Hardware

Dropcam’s is rightly proud of the HD: its first-gen hardware, the Echo, was designed externally, but the company brought development in-house for this new model. The end result is something that looks far more consumer-friendly than the blocky white Echo. The Dropcam HD itself is a small glossy black puck that slots into a detachable metal stand with a posable base: together, they’re 4.5-inches high and about 3.15-inches across.

The hinged base is stiff enough to stay at whatever angle you set it to, and you can tilt the Dropcam HD itself in the stand to fine-tune things. Power is courtesy of a compact AC brick with a long microUSB cable up to the camera itself; unlike the previous Dropcam models, there’s no ethernet option, only WiFi b/g/n, though that’s no great loss for the consumer market. A rubber foot for the stand has a clip to keep the power cable in place.

Setup requires plugging the Dropcam HD into your computer via USB, creating an account through Dropcam’s site and punching in your WiFi network credentials. After that, it automatically logs on overtime it’s powered up. There’s a 12-LED infrared light array around the lens, for nighttime use, along with a speaker and a microphone.

Service

Part of the easy setup of the Dropcam Echo is the absence of any local software to install: everything is accessed – and stored – in the cloud. The company offer several tiers of service: the free “Basic” package allows you to log in and view live streaming video, either through the regular browser or the iOS app, but no recording functionality. There are also email and mobile (iPhone-only) alerts triggered by the sound and motion sensors. For $9.95 per month and the “Plus” package you get live streaming together with seven days of archive access (and the ability to download select clips or photos to your own computer).

Finally, the “Pro” plan offers 30 days of online recording for $29.95. It’s worth noting that the subscription fees increase per camera you add: $4.95 per extra for the Plus plan or $14.95 per month for the Pro plan. If you have, say, three cameras and want a month’s historic access to the footage each records, you’re looking at almost $60 per month. The Android and iPhone apps themselves are free and work with all tiers of service, though there’s no iPad-specific version. If you have a device with Flash support in the browser, you can log into the Dropcam site and stream video that way instead.

Performance

Where the original Dropcam was limited to QVGA 320 x 240 resolution video, and only offered streaming two-way audio on a more expensive model, the Dropcam HD promises both 720p HD footage and sound as standard.

Unfortunately video quality is only average, suffering particularly in low-light, though it’s reasonably smooth thanks to the 30fps refresh rate. Audio quality is fair, and the microphone is actually quite sensitive, though we noticed a significant amount of crackling both through the desktop UI and the mobile apps. The speaker – used for two-way audio – is small and subsequently suffers very low volume, and there’s no audio output for plugging in a more vocal system. With observed a roughly 2-3 second delay on audio.

Desktop

iPhone 4S

Galaxy Nexus

Motion and audio detection are both very sensitive, and lack controls to adjust exactly what they’ll respond to. Each will mark the online timeline (in the Plus and Pro subscription packages) to indicate when noise or movement was spotted; both packages, plus the Free plan, can optionally send out an alert to let you know something has happened. Their effectiveness is generally down to where the camera is positioned, and if you have pets you can expect plenty of false alarms.

Still, the automatic flagging makes reviewing footage a lot more straightforward than scrubbing through the entire timeline, and you can request a download clip of any section that comes through in MP4 format with audio.

Wrap-Up

Setup, convenience and – if you opt for a subscription – functionality can’t be criticized in the Dropcam HD. The camera is compact, discrete and easy to place, especially if you use only the puck central section, which blends reasonably well into the shadows, and the desktop UI and mobile apps are straightforward to use.

Although the subscription-free option is welcome, we can’t really recommend it for any but the most casual of users. Even with the real-time movement alerts, you’ll probably struggle to access the webcam feed quickly enough to see what has been happening; that’s when the online DVR feature comes in most useful.

That said, the $149 starting price for the Dropcam HD is just that: a starting figure after which you have to take into account subscription fees. Dropcam offers a year’s access to the Plus plan for $99.95 if you pay upfront; still, scale up to a few cameras spread about the house, as many home surveillance enthusiasts would prefer, and you’re looking at a few hundred dollars each year. Contrast that with Logitech’s Alert camera system, which offers local DVR-style storage on your home network (and premium remote access to recordings for $80 per year, per system).

The Dropcam service is certainly easy to use, and there are handy sharing features, which allow you to send clips and images to others – great for showing grandparents what the baby is up to – but it’s an expensive way of doing things. In the end, you pay for the privilege of Dropcam’s simplicity.
-dropcam HD

You get a lot for a free app, especially one in its first iteration. Early leaks described the rumored tool as “GarageBand for eBooks” but in fact we found it even easy to dig into: load the app, pick one of the basic templates, and then begin dropping in content. Pages are easily managed in a column down the side, similar to Keynote.

Text can be typed in directly, with the usual choice of fonts and styles, or imported wholesale by dropping a Word document into the editor. Similarly videos and images can be dragged in, and Keynote presentations automatically covert into interactive clipboards. What stands out the most is the speed at which content renders and is ready; Apple was demonstrating iBooks Author on some high-spec iMacs, which will give it an edge of course, but there’s little in the way of sitting round waiting for video to import or graphics to be crunched.

Those readers using VoiceOver on their iPad are catered for as well, with optional accessibility descriptions, and pagination, captions and footnotes are handled automatically. Apple’s event today was focused on textbooks, but any type of ebook can be created, with the complexity entirely up to the user: you can go for basic text and a few photos, or the whole way with multimedia, animations and more.

The downside will be exactly how you can export ebooks created with the tool: PDF and TXT are options, along with Apple’s own IBOOKS format, but interactive books exported as .ibooks – which they’ll need to be for all the multimedia support – will only open on the iPad. Even iPhone users are currently left out in the cold.

Our guess is that Apple is looking to change that – after all, iTunes U supports cross-device sync using iCloud, and textbooks are going to be a big part of that – but for the moment the iPad is where it’s at. We can’t particularly fault them on an eye-candy level, as the output iBooks Author is capable of looks its best on the iPad’s bigger screen.

iBooks Author is obviously a far deeper app than our brief hands-on post-keynote gave us time to get to grips with, but the good news is that not only is it available to download now, but it’s free. You’ll need OS X 10.7.2 Lion and, obviously, a Mac in order to use iBooks Author.

The layout feels much like a paper planner, with individual courses represented iBooks-style and then opening up to a virtual spiral-bound book. We’ve seen textbooks before, though – from Apple today, in fact – but this goes several steps further, integrating with an educational to-do list for an e-course.

As you might expect, everything is tightly interlinked. Video content required for a certain lesson takes you not just to the clip itself, but the exact point referenced. That also gives Apple an opportunity to leverage the free iTunes U content into making schools and universities – along with itself – some money, linking purchases of apps and other textbooks in with one-click ease. All notes taken get pulled into the central iTunes U “My Notes” section, and clipping out portions – as well as changing color and the like – is tap-and-drag simple. iCloud is used to sync bookmarks and notes across multiple devices.

It’s potentially homeschoolers that could be the most impacted by iTunes U, especially when K-12 content begins to flood the app. All of a sudden, parents taking direct responsibility for their childrens’ education will have a full portfolio of lessons with which to work from. Even those in the traditional schooling system should find appeal here, though, with fewer of those “I don’t know how to help them learn” moments.

You can download the iTunes U app yourself from the App Store; let us know what you think in the comments!

