If you’re looking back at the Google Nexus S as some kind of lost Android king, you need to look a lot closer at what Google and Samsung actually shipped.
This was billed as the “Royal Droid” and the first Gingerbread phone, but under the crown there’s a lot of 2010 hardware, 2009 imaging, and a few decisions that aged badly even in its own release window.
A Developer Flagship Built on Yesterday’s Hardware
Google’s whole Nexus pitch with the Nexus S was simple: clean Android 2.3 Gingerbread, first in line for updates, and hardware tuned straight to Mountain View’s specs. Instead of HTC and the Nexus One, Google tapped Samsung and basically re-skinned a Galaxy S.
Same 1GHz Hummingbird CPU, same 512MB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. On Gingerbread, it feels a bit quicker than the Galaxy S, helped by software optimizations and a move to the Ext4 file system that bumps up I/O performance and Quadrant scores.
But by the time this phone really hit people’s pockets, Tegra 2 dual‑core SoCs and 1080p recording were moving from “next big thing” to immediate reality. With that context, the Nexus S stops looking like a standard-bearer and starts looking like an overclocked Nexus One in a Samsung shell.
Curved Super AMOLED: Gorgeous Screen, Odd Trade-Offs
On the outside, the Nexus S is undeniably more interesting than a straight Galaxy S clone. The 4.0″ Super AMOLED display isn’t just bright with deep blacks and strong viewing angles – the glass itself is subtly curved.
The curve isn’t a gimmicky banana; it’s a gentle arc that makes calls more comfortable and the phone nicer to hold. Capacitive Android keys (Back, Menu, Home, Search) sit below the screen, are extremely responsive, and have clean haptics. Above the display you get proximity and ambient light sensors plus a front-facing VGA camera for video calls.
Handling is solid for a 4″ phone: 123.9 x 63 x 10.9 mm, 129g, still perfectly pocketable and easy one‑hand use. The problem is materials. For a supposed flagship, it’s plastic everywhere, with none of the metal confidence the HTC-built Nexus One offered.
Even worse: Gorilla Glass is gone, replaced with regular glass and an oleophobic coating. Easier to wipe fingerprints, sure, but you lose the added drop and scratch resistance people expected at this price.
And because Samsung’s OLED supply was tight, not every Nexus S even got Super AMOLED – some markets saw S‑LCD panels instead, while the price and positioning stayed “premium.”
Clean Gingerbread, Great Workflow… and Some Cracks
Software is where the Nexus S earns its existence. This is stock Android 2.3 Gingerbread exactly as Google intended, with no skins, no carrier bloat, and the promise of timely updates.
The homescreen sticks to five panes with shortcuts for dialer and browser flanking the menu key. Live wallpapers including the new “Microbes” option add flair, while folders, live folders, and standard Google widgets give solid customization.
The notification shade is still one of Android’s best ideas: unified alerts, quick access from anywhere, and hooks for some app widgets. But compared to custom launchers of the time, it’s surprisingly bare – no native power toggles, no extra controls. Multitasking is slightly improved over Eclair with eight recent apps instead of six, but it’s still just a switcher, not a task manager.
Performance is generally smooth. Gingerbread plus Hummingbird delivers quick reactions and decent benchmark numbers, especially in memory and storage tests thanks to Ext4. But stability isn’t flawless: the video player and even live wallpapers managed to crash, reminding you this was very early code.
Text input is a big upgrade over older Android builds. The new keyboard is faster and more accurate, spacebar-tap auto-correct works well, and the 4″ screen is the right size for comfortable portrait typing with an even better landscape option. Cursor handles and selection tools finally make copy/paste competent instead of painful.
Camera and Media: 5MP Photos, 2008-Grade Video
The Nexus S pairs a 5MP rear camera with LED flash and officially supports dual cameras in Android for the first time, enabling shots from the front VGA unit as well. The camera UI is functional: vertical shortcuts give quick access to modes and settings like scenes, white balance, color effects, exposure, and geotagging.
Photo quality is actually decent. There’s visible noise, but fine detail is mostly preserved, and color and contrast are solid. In bright conditions, it’s a clear improvement over the Galaxy S, helped by that viewfinder-friendly Super AMOLED screen with strong sunlight legibility.
Then you hit video and the whole story falls apart.
You’re capped at D1 (720×480) at ~30fps, in 3GP format with low bitrates and visible compression artifacts. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S – sharing the same basic internals – already shoots 720p. This looks more like a Google-imposed software ceiling than a hardware limitation, and it makes zero sense on a “reference” device.
Frame rate hovers around 28.5fps, usually smooth enough, but exposure jumps cause unwanted flicker, especially with moving objects like cars. For serious video, the Nexus S is plainly behind its own sibling and miles behind what was coming next.
The gallery sticks to the standard Gingerbread app with a cool 3D stacks UI, Picasa integration, and timeline view. But it still only shows downsized versions of photos. You can share full‑res images, but zooming in the gallery won’t show true detail – a baffling limitation on a phone that’s supposed to showcase Android.
Video playback isn’t much better. There’s no dedicated video player; everything lives behind the Gallery. Codec support is minimal: 3GP and MP4, with the upside that it can handle 720p MP4 if you transcode correctly. The 4″ WVGA Super AMOLED makes content look great, but you’re doing extra work or you’re installing a third‑party player just to get basic modern formats.
The music player is pure stock Gingerbread: artist/album/song/playlist tabs, search, automatic pause on headphone removal, volume control on the lockscreen, and the handy “search this track on YouTube/Google” shortcut. Still no EQ presets, no skins, no gesture controls.
