Get the Galaxy Nexus. It is BY FAR the best smartphone on the market. ICS is a great operating system.
Aside from having very strong reception, the rez allows you to talk and surf on 3g.
Are you sure about that? AFAIK that is a limitation of Verizon's 3G so the phone itself has nothing to do with it.
Your right in a way, the thunderbolt and rezound have a different 3g radio and are the only phones on verizon that can talk and surf on 3g at the same time.
Where do you get that? I was able to talk and surf on my OG Droid the entire time I had it.
I've had both. The Nexus is not hands down better, it's a compromise of pros and cons compared with the Rezound.
The Rezound has a higher DPI screen, better rear camera, better front camera, MicroSD card support, simultaneous 3G voice and data support, and comes with a very decent pair of earbuds. The GN has a larger screen, NFC, stock ICS, and has more customization options.
I have the GN right now and think it's a great phone but there's definitely no shortage of things that I miss about the Rezound and things that make me regret giving it up.
this ^
I just got desensed ICS on my Rezound and wow... would take this over a nexus any day based on hardware feel alone now that software is equal.
100 dollars cheaper now too... though my Rezound was 50 from Costco
Ditched my bionic and got a rez. I would def say its the best vzw phone in nearly every category. The camera is far superior, reception is much better, the materials and form factor is nicer imo, battery is better plus its $100 cheaper. The only thing that the gn has is ics and its a dev phone. Ics will likely be out fairly soon. Who knows how the OEMs will butcherit tho.
Comparing side x side, the gns screen's whites looked greyish and colors were muted. The pentile screen effect is visible, and overall looked less sharp. The gns camera is fast, but mostly takes lots of mediocre pix quickly. The rez's cam is top notch. Finally an Android phone gets the camera right...
Aside from having very strong reception, the rez allows you to talk and surf on 3g. Awesome if you are not in a 4g area exclusively. Being able to use navigation and be on the phone is invaluable. I don't think the gn can do this, most do not.
Sense has some ups and some downs. The current version of moto's Blur is better and less intrusive. Tho I end up using go launcher anyway.
No offense but there is no way colors on the nexus were muted compared to any LCD display, especially the ones HTC uses. Samsungs Super AMOLED displays have larger color gamuts than LCD displays which causes them to look over saturated, not muted. I also don't see how you could say the whites appeared gray unless the phone was at minimum brightness in an attempt to give the Rezound the upper hand.
I also don't see how the pentile was very visible, that is assuming you didn't look at the phone through a microscope.
Does the Rezound even have the display optically bonded to the outer glass like Apple and Samsung have done for several years now? I know HTC has not done it on their other phones which I always found unacceptable.
The effect on light screens isn't from it being pentile, it's called mura. Anand did a very good job of explaining it in his Galaxy Nexus review. It would certainly be better without it but personally I think it is less of an issue than an LCD displays inability to display back.
I have no clue if is bounded but two issues with the rezound display are:
a) The glass is very reflective (compared to the razr which is more matte); this has some advantages to making the screen appear sharper but can be annoying in certain light situations.
b) The display is not super bright (on max) so visibility can suffer outside on bright days.
It was also nice not having to deal with autodimming constantly changing the brightness.
That's a setting that any phone has.
No offense but there is no way colors on the nexus were muted compared to any LCD display, especially the ones HTC uses. Samsungs Super AMOLED displays have larger color gamuts than LCD displays which causes them to look over saturated, not muted. I also don't see how you could say the whites appeared gray unless the phone was at minimum brightness in an attempt to give the Rezound the upper hand.
I also don't see how the pentile was very visible, that is assuming you didn't look at the phone through a microscope.
When I did the sxs, it was at the vzw store. Both were plugged in and on max brightness. I was through the browser comparing the same pix going through diff sites.
The linen effect is a good description. The GN looked yellow biased and with the pentile effect, where the rez was blue biased and no pentile effect. To me, most of the pix just looked better on the rez. However, the lcd does give some artificiality to the images. I would not want a TV setup like that, the samoled looks a bit more "natural."
I may have played more, but the GN wasn't pulling the 4G signal, and I got tired of waiting for the images to load vs the 4G on the rez. The GN was set to CDMA/LTE, so I don't know if it was an issue with that phone or a sign of the weak signal issues that have been described with the GN.
The glass is very reflective, and that is quite annoying.
LCDs do wash out a lot in the sunlight and get hard to see. Haven't had a GN outside to test, but the Charge I had w/ SAMOLED was horrible outside too. Gorgeous screen inside tho. 'Bout the only thing going for that POS.
In this area, I thought my Bionic was the best (havnt played w/ razr much.) Very nice glass and the screen was very visible even in direct sunlight shining on the screen. I did my best to wash it out, but it was always visible. It was also nice not having to deal with autodimming constantly changing the brightness. Had fantastic bat life w/ it too.
The SAMOLEDs def crush the others in black level tho