A free update for the iPad, iBook 2 adds a new section for Textbooks in among the existing categories. The download process is the usual couple of taps, and then navigating interactive textbooks uses all the gestures and multitouch we’re familiar with from other apps on iOS devices.

Something you notice from the start is how smooth the iBooks textbooks experience is. The opening video plays instantly, galleries slide and swoop with no lag, and the transitions between text and full-screen animation is pause-free. Apple is, unsurprisingly, demonstrating them on the iPad 2, so we’ll have to wait and see how the first-generation – and single core – iPad handles multimedia-heavy texts.

Individual books are anything from a CD’s worth to as much as 3GB, though that does mean that you don’t need a data connection while reading. Everything is stored locally, which increases speed and usability; after all, there’s no point having a digital textbook if you can’t access it from a non-wirelessly-enabled classroom.

In short, iBooks 2 is amazing, and I wish I was back in school. You can download it yourself from the App Store now.

Smartphones

We certainly saw our fair share of smartphones on the floor this time around, the major bulk of them running either Windows Phone Mango or a modified version of Android Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich. One of the more interesting devices was Huawei’s Ascend P1 S, it being the new thinnest phone on earth, and its slightly fatter brother the P1, both of them strikingly thin. Next there were a couple of excellent value propositions, it would seem, from Pantech, they showing off two of the six new devices running on AT&T’s LTE network that’ll be up to speed by late this year – the Pantech Element is a waterproof tablet that, when you buy it, you basically get the Pantech Burst smartphone for free. Sony Experia came correct with their new set of Xperia devices with big specs and gigantic cameras: the Xperia ion having a 12 megapixel camera and the Xperia S being the one teased for so long. For Android phones the winner would have to be the Lenovo Racer-A, aka the first device to be running Intel’s Medfield chip – winning not just because it looks like a quality phone, but because it does indeed hold that record. Intel’s entry into the mobile market is likely going to have the longest lasting effect on the mobile industry while all these other phones get replaced – that’s for sure.

As for Windows Phones I’ll have to call a tie until we can review these devices extensively because they’re both so lovely: the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC Titan II. Both of these devices are bringing Windows Phone into the future, fighting head to head with the top guns at last.

BONUS: Since Samsung is insistent on saying this device is neither a smartphone or a tablet, here it is in the middle: the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note. All of its awesome features remain in-tact, it having a Snapdragon processor instead of an Exynos, and it comes in white as well as black, your choice!

- contributed by Chris “Burnsy” Burns

Tablets

As with smartphones, we’ve got a lot to be excited about in the hardware side of things, not least of all with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2 for strength and touchability. As for future-looking devices, the newest iteration of the ASUS Padfone looked oddly enticing. There were also some lovely reader refreshes like the Kyobo Mirasol eReader with its unique form of lighting, it replicating the light bouncing off a butterfly. Windows 8 made a bit of a showing with groups like Qualcomm and their S4 chip showing the possibilities of a Windows 8 mobile world. Acer came back with a new iteration of the Acer Iconia Tab complete with a Tegra 3 quad-core chip. Toshiba made a showing with two devices you might find rather familiar, the smaller version of the Thrive in the Toshiba Thrive 7 and the Toshiba Excite x10, the latter being the one to keep an eye on through 2012.

Then there’s the big guns, both of them winners, both of them coming from no less than Asus and toting, again, the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. First there was the undeniably inexpensively priced $249 7-inch quad-core Ice Cream Sandwich toting Asus MeMO 370t, a value we’re sure one whole heck of a lot of people will not be able to resist. Then there was the big showing of not only the Transformer Prime, but the Transformer Prime 700 series with its upgraded display and hardware. We saw the Prime running Skyrim via Splashtop, playing the first multiplayer mobile shooter in a new version of Shadowgun for Tegra, and all of it on Ice Cream Sandwich as the Transformer is now the world’s first Google-licensed Ice Cream Sandwich tablet.

- contributed by Chris “Burnsy” Burns

Headphones / Earbuds

As always, there was a surplus of new headphones this year. Of them, our top three were InSound by Cygnett, the 5-minute Eeers Sonofit earbuds, and the HD700 from Sennheiser. The InSound had very decent ‘active’ noise cancellation and are extremely comfortable. Though easily portable, they are still not built as well as the Sennheisers. The HD 700 instead implements ‘passive’ noise cancellation, and offers a much cleaner, crisper sound. But at CES, people look for innovation – and that’s why Eers by Sonofit were the best headphones. With Eers, anyone can create a pair of custom-fit earbuds within minutes, all of it for a cool $300 USD.

BONUS: don’t forget the conceptual Parrot Zik by Starck and the wild contributions by Skullcandy in the Mix Master headphones.

- contributed by Sam Koutroulakis

Speakers

Though there were certainly one whole heck of a lot of speakers out there, we’ve decided to concentrate on the smaller world of portable speakers for all you mobile people out there. For that, there are a few gems that stick out. First there’s the SuperTooth Disco 2, an upgrade from the already great Disco 1 model, now with plenty of color and a vertical form factor. As for green representations, we had a talk with the makers of Eink who now bring us the Eton Rukus Solar powered boombox, so green it’s accented with the color green, imagine that! As for the tiniest speaker worth a peek at outside a smartphone, that was clearly the Harman JBL on-tour Micro, complete with Iron Man color scheme! The winner of our hearts in this category would have to be the high-blasting Altec Lansing 5000 series all-in-one speakers, these certainly commanding the hoards when it comes to all-in-one power.

- contributed by Chris “Burnsy” Burns

Laptops

Ultrabooks were the hot ticket for the computer side of CES this year, with every major brand introducing new models at or just before the show. While Toshiba’s Windows 8 prototype wowed us with software and the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga showed off some amazing innovation in form factor, the top prize goes to Dell’s more humble XPS 13. Far from Dell’s usual utilitarian design, the XPS 13 Ultrabook is downright stunning, with a combination aluminum-carbon fiber frame that’s 15% smaller than the MacBook Air. It manages to cram a 13-inch screen into a 12-inch body, and with 300 nits of brightness it should be a joy to use. With a Core i5 or i7 processor, an SSD drive, 4GB of RAM and eight hours of rated battery life, the XPS 13 will be a major contender when it becomes available.

- contributed by Michael Crider

Cameras

There were a few cameras at CES that caught our eye. Canon’s revived PowerShot Digital ELPH 520HS crams some amazingly powerful glass into its tiny body, and Liquid Image’s Xtreme Sports Cams brings some great new features into a growing market. But the obvious winner for the show wasn’t even announced at CES: Nikon’s new flagship, the D4. This monster DSLR sets the standard for its line going forward, with insane ISO capabilities and forward-looking support for QXD. But the real innovation is a major upgrade in video capabilities, with dynamic cropping on the sensor for “zoomed” shots even on prime lenses, and the ability to actively monitor audio and stream video over HDMI. The D4 may well be the benchmark when it comes to DSLR video recording, a segment that has nowhere to go but up. At $6,000 it’s a little on the pricey side, but pro photographers will pay any price for the best – and when it comes to high-definition video in a comfortable DSLR format, the Nikon D4 will give it to them.

