A friend brought over his new Galaxy Nexus phone, running Android 4.0.2 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) and I spent a little time sending email from it with the virtual keyboard and voice recognition. The keyboard and auto-correction is comparable to the iPhone 4S, maybe slightly better/faster. Like the iPhone, by default there is a visual pop-up after every key press. Unlike with the iPhone, this popping up can be disabled easily (Apple experts: is it possible at all? What do epileptics do?)
Voice recognition works much faster than with the iPhone, with words appearing in near real-time as one dictates. Is it also much easier to correct an individual word or type over some mis-recognized words due to the fact that Android includes a pop-up cursor that can be moved to any part of the text.
As with iPhone/Siri, Android voice recognition is available only when connected to a data network.
We did a comparison of some photo-heavy pages on the two displays. The Galaxy Nexus screen is so much larger and higher resolution (1280×720 pixels compared to 960×640) that many more thumbnails can be evaluated simultaneously and much more of a picture can be displayed at 100 percent resolution. Photos on the Samsung display can look very different depending on the overall screen brightness selected.
Battery life with 4G LTE enabled, 30 minutes of talk time, and light-to-normal usage of email and Web browser was approximately 17 hours (no use of Youtube or Netflix).
Re: autocorrection on iOS. Settings > General > Keyboard. Lots of settings to adjust.
Matt: It is not autocorrection that I want to turn off. It is the highlighted popping up of keys after a key press.
Ah, no then, there is not a setting for that.
Why do you want to turn that off? It’s a clever solution to the problem that your finger is bigger than the keys so merely highlighting the key doesn’t cut it. The popup (which happens *on*, not *after* a key press) shows you what key you’re on so if you’re a little bit off you can *slide your finger around* until you find the one you want – the key doesn’t actually activate until the key *release*.
Regarding the “pop-up cursor that can be moved to any part of the text” – have you tried on iPhone to press-and-hold in a text area to get a cursor under a magnifying glass which (again) you can drag around to move to any part of the text? How does this differ from that?
Philip
I just got my Galaxy Nexus tonight and I love the hardware save for one thing.
The connection speeds leave much to be desired. I have had the issue of my 4G bars going grey and while the phone tries to figure out what connection to use, the internet [and every app associated with it) hangs. Here is hoping it gets better because right now my Droid Eris stays connected to ny Verizon network more reliably.
Beautiful device though isn‘t it?
Glen: Why do I want to turn off the flashing huge pop-up keys? I find them distracting. Generally there is already a place on the screen to show the characters that are being typed. Also, I don’t really care to look until autocorrect has done its job. I’m interested in what words I’m entering, not in what characters. Plainly I am not the only person who prefers a stable keyboard; the Android “turn these popups off” option was not developed by me.
Steve Jobs: “It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it.”
“Why do you want to turn that off? It’s a clever solution to the problem that your finger is bigger than the keys so merely highlighting the key doesn’t cut it.”
Another clever solution that I find so much nicer when picking from lists and hitting buttons is a damn stylus. My old Treo with a very paltry display shows so much more in a clear usable manner than most iPhone programs I’ve seen. Grrr. I admire much about Steve Jobs, but he’s wrong about stylii. What’s a damn pencil!?
Anyway, has anyone seen the Galaxy Note? Faster/bigger/way bigger battery than the Nexus. 5.3″ 1280×800 screen in a “tabphone”. Android ICS coming in 2012. And comes with an optional “wacom” like pressure sensitive stylus for artwork. Still fits in a pocket. LTE (but not sure whose) and AT&T HSPA+21 frequencies in general. Not sure if AT&T actually works with it at HSPA+21. Oh, and less expensive than the Galaxy Nexus at Amazon.
Glen,
It’s called “having the choice”
Apple hasmamdesign philosophy of “we know what’s best for you”mwhich is great when they get it right.
But for those times they get it wrong, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to change the settings to meet your needs?
I believe John C. Dvorak complained (when isn’t he?) that there was an issue with the speakers, not loud enough. I also saw a demo of the speech dictation feature, very impressed. Also heard there is no reason this OS could not be run on a desktop/laptop, not sure if that is true but will be looking to try if someone figures it out (in a VM I assume).
In The Morning!
Jerry,
The solution is not a keyboard. The solution is not voice recognition. The solution is lip reading. Not someone patent that.
How can you find the pop up keys distracting? I thought everyone got used to them after a day or two of owning an iPhone / Android.
I had an HP Touchpad for a few days, and the lack of the pop up keys annoyed me endlessly. It would often take multiple attempts to fix a typo – which is much more distracting – and pop up keys eliminate that issue. And on a smartphone with a screen that’s much smaller than a tablet, it’s essential.
Hard to beat Android for customization options. I don’t think Steve wanted people tinkering too much. Incidentally, I’ve had the Nexus Galaxy for about a week. When it finds and holds an LTE signal, it’s an amazing device; when it doesn’t, it’s… well… at least it’s still a good looking device! At this point, I don’t know if the intermittent problems with Nexus networking have more to do with the device or with Verizon’s recent LTE troubles. My wife has the Droid Razr and anecdotally it seems to find/hold LTE connections better… at least in the Boston area. I don’t mind beta testing ICS for Google, but I’ll be really disappointed if the Nexus shortcomings are hardware, rather than software issues. I had a Motorola Droid for two years and it worked damn dependably… albeit not over LTE. Maybe with Google buying Motorola, Motorola will get a crack at building the next Nexus… could be the best possible recipe for an Android device: solid hardware (radio), kevlar, steel, AND the newest version of Android pushing out without skin bloat.
When I use the voice recognition on my phone, I feel like Scotty hunting for whales. Even though I’ve tried talking to it in a normal voice and leaving it on a table and seeing that it still sort of works, I just am compelled to pick the damn thing up and talk to it like a Star Trek communicator. And I also hate doing that in public, seems nerdier than wearing a bluetooth earpiece.
I tried the continuous voice recognition of a Nexus last night in a Verizon store, and I found it a) much more useful than the prior “30 seconds at a time” version, and b) still so inaccurate and laggy (30 seconds or more at times behind my words) as to be a nice toy but not reliable.
Also last night at the TMO store I saw a Galaxy S II (which supports HSPA+42 (unlike the Nexus)) pull down at over 22Mbps while HSPA+21 phones in the same store could only pull down 6Mbps. That’s probably a function of unused network that will regress over time.
So all that said, I’d love to see someone integrate a car mifi with continuous voice recognition all in a HUD or center dash or both.
I assume no company can pay the product liability insurance required for such a thing.