Nexus S

Hey, sorry to everyone who has been trying to get into my new routine of posting on Sunday!  I guess I'm not 100% used to that routine yet!  Oh well, hopefully this is better late than never...

I've wanted to do a quick product review on my new phone, just because I've mentioned it a couple times already, and also because I consider it to be an essential piece of my travel gear.  I'll try not to dwell on the technical aspects too much... if I wanted to talk shop I'd be at work right now.

First of all, the reason for the switch: my BlackBerry was getting really, really old.  I'd had it for almost three years, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it's an eternity in Cell Phone Years.  The rate at which we are advancing it technology is staggering, and as someone who works in the industry I feel the need to keep up.  Also, I love my gadgets, and I've been very excited by some of the new phones that have been coming out lately.

My new phone is a Google Nexus S, sometimes called a Samsung Nexus S because, while it was built for and marketed by Google, it was Samsung who provided the hardware.  Google just requisitioned this piece because they wanted something to really show off Android, which is the mobile operating system that they've developed. Anyone familiar with Samsung's Galaxy S phone will notice a lot of similarities.

One of the many really cool features of this phone is that it's got a very slight concave curve to the screen, just subtle enough that you don't really notice when using it as a touch screen, but it fits against your face a little better when you're using it as a phone.  Also it makes it look really cool.  The screen itself is one of Samsung's new Super AMOLED screens; again, I won't get into the tech details, but just rest assured that it's bright, the colours are beautiful, and in my opinion it's the best screen on the market right now.

Something I've been having a lot of fun with is the multimedia capabilities of this phone.  That big, beautiful touch screen allows for a really great display and interaction with games, and with social networking applications.  I've found that I'm getting back into using Twitter, I'm on Facebook more, and I'm taking my phone out purely as an entertainment device now.  All around it's just getting a lot more use than my old phone.  It's also got a tight integration with GMail, so for those of you with my GMail address I'm still getting those e-mails as soon as you send them.

From a travelling perspective, this phone has quad-band GSM, as well as an HSPA radio, so just like my old phone I should be able to use it anywhere in the world.

One of my big concerns with this phone is that the entire front of the phone is one big touchscreen, and that's the only way to interact with it.  That means that when I'm typing out messages I'm doing it by hitting buttons on a virtual keyboard displayed on the screen.  Without the tactile sensation of a physical keyboard I wasn't sure if I'd be able to handle typing out some of the lengthy messages I've been known to pound out on my BlackBerry.  Turns out that I'm adapting to it pretty quickly.  I'm not sure if I'm at the same speed as I was on my BlackBerry, but I certainly feel like I'm close.  The phone tries to guess what you're typing, and that can be really helpful sometimes too.

Anyone who read my Killarney wrap-up has already seen one phone from the camera built into this phone.  I'll be the first to admit that when they started putting cameras in phones I thought it was ridiculous.  Now I love it!  In my defence, when they first started putting cameras in phones they were about 0.1 megapixels, which genuinely was ridiculous.  I've got a 5MP camera in my new phone though, and sometimes it's just really convenient to be able to take a quick photo with your phone.  I'm pretty sure that I left my photo that I took with my phone at its full size when I uploaded it to the blog, so if you click on it you'll see the full image in it's uncompressed glory.  Honestly I'm pretty impressed with it for something that's not a dedicated camera!  I'll try to get some more examples up later.

So that's my early thoughts on this new piece of hardware that I'm carrying around.  I know it's not very travel oriented, but you know how excited I get about my gadgets, so I can hope you can all forgive the indulgence.