- contributed by Michael Crider

Televisions

Televisions were one of the hottest categories at CES this year, but not because of size. Previous shows were all about who can get the biggest panel out, but this year image quality ruled. LG and Samsung both introduced 55-inch OLED TVs with incredibly thin, light bodies, stunning black levels and color reproduction that’s the best we’ve ever seen. The best television of CES is Samsung’s Super OLED HDTV – we’re giving it the top spot because the image displayed was just slightly more vivid than LG’s. It’s a close match, however, and LG has the edge (ba-dum TISH) on style thanks to its 4mm, 16-pound body. Sharp’s battery powered AQUOS Freestyle gets a third place nod, because it’s a handy idea that the market is ready for.

- contributed by Michael Crider

Automotive Concept

There were two stand-out contenders at CES 2012 for automotive concepts, Audi and Mercedes. While our main hands-on write-ups of these two titans are going to be published early next week, I can tell you this now: Audi brought some heavy fire with a setup called Audi connect that included all of their innovations of 2011 including voice commands and Google Earth integration and made it explode with a touch-sensitive dial and a setup newly powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. Mercedes, on the other hand, had several concepts including a very similar in-car screen setup, this time connected to an iPhone, a couple of gesture-activated door demonstrations, and a box inside which a completely gesture-intensive console was shown. Both companies will have massively impressive vehicles in the very near future, that’s for certain.

- contributed by Chris “Burnsy” Burns

Accessories

Here at CES a large focus is also on accessories for all the electronics announced, and while we saw plenty of impressive designs like the new Wrapsol anti-slip pads we’ve decided on one. Cygnett is known for constructing well built, quality cases for phones and tablets, not to mention their durable tablet stands. Since the mobile phone market has exploded everyone has a few cases to offer but Cygnett’s offerings were one of the most memorable. With simple designs that are actually easy to both get on AND off while still protecting the product they were our clear winner.

For a video rundown on a few cases from Cygnett including their new Icon Art series by artist Nathan Jurevicius be sure to check out our Insider Talk with Cygnett Creative Director Sophie Swann.

- Contributed by Cory Gunther

Mobile Carrier

When caught up in the mass of tech news here at CES, we often forget that a team’s mobile collaboration is only as good as the signal they’re running on. There isn’t one, but more like two obstacles a team requires of its carrier to perform at maximum efficiency. The first is consistency; a reliable data signal that will always be there when needed. The second is actual data strength. Processing videos and uploading images over a fast connection is essential if you plan on delivering the best CES coverage. And for both requirements, Verizon 4G LTE was unbeatable for CES 2012. With speeds of up to 14Mbps on the showroom floor and a consistent signal throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center, other carriers couldn’t come close.

- contributed by Sam Koutroulakis

Our most used gear

When the topic of most used gear comes up it could mean anything based on what you did at CES. Some might just answer — my shoes. Obviously we used cameras just about every possible minute. Here at SlashGear we were busy looking for wall power outlets and churning out stories to share with our readers and have as a team came up with a final conclusion. When it comes to outright sheer production MacBook’s rule. When it comes to mobile production it’s actually the complete opposite and Android rules, with only one iPhone on our team with a whole hoard of Galaxy Nexus for the rest.

Apple’s Macbook Pro and Air gave our team most of the tools needed (not counting a few heavy cameras) and our Macs outnumbers PC laptops 6-to-1. When we change over to the mobile aspect it was completely the opposite and we had 2 iPhones compared to about 10 Android smartphones, and 4 LTE Android tablets. With large screens, big batteries and awesome wired/wireless tethering options with Verizon 4G LTE our Android phones were the clear choice — and winner.

- Contributed by Cory Gunther

CES 2012′s Top Innovation: No One

While there certainly have been some interesting bits here and there at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, nothing made us absolutely drop our collective jaws. You could take the winners from the categories above and choose your favorite, sure, but nothing blew us away to the point of saying it absolutely won the show. It seemed as though most companies came to the show as a matter of requirement rather than because they wanted to show off their biggest and best. Instead we’re hoping for quite a few individual showings throughout the year from manufacturers as it continues to be the thing to do when you want the most individual attention.

When Vincent Nguyen, SlashGear’s Editor in Chief, was asked what he thought represented CES this year, his response was simple “nothing.”

The fact that this isn’t the only time we’ve heard this response from not just our own staff, but many of the people we spoke with throughout the convention may well be the first indication that bigger shows like CES are on their way out – what do you think?

The XPS 13 isn’t Dell’s first ultraportable notebook but, as Tim Peters – CSMB Client Business Strategy and Planning at Dell, pointed out to us, previous models have had more than their share of compromises. “Adamo… beautiful thin, but no substance. Two thousand dollars! We had XPS which we had to crowbar in the technology, very chunky.”

“We looked at XPS and a key trend of consumerization of IT … You had a consumer that wanted aesthetic appeal, premium design, craftsmanship and a lightweight design, and Apple’s MacBook Air came and in really hit that hard. They always wanted the instant-on, accessible data and location-aware of a device like a tablet. Then they also wanted horsepower and substance: I don’t want to compromise on taking a Core i3 only, I want something real to be productive. And, I’d like to be able to use this as my personal device, and the only way an IT manager would allow that to happen is that if it’s data-secure.”

The display is a 13.3-inch 1366 x 768 panel running at 300-nits, and covered in a sheet of edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass, powered by Intel HD 3000 graphics. Above is a 1.3-megapixel webcam and dual-array digital microphone. Connectivity includes WiFi a/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, a single USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, mini DisplayPort and a headset jack. Unlike some rival ultrabooks, Dell has managed to squeeze in a full-sized backlit keyboard.

“We started our development a year and half ago,” Peters explained, “it’s taken us a lot of time – in fact we’re the last ones to come out with an ultrabook – because we were crafting something a level above in terms of innovation.” Although Dell obviously had other ultrabooks in mind when it designed the XPS 13, Apple’s MacBook Air has obviously also been a consideration. The new Dell’s display actually offers a similar viewing area to that of the 13-inch Air, but in a 15-percent smaller device.

Rather than solely rely on aluminum, like Apple, HP and others, Dell turned to carbon-fiber for the XPS 13′s base. “Carbon-fiber has two functional performance benefits,” the company says, “it dissipates the heat better – it’s cooler on the lap and in the hands – and it’s lighter.” That improvement in heat management has meant Dell can slot in up to Core i7 chips without worrying about overheating. In fact, Dell mentioned that the company’s engineers are actually working on a fanless version, though there’s no telling when that might arrive.

Hands-on, it feels impressively light and thin. The keyboard is nicely spaced and the keys themselves have reasonable travel given the limits of the keytray. There are plenty of neat details, like the battery gage on the side, while Dell tells us that the machined aluminum lid saves even more weight compared to some rival’s punched-aluminum production. The speakers are embedded underneath the keyboard, creating a surprisingly loud and clear soundstage, though unsurprisingly they lack some bass.

LIke other ultrabooks, the XPS 13 has Intel Rapid Start for boot times of around 5s, and instant-on resume from standby. However, Dell also implemented Intel SmartConnect, which periodically wakes the ultrabook to check calendar, email, social networking accounts and other data so that you’re up to date as soon as you open the lid. There’s also location-awareness, setting up apps for nearby restaurants, ATMs and other POIs with your current position.

Enterprise customers get Dell’s usual array of custom imaging and BIOS settings, along with asset tagging and BitLocker data encryption with TPM. There’s also ProSupport, with Dell Command Center support for speedy repairs and replacements. As for all the labels and stickers most Windows laptops are plastered in, on the new XPS they’re hidden away out of sight.

