Samsung Nexus S on AT&T Review – Specification, Features, Price

The Nexus S from Samsung is among a number of variations on the Nexus platform. It was originally announced in December 2010. It is a full blown pure Android Gingerbread powered smartphone that first appeared with T-Mobile and Sprint.

Samsung Nexus S

Specifications

• Operating System: Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread)
• Display: 4” (480 x 800) 16 million colors Super AMOLED capacitive touch
• Processor: 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU
• Graphics: PowerVR SGX540 GPU
• Chipset: Hummingbird
• RAM: 512 MB
• Storage: 16 GB
• 2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• 3G Network: HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100
• 3G: HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Navigation: GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth: Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
• Infrared port: No
• USB: v2.0 microUSB
• Camera Primary: 5 Megapixel Autofocus (2560 x 1920 pixels), LED flash
• Video: Yes, WVGA@30fps
• Features: Geo-tagging, touch focus
• Secondary: Yes, VGA
• Battery: Li-Ion 1500 mAh

Features

The AT&T Nexus S is practically identical to the Nexus S available from T-Mobile or Sprint. The Nexus S has a sleek design, brilliant display and the Gingerbread without any user interface enhancements seen on other Samsung Androids. The memory card slot is missed, but 16 GB of internal storage is sufficient for almost all types of usage. The Super AMOLED display is very responsive and the ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the screen brightness. With Gingerbread you get to customize five home screens with your choice of widgets. There are a number of improvements that came with the Gingerbread, including much better cut and paste functionality, improved power management and voice command features.

Verdict

The Samsung Nexus S has a brilliant clear display which keeps things easy on the eye overall. One of the bigger plus points of this phone is the lack of vendor added software and features that tend to load down the whole smartphone experience. The Android Gingerbread comes with the improvements in usability and an extensive App Market. The quality of voice calls is comparable with the Nexus S 4G from Sprint and T-Mobile’s Nexus S; however, it more closely matched the quality from Sprint. Over the AT&T network the phone also had the well known GSM Buzz over voice calls, which may be attributed to the carrier and not the phone itself as the T-Mobile Nexus S has a deeper and smoother quality to it. The build does not inspire confidence and feels fragile in the hand. The microSD slot is missed on the Nexus S; however there is enough storage space to keep practically using it for quite a while. This Nexus S does not 4G ready which is a disappointment when compared with the model Sprint is carrying. The Nexus S is overall a good performing feature rich smartphone that is going to be an asset for AT&T.

Price

The Nexus S from Samsung is also known as the Google Nexus S by Samsung and is available for approximately $580 without contract. It is amongst the original naked Androids that are true to its roots.