's everybody? I don't want a bezel free bottom, that would be stupid for a device you're meant to hold, and it would make holding the phone in landscape a pain as well.

I noticed the same on my Nexus 10. On the Nexus 4 when I start a video clip in full screen the buttons completely go away, which I'm guessing is how it's supposed to be as it worked that way on my Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Got mine this morning and was just in a meeting, didn't know how to mute it. I know now but I wish it had a mute button physically on the phone.

 

[Red Storm]

Got mine this morning and was just in a meeting, didn't know how to mute it. I know now but I wish it had a mute button physically on the phone.

IMHO they need to add a volume tile on the quick settings menu. They even left one space blank where it could go to complete the square...

 

[Eug]

Is there an app one can install to allow multi-touch swiping or something to turn on the screen (Nexus 7 or other)? Or would that just waste too much battery life?

I still prefer hitting a hardware button on the front of the device (not on the edge of the bezel) to turn on the thing.

Got mine this morning and was just in a meeting, didn't know how to mute it. I know now but I wish it had a mute button physically on the phone.

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. That's a downer.

 

[vshah]

Correct, but I miss the ability to search within apps, to use the in-app search feature. That's not the phone-wide search.

In foursquare I want to be able to quickly hit search and bring up the search dialog box instead of having to move my fingers to the top and go to the page that allows me to search for venues. Or take Yelp for instance. Or Maps.

got it, i misunderstood you. you'll just have to wait for CM10.1 (i assume you're running it after your reaction in the other thread ) to be fully merged, then you can stick search and menu buttons down at the bottom and get rid of the app switcher

 

[pm]

After using the phone for over a week, I have to say that either the battery life is getting better, or my usage has dropped enough to make the battery life seemingly better.

On the first day I only got 11 hours of usage before it shut off, and days 2 and 3 were only slightly better, but now that I've used it for over a week, I'm easily getting through a full day. Even Tuesday where I was used Google Navigation for several hours, I still managed to get through the whole day. Yesterday I still had 40% left after a full day of using it. Maybe it's me and my usage, but I really think phone itself is doing better... magically, chemically, or psychologically (take your pick).

So I don't have any real complaints about the Nexus, except that 4.2 and my company's security policies are not getting along at all. Apparently this is "a known issue and we are working with Google on it" but in my experience this means it could be a while to wait before they fix it.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

got it, i misunderstood you. you'll just have to wait for CM10.1 (i assume you're running it after your reaction in the other thread ) to be fully merged, then you can stick search and menu buttons down at the bottom and get rid of the app switcher

I haven't installed it yet because I told myself I'll evaluate this phone for a few days on stock. I'll definitely jump right over to CM because I remember you can customize a lot the button behavior and stuff.

I can't believe how fast development takes off for these phones. Meanwhile the CM10 thread on the SGS2 is just in pure off topic discussion because we all know it'll be forever before devs can even make the Exynos stuff work on a new version of Android.

 

[Eug]

After using the phone for over a week, I have to say that either the battery life is getting better, or my usage has dropped enough to make the battery life seemingly better.

Most likely the latter.

I find my battery life goes down the toilet with every major iOS release, then gets "better" mainly because I no longer spend time trying out all the new features.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I think the answer is no but:

If I have two GV #s associated to one account, can I switch between numbers as my switching primary GV number and if yes, does it also switch the caller id? Or will it alway show the last created GV number?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Most likely the latter.

I find my battery life goes down the toilet with every major iOS release, then gets "better" mainly because I no longer spend time trying out all the new features.

I don't really buy this whole "burn in" BS. Maybe the calibration is off, but I think it's typically the fact that we spend less time tinkering heh.

 

[sygyzy]

I think for your intended use, it's best to go with your original plan and port your number to Straight Talk. You can then use the Straight Talk number and Google Voice number and get 100% functionality. Two Google Voice numbers just unnecessary complicate things.

I totally agree with ponyo here. Just port and use GV.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, it'll simplify matters.

But from your comment in the above post:

Would switching primary number also switch which number was shown on Caller Id?

Are you asking which GV number would be shown if you switch primary? Assuming you have two GV numbers, the primary one would be shown.

After using the phone for over a week, I have to say that either the battery life is getting better, or my usage has dropped enough to make the battery life seemingly better.

I don't know if I just made this up or if it's actually true but I feel confident the Android OS sort of "learns" and "calibrates" itself. With my Nexus one, anytime I got a new rom, my battery life would decrease to about 10-12 hours. After a week of using it normally, I'd get close to 20 (no lie). I have seen similar things with my Galaxy Nexus but not anywhere as dramatic. I do think there's a settling period, or whatever you want to call it.

 

[cronos]

I think the answer is no but:

If I have two GV #s associated to one account, can I switch between numbers as my switching primary GV number and if yes, does it also switch the caller id? Or will it alway show the last created GV number?

I just tested this and the answer is yes!

You can switch the primary number between the two in an instant, it's just a click. The caller ID switched immediately as well.

 

[sygyzy]

I think the answer is no but:

If I have two GV #s associated to one account, can I switch between numbers as my switching primary GV number and if yes, does it also switch the caller id? Or will it alway show the last created GV number?

If you have two google voice numbers in your account, whichever is your primary should be the one that's displayed. I don't have any evidence to back that up but doesn't that seem like a very logical answer?

 

[kehlsi]

my phone is being delivered today...i cannot wait to get home and play with it

 

[cronos]

If you have two google voice numbers in your account, whichever is your primary should be the one that's displayed. I don't have any evidence to back that up but doesn't that seem like a very logical answer?

See above. If you have two numbers on your GV, you can switch between the two, whichever you want to make the primary, and the caller ID switches as well.

 

[VashHT]

I put a front and back skin on mine and it solved the slipperiness issue. Also I'd highly recommed XO skins to anyone now (this is my first time trying them), they had the skins on sale for pre-order and before I even recieved my skins I got a note from them saying some of the back skins were missing the speaker cut-out so they were sending out new ones and a 5$ refund. It's nice to see some proactive customer support like that, plus the skins are actually good quality.

 

[Eug]

What makes them good quality? Just wondering.

I put some $0.50 eBay clear skin on the back of my iPhone and it's been fine for the two years I've owned the phone.

 

[VashHT]

Well they completely cover the screen as opposed to some other ones I've used that leave a few mm's around the edge, and the cutouts are lined up perfectly. Also the orange peel effect is less pronounced then I've seen using similar style skins (like ghost armor), and it feels really good to the touch and it's been very resistant to oil so far. One big reason I wanted to get a flexible skin like this is so the curved edges of the screen will be covered, this skin goes right to the edge of the bezel it's really an excellent fit.

 

[A5]

IMHO they need to add a volume tile on the quick settings menu. They even left one space blank where it could go to complete the square...

They put the quick settings for Sound/Vibrate/Silent on the power menu (long press power button) for some reason. I'd prefer having a widget or throwing it in the quick settings like you suggest.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well they completely cover the screen as opposed to some other ones I've used that leave a few mm's around the edge, and the cutouts are lined up perfectly. Also the orange peel effect is less pronounced then I've seen using similar style skins (like ghost armor), and it feels really good to the touch and it's been very resistant to oil so far. One big reason I wanted to get a flexible skin like this is so the curved edges of the screen will be covered, this skin goes right to the edge of the bezel it's really an excellent fit.

they have that rubbery feel right? its less slippery and a bit harder to slide my finger around from my experience with Zagg and Bodyguardz.