Dell expects the Core i5 version of the XPS 13 – with 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD – to start at under $1,000 when the ultrabook ships in February. Final pricing will be decided just prior to launch.

“It’s the world’s best ultrabook” Peters concluded, “the smallest, the most powerful, the most aesthetically pleasing, the best to touch, the best at being enterprise-ready… the best of any product out there.” We’ll have to wait until we can put the XPS 13 through its paces in the full SlashGear review to find out whether we feel the same.

Head-on, and the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus looks no different to the GSM model. You still get the same 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED HD display and 2-megapixel front facing camera, with a gently curved “Contour Display” doing a little to help those with regular sized hands stretch their thumb all the way to the top of the screen.

It’s when you look at the side-profile or the back that things get different. Verizon’s version of the Galaxy Nexus has a larger battery and is a little bulkier than the GSM variant; offering 100mAh extra and a suitably swollen battery cover to accommodate it. Peel off the (still flimsy and plasticky) panel and the Li-Ion pack is noticeably different in shape and size, while the SIM slot has been moved slightly and now accommodates one of Verizon’s LTE microSIMs.

In the hand, the extra thickness and weight are only really noticeable if you’ve spent time holding the GSM version. It certainly doesn’t make for an overly chunky phone, though it’s worth noting that a 4.65-inch display does leave both variants large – particularly in length – in comparison to, say, an iPhone 4S.

With LTE the flagship feature, we wasted no time in running through a few 4G speed tests to see just what sort of performance Verizon Galaxy Nexus owners can expect. We’ll do more testing ahead of the review, but we’re already seeing average download speeds of 11.69Mbps and upload speeds of 7.16Mbps.

We also shot some new camera samples, to see if there was any difference in performance from the Verizon model’s 5-megapixel sensor and the new Android 4.0.2 firmware. You can see the results in the gallery below.

What impact LTE has on battery life remains to be seen: we’ll be putting the Verizon Galaxy Nexus through its paces ahead of the full review to figure that out. Until then, enjoy our hands-on video and gallery, complete with some side-by-side comparisons between the GSM and LTE versions.

With these second-generation tablets, Motorola has addressed some of its early criticism. The aluminum rear on both the 10.1-inch and the 8.2-inch tablets feels great and is flex-free, with a pleasing matte finish that makes it almost as easy to grip as the rubberized edges. Unfortunately Motorola didn’t listen to the almost universal criticism of its power button placement on the first-gen XOOM, and in fact opted to make it even smaller this time around.

Still, up front is a new IPS display running at 1280 x 800 on both models, and it’s a vast improvement. Viewing angles, brightness and resilience to glare are all improved, making for slates that are far more useful for watching videos, browsing the web and gaming. Unfortunately, ASUS has moved the Android tablet display market on somewhat, with its IPS+ panel being better still than either of Motorola’s screens, but as long as you don’t look at them all side-by-side you shouldn’t be too disappointed.

The 10.1-inch XYBOARD feels familiar in the hand, being a relatively standard size; the 8.2-inch version is slightly smaller, at 216 x 139.8 x 8.99 mm and 390g, and makes for a more comfortable one-handed experience. That’s particularly useful when in portrait orientation, the XYBOARD 8.2 making for a solid ereader and news reader with apps like Google Currents and Pulse.

Problem is, Motorola and Verizon have rushed to get the two XYBOARD models on the market before the all-important holiday sales period, and that means they fall in-between another big milestone: the arrival of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Currently officially available on only the Galaxy Nexus, ICS promises to polish away Honeycomb’s rough edges, streamline its judders and generally bring it further up to compete with Apple’s iPad.

A competitive price would challenge that, but Verizon seems determined to squeeze as much in data fees as possible from its tablet customers. Both XYBOARD models support 4G LTE for high-speed mobile data, but you’ll pay considerably over the length of a two-year agreement for it. Factor in at least $429.99 upfront, too.

Still, there’s the possibility that the tablets themselves could prove sufficiently engaging that we’d opt to buy now and wait for ICS later. We’ll be putting them both through their paces in time for the full SlashGear review, but until then enjoy our hands-on image gallery (video coming soon)!

UI and Widgets

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then Ice Cream Sandwich is a whole lot closer to heaven than previous iterations of Android. Google has comprehensively reworked the Android interface, borrowing elements from Gingerbread and Honeycomb and combining them into a UI that’s distinctive and cohesive.

Android ICS and Galaxy Nexus Review

A liberal use of black elements – including the status bar, menu shortcuts and app launcher background – helps ICS blend in with the display bezel on the Galaxy Nexus (and also potentially has battery benefits, given OLED panels use more power to show bright colors). Bright blue highlights mix with grey and white for less important elements along with text, and the new Roboto font looks great. The dedicated menu button of prior versions has been replaced by a more straightforward menu shortcut – it took us a little while to get used to its new position, usually up in the top right corner of an app – and Google has squeezed in a slightly smaller row of persistent icons for common features so that you spend less time digging.

The homescreen consists of five swipeable panes, each with room for a 4×4 icon grid, a selection of widgets or a combination of the two. The Google search bar – with a voice search shortcut – is now persistent at the top, and a quick-launcher bar of four shortcuts (phone, people, messaging and internet by default) is fixed at the bottom, flanking the app menu shortcut. At the very bottom are the new virtual back, home and app-switcher buttons, automatically rotating to suit landscape-aspect software, and minimizing/disappearing at times to maximize the screen real-estate on offer.

Homescreen shortcuts are now dragged in from the app launcher, rather than added after a long-press on the pane – doing that allows you to change the wallpaper, but not add icons or widgets. Instead, widgets get their own gallery alongside apps in the launcher, though we found some third-party apps don’t yet show preview thumbnails but only the size each widget variant will take up. Some of Google’s own widgets – like bookmarks and calendar – can be dynamically adjusted in size once you place them. Dropping one icon onto another automatically creates a pop-up folder, which can be renamed by tapping its title.

For the first time there’s native support for screenshots – hold down the power button and volume-down button simultaneously, and after a second the screenshot is taken and then flagged up for easy access in the notifications bar – and you can capture the OS in various states. We were able to fire off a screenshot while simultaneously holding the notification slider halfway down the display, for instance.

Lock-screen options include the usual PIN and pattern unlock, as well as the new Face Unlock system covered later in the review. If you avoid a lock altogether, then you can load straight into the camera app by dragging the unlock-slider in the other direction. Unfortunately that option disappears as soon as you add some type of security.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first hands-on [Hong Kong]

Multitasking

Honeycomb’s thumbnail-based app switcher is borrowed for Ice Cream Sandwich, and it works very well. The multitasking button gets a dedicated spot on the screen, rather than being triggered by a long-press on the home button, and now shows a convenient small preview of each app’s status.

As well as tapping to re-enter the app, you can swipe it off to the right to close it down; alternatively, a long-press offers the option to remove it from the list or open its info page, showing storage use, permissions and other details. Altogether it works brilliantly, and we were soon whipping around from app to app.

Notifications

Android’s notifications system has always been reasonably comprehensive, but ICS introduces new levels of granular control over alerts. As well as clearing the entire list in one fell swoop, you can individually swipe away each notification: that’s particularly useful when several apps have just updated, and you want to get rid of the confirmations without losing, say, a calendar reminder or new SMS alert just yet. There’s a handy Settings shortcut in the notifications drop-down too.

