Galaxy Nexus and ICS: Android’s inflection point

While the US waits patiently for the launch of the titanic, 4.65-inch Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google’s new superphone has now been available in the UK motherland for a whole 24 hours. The first batch of reviews from the major tech sites are in, and some early user reviews are starting to trickle in as well. Unexpectedly, and unique for the launch of a new version of Android, the Galaxy Nexus — and its heart, Ice Cream Sandwich — are receiving almost uniformly spectacular reviews.

When the first flagship Android phone was released, the Nexus One, some reviewers threw around words like “over-hyped” — and then there was the fact that the Motorola Droid already had Android 2.0, making the Nexus One a little less special; most reviews were around the 3.5- to 4-star mark. At least when the Nexus S was released, Gingerbread was unique to the handset — but then many lamented its lack of 4G, dual-core processor, or expandable memory; again, 4 stars seemed the norm.

And then we have the Galaxy Nexus, which still has some niggles — a 5MP rear camera, no microSD — but reviewers are giving this newfangled beast 5-out-of-5, 10-out-of-10, and hyperbolic honorifics like “The Best Android Phone Yet” and “Better Than The iPhone 4S.” Seemingly, something about the Nexus, when combined with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, just feels right. The beautiful, 1280×720 Super AMOLED interface, which we feared might be too big for the OMAP 4460′s fledgling GPU, is slick and responsive. The chassis, which is basically an iteration of the Nexus S, is large, but light and thin enough that it isn’t cumbersome.

The main takeaway from each and every one of the reviews, though, is that the software — ICS — is ama ing. In much the same way that someone at Google — probably Larry Page — woke up one day and reali ed that its slew of web services desperately needed a new coat of paint, ICS finally brings ease-of-use and a beautiful design paradigm to Android. Where Froyo and Gingerbread are utilitarian, ICS is pretty. Where Honeycomb has rough edges, the Sandwich is polished until it shines.

In short, ICS has finally reached a point where it can stand alongside iOS and Windows Phone 7 and not be embarrassed. This is major. No longer must I defend my Nexus S’s crashes by saying “yes, but does your phone run custom ROMs?” With Ice Cream Sandwich, I can finally give my phone to my mother without her muttering “an iPhone is easier to use.”

The question now, though, is how long it will take Ice Cream Sandwich to replace its ugly, dishevelled forebears. At the end of the day, the dual-core OMAP 4460 at 1.2GH is not the fastest chip on the block, and yet the Galaxy Nexus is the smoothest Android phone yet. Is this because ICS is fine-tuned for OMAP SoCs, or because ICS itself is inherently slicker? There are no other devices on the market that use the 4460 SoC, and only a scant handful that use OMAP4 at all. Will ICS work just as well on the Snapdragon and Exynos chips that power the most successful and prevalent Android phones?

Historically, thanks to upgrade cycles and an endemic lack of pant pockets with infinite money supplies, it takes more than a year for a new version of Android to reach critical mass. In a year, iOS 6  will be here — and perhaps even Windows Phone 8 (and Windows 8 for tablets!) The 5-star reviews that the Galaxy Nexus and ICS are receiving today are relative; for today, and today only, Android crowd surfs on the heads of iPhone 4S and Lumia 800 owners — but now it needs to settle down, take stock of the situation, push the advantage, and sei e the throne. Google: I hope ICS works really, really well on older phones. Carriers: You need to put out an update for the Bionic, Ra r, and Galaxy S II as soon as possible.

Galaxy Nexus and ICS: Android’s inflection point