Audio quality into an external amp is excellent – loud, clean output that actually beats the Galaxy S and falls just short of the Giorgio Armani I9010. Plug in headphones and you see more stereo crosstalk and distortion plus a slightly uneven frequency response, but nothing catastrophic. For audio nerds, it’s a legitimately strong performer.
Connectivity, NFC, and the Storage Dealbreaker
On radios, the Nexus S largely matches the Galaxy SL: quad‑band GSM/EDGE, tri‑band HSPA with 7.2Mbps down and 5.76Mbps up, Wi‑Fi b/g/n, GPS, microUSB 2.0, and a 3.5mm jack. Bluetooth, however, is downgraded from 3.0 on the Galaxy S to 2.1 here.
Storage is where Google and Samsung made a choice that was already controversial then and looks worse in hindsight: no microSD slot. You get 16GB of internal storage and that’s it.
The original Nexus One managed to ship with expandable storage and an 8GB card in the box. The Nexus S goes the other way, locking you to internal memory only, which is hostile to power users who rely on local media, large apps, and simple card swaps for backup or device hopping.
The one piece of genuine future‑leaning tech is NFC. There’s an integrated NFC chip that, in theory, lets the phone act as a transit pass, payment method, or digital ID. The problem is timing: NFC hadn’t taken off globally yet, and Gingerbread initially didn’t give developers the APIs they needed. Android 2.3.3 was required to open that up, so early buyers were basically beta testing a spec sheet feature.
Web browsing, at least, is strong. The stock browser offers a minimal UI that hides once you scroll, full use of the 4″ display, pinch‑to‑zoom, text reflow on double‑tap, and multi‑tab support with thumbnails, history, and “most visited” lists. Full Flash 10.1 support means 360p/480p YouTube and web games like those on Kongregate are playable, though 720p Flash content can drop frames.
Navigation is handled by Google Maps and Google Maps Navigation, with our unit running Maps 5. That brings vector 3D maps, offline rerouting if you stray off course, pinch‑driven rotation and tilt, and 3D buildings where available. Google Earth adds proper 3D landscapes with multi‑touch navigation, turning the phone into a pocket globe.
Calls, Messaging, and Everyday Usability
The basics are mostly handled well. The phonebook is flexible, supporting multiple accounts including Exchange, with options to filter contacts and join entries across services like Facebook and Twitter. Quick contacts make it easy to jump from a contact photo to call, SMS, or email.
You can star contacts for a Favorites tab, assign personalized ringtones, and even redirect specific numbers straight to voicemail. Call quality is good, signal stability is fine, but the loudspeaker only ranks “Average” – you will miss calls in loud environments.
The two big misses: no smart dialing and average loudness. Smart dialing was already showing up in skinned UIs, and seeing stock Android still ignore it in 2.3 is baffling. Voice dialing exists via a long‑press of the search key, but it’s not a substitute.
Messaging sticks to threaded SMS/MMS, basic but efficient. You can auto‑delete old messages (e.g., keep 200 SMS and 20 MMS), enable delivery/read reports, and use search across all threads. Composing long messages is annoying because the text box grows from a tiny single line to only three lines.
Gmail shines with batch operations, labels, and multiple account support. There’s also a standard email app for POP/IMAP with full folder access. Instant messaging is handled by Google Talk, which ties into popular desktop clients. It’s a clean, no‑nonsense communications stack that played to Android’s strengths.
On the tools side, the Nexus S ships with Calendar (syncs to Google Calendar), Calculator with a scientific mode, and a basic alarm clock that supports multiple alarms but omits stopwatch, timer, world clock, and voice recorder. All of those can be grabbed from Android Market in minutes, but for a supposed reference phone, it’s a barebones bundle.
Battery is a 1500mAh pack rated at up to 6.7 hours of talk time and 17 days standby on 3G, or 14 hours talk / 29.7 days standby on 2G. Combined with a 4″ WVGA panel and a 1GHz single‑core SoC, that’s adequate for a full day of typical use.
So Was the Nexus S Ever a “Royal Droid” for Consumers?
Stack the Nexus S next to its direct and near‑future rivals, and it’s clear why it struggled to justify its throne.
Against the Samsung Galaxy S, it actually loses features: no microSD slot, no 720p video recording, no Bluetooth 3.0, and no guaranteed Super AMOLED in every market. You gain an LED flash, a curved display, NFC hardware, and faster, cleaner updates. For most mainstream buyers, that’s a weak trade.
Against incoming phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc (4.2″ FWVGA, 8MP with 720p video, bundled 8GB microSD, Gingerbread, aggressively thin design) the Nexus S looks minimal. Dual‑core flagships like the LG Optimus 2X and Motorola Atrix were promising 1080p recording, HDMI out, better cameras, and more RAM.
Even single‑core alternatives like the Dell Venue (4.1″ AMOLED, 8MP/720p), HTC Desire HD (4.3″ LCD, 8MP/720p), and LG Optimus Black (efficient, high‑quality display) gave consumers tangible hardware benefits, with the main question being how quickly they’d get Gingerbread.
If you were an Android developer or an OS purist, the Nexus S made sense: first to Gingerbread, guaranteed update priority, clean UI, and a reference target for apps. But if you were just a buyer wanting the best high‑end phone, it wasn’t that.
And that’s the core issue: Google sold a “Royal Droid” narrative while shipping a very good, but very late, warmed‑over Galaxy S with fewer features. Early access to updates mattered, but losing 720p video and expandable storage in 2011 hurt real‑world ownership far more than Google admitted.
Check back soon as this story develops.