Keyboard and Voice Input

The Galaxy Nexus’ capacious display certainly doesn’t hurt typing accuracy, but there’s plenty of improvements going on behind the scenes in ICS. Responsiveness and auto-correction accuracy have each received a huge boost, while errors are highlighted with red underline and can be easily picked through when you’ve got your email, SMS or other text down on the screen. Double-tapping a word highlights it – with easily dragged selection nubs – and offers a “Replace” option with suggestions from the dictionary. Alternatively you can teach ICS new words, and there’s a choice of auto-correction “aggressiveness” to suit how slapdash your typing is.

Active Voice Dictation, Unlock to Camera, and more

Voice input, meanwhile, has been improved to support up to real-time transcription, though obviously you need a live data connection for Google’s server-side processing to work. Accuracy proved better than previous versions of Android, though still – like Siri dictated messages on the iPhone 4S – required some tidying up before it was ready for prime-time.

Phone and People

Android supports SIP VoIP natively, with the potential for several such accounts to be registered and picked between for outgoing calls. Incoming VoIP call support is optional, with ICS warning that it will have a detrimental affect on battery life. Of course you can also use Skype and other VoIP apps from the Android Market.

The other new addition to the phone app is “quick response”, a list of preset and custom text messages that can be used to reject an incoming call. If you’re in a meeting, for instance, you can fire back an “I’ll call you later” message to explain why you’re not picking up.

Android’s contacts app has been gradually getting more complex since the first-gen release, with Google borrowing OEM ideas for integrating social networking updates in with individual contact records, and including that in the core app itself. In ICS the People app is more of a hub than a simple address book: it will obviously show individual records, pulled in from your various Google, Exchange and other accounts, but also synchronizes what groups you may have organized them into.

Tap an individual – or a group – and you see their thumbnail picture, assuming the social networking services they’re using, like Google+ or Twitter, have one, along with their contact details. Swipe to the right and you see a summary of their recent activity, including how many +1 or comments they have on Google+ posts; tapping within the activity list opens the relevant app. Finally there’s a favorites pane, allowing you to pin your most frequent contacts to the top of the list, as well as showing those you get in touch with – either by phone, email or some other method – most often underneath.

Browser

Mobile internet access is, along with email, one of the most common uses for a smartphone, and happily the ICS browser is an excellent way to get online. Performance of the WebKit-based app is a particular highlight, with pinch-zooming and panning both silky smooth. However, it’s also fast under the hood: we ran SunSpider, the test of JavaScript performance, and the Galaxy Nexus came up with a score of 1,987.3ms overall. The Acid3 test of standards compatibility scored a cool 100/100.

Tab previews are carried over from the multitasking UI, with the same thumbnail style; you can have up to 16 open at once, and side-swipe to close them down. Meanwhile, under the “Labs” features there’s a useful semi-circular menu that can be dragged on-screen with a thumb-swipe gesture from the right or left edge. That offers quick access to the browser tabs – with a list of them floating next to the menu while your thumb is on the button – as well as the address bar and options menu, but otherwise leaves more screen space for the browser itself.

The option to save webpages locally for reading later – even if you have no connection – is present, complete with images, though unlike with some offline reader apps there’s no way to specify a number of links “deep” to follow and locally cache as well. Try to navigate beyond the saved page and you’ll need to go online again. More useful perhaps is the “Request desktop site” option which attempts to bypass the slimmed-down mobile pages many websites now offer, and head straight to the full-fat version.

One topical omission is Flash Player support. ICS has launched without a version of mobile Flash, and we had no luck attempting to install the old version. Adobe has confirmed that it plans to have an updated version for Android 4.0 ready by the end of the year. Until then, figure you’ll be spending more time in the dedicated YouTube app, which has been updated to prioritize higher-quality videos.

Gmail

Android’s Gmail experience has always been the best of any mobile platform, and ICS raises the bar again. Commonly accessed controls have been shifted to the fore, like managing archiving and tags, along with marking emails as read/unread and trashing them. Rather than small arrows to move through messages in order, swiping takes you forward and back, though unfortunately there’s no pinch-zooming on offer. You do get offline sync though – set by default to 30 days, but user-adjustable – which keeps a cache of the most recent emails for browsing when you’re without a signal. Best of all is the speed, though: hardly any lag when opening even the busiest of inboxes, while messages themselves load in short order.

Calendar

Swiping and pinch-zooming make themselves known in the Calendar app, supporting all the various agendas from your Google, Exchange and other accounts, with the new ability to – webOS style – pinch to expand or shrink how much of the day/week/month is on-screen at a time. That’s useful for flipping between an overview and getting to grips with the specifics of a busy morning, for instance. Color coding is obviously supported, and there are day/week/month/agenda views.

Camera

Google’s new camera app introduces zero shutter lag, with the ICS promise being virtually no delay between opening the app, firing off a shot and then capturing subsequent images. In practice, it’s certainly quicker than previous iterations of Android, though we’ve found some of our images have ended up showing blur simply from the movement of tapping screen.

Touch focus works well, though we’d prefer to see both the digital zoom and settings options on-screen simultaneously, not toggle between them. There’s certainly enough space for it. Alternatively pinch-zoom would be a welcome addition, as on the iPhone. For stills there are five scene modes – auto, action, night, sunset and party – along with adjustable exposure, white balance settings and flash control – auto, on and off – while for video there are white balance and LED light options, together with time-lapse shooting (ranging from 1s to 10s). Cleverly you can tap the screen during video recording and save an image, without pausing the video capture.

Video also gets a range of digital effects. Face-tracking is used to morph your subjects in real-time – squeezing their face, giving them oversized or undersized eyes, mouth or nose – or digitally change the background behind them. Having chosen your background (either a preset or an image from the Gallery) you then step out of frame, and when you return you’re digitally overlaid on top. It works, just about, though is more gimmick than anything useful.

Finally, there’s panorama mode, which allows you to create a wide image pieced together automatically from multiple frames. It’s certainly easy to use – hit the button and then pan around, with an on-screen gage showing your progress and pop-up warnings telling you if you’re going too fast – though the end results aren’t always equally impressive. Sometimes ICS seems to struggle pasting the different frames together neatly.

Once you’ve taken shots, there’s on-device photo editing, including Instagram-style filters, red eye reduction, color tweaking and various effects that can be applied. Edited shots are saved as separate copies, leaving the original intact. Sharing is made simple, with a drop-down menu of all the options and Gmail a dedicated button at the top.

Data and Battery Monitoring

As more people get to grips with the capabilities of their smartphones, carriers seem to be taking backward steps with their data networks, reducing monthly allowances and following through on expensive out-of-bundle overage fees. ICS introduces granular monitoring of data use, with the option to set global limits – custom to your own particular tariff – as well as investigate which apps have been chomping through megabytes. If you find a particular culprit, you can choose to curtail its background data access altogether. The whole thing could be overwhelming, but Android 4.0′s straightforward draggable guidelines over a graph of use makes it somewhat more approachable.

Similar insights are available for battery use, with a breakdown of which apps or services are most demanding – the core Android OS and the screen were the most gluttonous in the Galaxy Nexus, unsurprisingly – though there’s obviously less flexibility over what to do with power-hungry software. Basically, your choice is to shut it down or use it less, though at least seeing which are the worst culprits can help you eke out more runtime when you’re running low.

Face Unlock

Is a phone that recognizes your face a gimmick or the next step in biometrics? Right now, though certainly eye-catching, Google’s Face Unlock feature in Ice Cream Sandwich is more toy than dependable security feature. The concept is clever: you teach your phone what your face looks like, and then next time you go to unlock it it merely looks at you and lets you in.

Facial Recognition, Battery Life, GPU Rendering, and more

Unfortunately, reliability proved patchy. The recognition rate is fairly decent – as long as the lighting is good – but we still experienced more than a few occasions where the Galaxy Nexus would claim either not to recognize us or, even more insulting, that it couldn’t even find a face in-shot. If you’re wearing sunglasses or a hat, that can also confuse the system; we’d like to see multiple profiles supported, so that we could show ICS what we look like in a few different ways and hopefully boost recognition accuracy.

There’s also a reasonably pregnant pause in-between waking the phone up and Face Unlock starting: time within which you could easily have swiped out a traditional security pattern or punched in a PIN. That’s before you get to the well-publicized fact that you can fool the system with a photo of your face. In short, it’s a cool trick for (well lit) parties, but not something we’d entrust anything legitimately confidential to.

Android Beam

Google is already pushing NFC as a mobile payments system, but Android Beam uses the short-range wireless technology for data transfer instead. Given the speed and proximity limitations, it’s being positioned as a way to quickly exchange links – such as to webpages, apps, YouTube videos and the like – along with contacts and directions between two phones.

Obviously each phone has to support NFC, which meant we were unable to test it on our Galaxy Nexus review unit, though if we had a Nexus S we could apparently transfer the data as a collected tag. However, having tried it during previous press access, we know it works: simply hold two phones back-to-back, tap the “share” button on-screen, and the data zips across.

Android Market

Google’s download store looks just as we’ve seen in recent updates on older devices, with a refreshed block-based UI that’s more engaging than previous iterations. Unfortunately the actual content of the Android Market isn’t entirely up to speed with ICS: as well as the obvious Flash incompatibility, we’ve spotted a few other apps that aren’t included in search results as they’re not yet supported. The official Tumblr app doesn’t work, and several games were also missing.

We’ve also noticed some issues with widgets, though that could also be connected to the font change. Most obvious is the Facebook widget, the “What’s on your mind?” text no longer fitting into its usual space. These problems are likely to get addressed as more developers get access to Ice Cream Sandwich.

Wrap-Up

Good software does its job in a clean, consistent way. Great software does all that, but then delights you with its usefulness, the thoughtful moments peppered throughout by developers who really care about their work. That’s the level Android has been elevated to with Ice Cream Sandwich.

Core apps, like the browser, calendar and Gmail “just work” while the UI around them feels tailor-made for multitasking. Google has pared down unnecessary lists and, for the most part, extra button-taps, replacing them with clear iconography, easily learned gestures and bold graphics. It all looks great, certainly better than any manufacturer skin we’ve seen.

Google’s Nexus range always raises the bar for Android OEMs, laying out the company’s expectations for the next generation of mobile devices. With Ice Cream Sandwich, Google has done the same for Android software developers: set a standard by which it – and users – will judge their apps. If Android coders can live up to that challenge, Ice Cream Sandwich will mark a huge turning point in the platform’s lifecycle. Android has always had huge promise: Ice Cream Sandwich delivers on it.

Chris Davies contributed to this Galaxy Nexus review.

Hardware

The Galaxy Nexus’ Samsung lineage is clear. The bowed fascia – which Samsung calls a “Contour Display” and claims makes for easier one-handed use and more comfortable calls – is carried over from the Nexus S, while the rest of the design is strongly reminiscent of the Galaxy S II series of handsets. That does mean a plastic rather than metal body, here finished in matte silver, though the battery cover – while as flimsy as those on other recent Samsung phones – does have a semi-soft finish that’s easily gripped.

The curved profile emphasizes the taper, the top edge being pleasingly narrow and then swelling to a speaker bulge at the bottom complete with the microUSB port and 3.5mm headphone jack. On the left edge is a volume rocker, easily found with the finger and with enough button travel to leave you certain you’ve pressed it, while on the right edge is the power/lock button and, further down, three charging contacts for the various docks Samsung and Google plan to eventually release. For the moment, though, official accessories amount to the microUSB charger, wired handsfree-kit and microUSB cable found in the retail box.

Behind the fortified glass is arguably the Galaxy Nexus’ crowning glory, a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD touchscreen running at 1280 x 720 resolution. That’s almost the same number of pixels as Samsung fits into the 10.1-inch display of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, which gives you an idea of the sort of density we’re talking about in the Googlephone. Much has been made – and significant worry voiced – over Samsung’s use of a PenTile display, but in practice colors are bright and vividly saturated, viewing angles are broad, and blacks ink-rich in their darkness.

Galaxy Nexus boot-up screen

The only visual aberration we’ve spotted is a slightly apparent texturing of blocks of pale colors when the backlight is low, almost as if the screen was printed on fine-grained paper. It’s little noticeable, and disappears when the backlight is turned up. Samsung has opted for a draconian auto-backlight setting, keeping things as dim as possible, which can somewhat emphasize the issue. Make no mistake, though, this is a very minor caveat in what’s otherwise a fantastic screen.

Although the display measurements might lead you to expect an oversized handset, Google’s decision to make the persistent Android controls part of the on-screen UI meant Samsung could extend the panel deep into the Galaxy Nexus’ chin. It fits the hand neatly, the curved corners leading to a device that feels more like the 4.3-inch Galaxy S II than you’d believe.

Inside, there’s a 1.2GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and, in this HSPA+ version, 16GB of storage (which can be freely used for either user-data or apps). The LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus has up to 32GB, and since neither has a microSD card slot that’s your lot. There’s also a 384MHz PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Connectivity includes pentaband HSPA+ (capable of up to 21Mbps downloads and 5.76Mbps uploads, network depending) meaning the phone can work on both AT&T and T-Mobile USA’s networks, along with quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth 3.0+HS, NFC and MHL HDMI support with the right adapter cable. The LTE model will support Verizon’s 4G network and be on sale before the end of the year.

GPS, an accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, proximity and light sensors, and a barometer round out the main sensors. A 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and a single LED flash – capable of 1080p 30fps video recording – is on the back, while 1.3-megapixel camera for up to 720p video calls is on the front, above the display. A multi-color notification light hides in the Nexus’ chin.

Overall, it’s a handsome and distinctive device, that manages to squeeze in a large display without sacrificing the ability to drop it comfortably into a front trouser pocket. More metal in the construction would be a treat for the fingers, perhaps, but the Galaxy Nexus is still flex-free and feels sturdy.

Software and Performance

Hardware is only part of the story with the Galaxy Nexus: software – specifically Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich – is a considerable part of the smartphone’s appeal. We’ve separately reviewed Google’s new software platform comprehensively here, but will pick through some of the highlights on the Galaxy Nexus.

ICS’ predominantly black interface blends seamlessly into the Nexus’ screen bezel, particularly effective when it comes to the virtual back/home/app-switch buttons at the bottom. Google’s new Roboto font looks brilliant, but the most significant improvement is the consistency throughout. Where Android once felt heaped together, a framework for Google’s various apps to gain traction, the platform as a whole feels far more connected and uniform. Introducing third-party apps will obviously take its toll on that, but we’re hoping developers use ICS’ style as a guideline when they bring their software up to speed.

Although the TI dual-core is capable of 1.2GHz in the Galaxy Nexus (the chip itself is offered at up to 1.5GHz in other devices) during our testing it spent less than 5-percent of its time at that speed. In fact, over 85-percent of the time the CPU was running at just 350MHz, with the remainder somewhere around the 700-850MHz point. That aggressive throttling – and the fact that the phone never felt slow – is testament to Ice Cream Sandwich’s frugality and refinement.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first hands-on [Hong Kong]

The Galaxy Nexus doesn’t support USB Mass Storage mode, though that’s a limitation of the phone – because of the absence of a memory card slot – rather than Ice Cream Sandwich. Instead, you get MTP support, which means basically the same plug-and-play access on Windows systems and, with the free Android File Transfer app installed, on Mac computers. There’s also a PTP camera mode, allowing for access by camera software.

It’s worth reading our full Ice Cream Sandwich review for all the details on Google’s new mobile OS.

NFC

Near-Field Communications (NFC) hasn’t quite come of age in cellphones yet, but that’s not for Google’s lack of trying. The Galaxy Nexus is the second in the Googlephone series to support NFC, the Nexus S already being put to work supporting Google Wallet for wireless payments.

On the Galaxy Nexus, however, NFC is initially being positioned as a peer-to-peer networking technology. Android Beam, a new ICS feature, allows for straightforward swapping of contacts, webpages, YouTube video links, directions and apps, simply by holding two NFC-enabled handsets back-to-back. A sharing dialog pops up, you tap it and the on-screen content is blasted across to the other phone.

Obviously both devices need to have NFC and they need to be running Ice Cream Sandwich for it to work seamlessly; the Nexus S will apparently receive the data as a collected tag. That’s going to be a sizable limitation, certainly while the Galaxy Nexus is the only ICS device around, and even after the Nexus S gets its promised ICS update. So far, Android OEMs have proved generally reluctant to fit NFC because of the limited number of applications for it; indeed, we were unable to try Android Beam during our testing, as we only had a single Galaxy Nexus. From previous experience, however, we know it works, and it’s likely to encourage manufacturers to include NFC as a basic element of the Android experience moving forward.

Camera

5-megapixels doesn’t look like much on paper – after all, Samsung has been pushing out 8-megapixel handsets for some time now – but as many spec-chasing manufacturers have discovered, there’s far more to creating a good picture than just the sensor’s raw abilities. The Galaxy Nexus is still capable of 1080p Full HD at 30fps of course, and even its front-facing camera is good for 720p HD.

ICS’ camera UI introduces an extra tap before you can switch between still photos, panoramic photos or video recording, whereas flipping between the main and front cameras is a single tap away. We’d rather see those reversed. A side-scrolling settings menu offers five scene modes – auto, action, night, sunset and party – along with adjustable exposure, white balance settings, flash control – auto, on and off – and a digital zoom. Google is particularly proud of the zero-lag shutter, with tap-autofocus and actually grabbing still images considerably faster than on previous Android phones.

The final results can be great, but it’s not a home run. With sufficient light, images look natural and exposure is handled well, though colors are more muted than other recent Samsung Android phones we’ve used. Indoors, the Galaxy Nexus generally held up well in terms of avoiding too much noise, though occasionally the reduced shutter-lag technology actually proved something of a hindrance rather than a boon, with slight blurring showing up in the final shots.

Video, meanwhile, can be recording in 480p, 720p or 1080p resolution, with control over white balance and whether the LED flash is used as a video light. However, there are also some more complex features, like time-lapse, which allows you to create a movie clip consisting of snapshots at various intervals (ranging from 1s to 10s), and a range of digital effects. The latter can either use face-tracking to morph your subjects in real-time – squeezing their face, giving them oversized or undersized eyes, mouth or nose – as well as digitally change the background behind them. As in Apple’s PhotoBooth app, you choose your background (either a preset or an image from the Gallery) and then step out of frame, and when you return you’re digitally overlaid on top. It works, just about, though is more gimmick than anything useful.

Thankfully video quality itself is far from being a gimmick. Given plenty of light, 720p/1080p HD clips are crisp and very watchable. Less light and things begin to suffer, with noticeable noise in darker areas of the frame. Google is rightly proud of its continuous focus system, however, which generally had no issues grabbing and clinging to a subject when lighting was good, and only suffered the occasional moment of hunting when things got darker.

Panorama mode, finally, is options-free: hit the shutter release and pan the Galaxy Nexus to the left or right, with a guide frame showing your progress at the bottom and warning messages if you move too fast. At the end, ICS cobbles the whole thing into a wide photo, though the end-results proved a mixed bag in our testing. Sometimes the joins were neatly fashioned; other times there were duplicated elements and it looked more like the Nexus had simply blurred the edges together.

Phone and Battery

Samsung fits the Galaxy Nexus with twin microphones for active noise-cancellation during calls, and that – along with a tenacious grip on a mobile signal – added up to above-average call performance. Incoming audio was crisp and loud, while those we spoke to had no problems hearing us even with street noise in the background. The rear speaker could have ramped up louder than the current maximum for our liking, however.

As well as regular voice calls, Ice Cream Sandwich supports VoIP, both from third-party services like Skype and native SIP support. If you have one or more SIP accounts you can direct your calls over that VoIP network rather than through your carrier’s voice network, as well as optionally receive incoming calls too (ICS warns this could have a detrimental affect on battery life). It’s important to remember that we were testing the HSPA+ version of the Galaxy Nexus, not the LTE model which will arrive on Verizon by the end of the year.

That LTE model will have a slightly larger battery than the HSPA+ version: the Galaxy Nexus we tested has a removable 1,750 mAh Li-Ion pack, whereas the LTE model increases that slightly to 1,850 mAh (with an ensuing increase in bulk, albeit relatively minor). Samsung quotes up to 12hrs of talktime or 270hrs of standby time on a full charge , though obviously typical smartphone use consists of a far broader range of tasks than just voice calls.

It’s certainly easy to run down the Galaxy Nexus’ battery in relatively short order. The big screen, usability of Ice Cream Sandwich and general performance meant it was hard to keep our hands off the phone: with above-average use, push-email turned on, using both 3G and WiFi at various times, we had to top up before the day was through. However, with more typical use – some browsing, push email, Google+, Facebook and Twitter, a couple of voice calls and SMS, some photographs and Google Maps use – and with WiFi turned off all day, the Galaxy Nexus went from full to around 25-percent in just under 15hrs.

We’ll have to wait until we can test the LTE version to see if Samsung and ICS have been able to address the issue of 4G’s prodigious hunger for power.

Wrap-Up

Make no mistake, this is the best Android phone around today. It’s impossible to divorce Samsung’s hardware from the Ice Cream Sandwich experience, for the moment at least. That may change as more manufactures offer Android 4.0 phones, but for now it’s tough to think of going back to a Gingerbread or earlier device. ICS’ finessed software works beautifully with Samsung’s hardware and – with the exception of the camera, perhaps, which can be a minor blot on the Galaxy Nexus’ score sheet – the sum of the two parts is massively compelling.

Ice Cream Sandwich will spread, but even then the Galaxy Nexus’ hardware will likely prove a strong argument to go with the Googlephone rather than something else. The 720p HD display is incredible, the dual-core processor swift and the HSPA+ connection fast; that speed will only increase when the LTE version arrives. Those addicted to photography may want to look elsewhere, but everyone else can be reassured that the Galaxy Nexus is one of the finest devices on the market today.

Chris Davies contributed to this Galaxy Nexus review.

Android 3.0 meets smartphone is our first impression of ICS, though the 720p display on the Galaxy Nexus means the resolution isn’t far off what a regular tablet might offer. Most of the best elements of previous phones and tablets are present, with a black, blue and silver color scheme that works well and helps the controls and notification bar blend neatly into the black screen bezel.

Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on:

The app switcher – with thumbnail previews – has been carried over from Honeycomb, and you can either swipe to end it or, by tapping and holding the thumbnail, remove it from the list or open its info. There a “Force Close” option can be found. Unfortunately, tapping and holding any of the five desktop panes – which don’t zoom out into an overview of all five – now only brings up options to change the wallpaper. If you want to add a shortcut or widget, you now have to do that from the app menu: either press and hold an app icon to place it, or swipe over to the widgets menu to choose from a gallery of active content. The app menu itself now scrolls horizontally, not vertically.

Google is particularly pushing the facial recognition unlock system in its ICS promo, though as well-publicized there are some issues remaining. Biggest is the somewhat patchy security; Google does warn during setup, which basically involves lining your face up in a dotted outline and letting Android “learn” you, that someone who looks similar to you might be able to unlock your phone.

It’ll also recognize a photo of you, and conversely if we removed our glasses ICS couldn’t then recognize us. Failed face unlock attempts kick you to either the regular PIN or passcode pages. In short, while this is a clever gimmick – and as long as you don’t hang around with doppelgangers a reasonable way to prevent people casually picking up your phone and digging around – those seriously interested in security should opt for the old-fashioned methods. It’s worth noting that while there’s a camera shortcut on the lock screen normally, it disappears when you set PIN/code security, introducing some delay in comparison to iOS 5.

Real-time voice transcription is also new, and we’ve found it works roughly 80-percent of the time we tried it. Even if you don’t use the dictation features, the new text editing tools – with an in-line spellcheck – seem to work more smoothly than in Gingerbread and earlier versions.

Galaxy Nexus ICS first-boot and setup:

There’s a lot more functionality out-of-the-box than in previous versions of Android. Whereas Google once left its core apps – such as the camera – for third-party developers to improve on, ICS brings its own functionality. Images can be edited, with filters, effects, red-eye reduction, annotation and more, all with the native photo viewer, and there are face-tracking real-time effects for use during video recording, which can squeeze or stretch your mouth, eyes or other features. Like PhotoBooth on iOS, you can even change the background behind you for some impromptu greenscreen action, though our experience suggested this is more gimmick than anything else.

If anything, though, a more complete, consistent experience is our initial takeaway from Ice Cream Sandwich. Google has delivered more than the bare minimum across the board, and it feels like the company has really listened to how people use their smartphones. Multitasking is brought to the fore – the app switcher button is one of the permanent triad along the bottom of the screen – and the People app corrals contacts across networks and services into one easily-glanced place. Factor in Android’s existing sharing abilities (now with some neat tweaks, like your last sharing method getting its own spot on the button bar, on the assumption you might want to use it again subsequently) and that’s a solid foundation for 4.0; what remains is for third-party developers to get their apps up to speed too.

We’ll be putting Ice Cream Sandwich through its paces thoroughly for our full review, so until then enjoy the hands-on gallery and video demos!

Our unit comes ready for HSPA+ on both AT&T and T-Mobile USA, pentaband HSPA/WCDMA support being a most welcome change from the previous Nexus S. Samsung is also preparing an LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus, set to launch on Verizon in the US sometime before the end of the year. It’s not a small device, the curvy form-factor having grown to 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94 mm and 135g, but Samsung takes advantage of that scale to fit a sizable 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display.

It’s not just inches that the new screen offers, but pixels too: at 1280 x 720 this is one of the rare 720p HD-capable smartphones. The curved display looks incredible, despite the concerns pre-launch about Samsung using a PenTile display. For those unaware, PenTile Matrix panels have sub-pixels that share colors, which can lead to a slight blue tint and underwhelming greens. However, eyes-on it’s hard to be disappointed with the Galaxy Nexus’ screen: colors are punchy, viewing angles broad and ICS’ clever on-screen controls – which automatically hide when appropriate to give you more room for video and other apps – are a great example of the refined UI.

Samsung’s casing materials aren’t as instantly premium in their feel as, say, the Rezound’s unibody chassis, but nor do they feel cheap or brittle. There’s thankfully little in the way of glossy plastic, and the various textures feel good in the hand. Google says the Contour Display makes for a phone that’s easier to hold and use one-handed, though reaching across the screen with a thumb can still be a stretch. We’re more impressed by the minimal bezel around the display. Sound from the rear speaker seems surprisingly muffled, however, particularly noticeable during turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps Navigation.

Galaxy Nexus Unboxing & Hands-on:

A volume rocker is on the left edge, the power key on the right; no dedicated camera shortcut, though Android 4.0 adds one to the lock-screen. The camera itself is a 5-megapixel autofocus snapper with 1080p HD video capture support, the relatively low resolution still another source of concern after Google’s official announcement. Google is hoping the Galaxy Nexus is the device that finally convinces the majority that good photos are about more than just raw megapixels, and we’re looking forward to testing that out for the review. It certainly loads fast and snaps off images in quick succession, this more recent software version proving considerably faster than the already-quick firmware running on Google’s original launch demo units; there are sample shots in the gallery below. A 1.3-megapixel camera can be used for video calls or Google+ Hangouts.

Galaxy Nexus 1080p camcorder sample (rear camera):

Galaxy Nexus front facing camcorder sample:

Power is courtesy of a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and – in our unit – 16GB of non-expandable storage. In addition to the HSPA+ there’s quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth 3.0, a microUSB port with MHL HDMI output and GPS/A-GPS, together with NFC for scanning tags and making mobile payments with Google Wallet. Performance is slick out of the box, though we’re yet to run actual benchmarks: this may not be a 1.5GHz dual-core, as we’ve seen Samsung put inside its other recent phones, but Android 4.0 has no apparent issues with multitasking, opening apps and rendering/zooming/panning webpages. Of course, the Galaxy Nexus is box-fresh now, so we’ll have to see how it shapes up after we’ve loaded some third-party apps and put it through its paces.

That’s not the only magic we’re looking forward to testing. Face Unlock, Voice Typing and – if we can find someone else to rub smartphones with – Android Beam for NFC transfers all promise to be stand-out features that, until Ice Cream Sandwich updates start rolling out, will be Galaxy Nexus exclusives for the moment. It’s a big step in Android development, so stay tuned for the full Galaxy Nexus SlashGear review, and until then enjoy our hands-on video and unboxing gallery!

Don’t forget to check out our Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on for more details!

B&N hasn’t wandered too far from the original NOOK Color for its design inspiration, with the NOOK Tablet getting a slightly lighter finish but otherwise looking and feeling the same. At 8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches it’s an easily gripped, narrow (if a little thick) device, while the 14.1-ounce weight is actually a little less than the NOOK Color. We’re glad to see dedicated home and volume controls remain, while the 7-inch 1024 x 600 IPS touchscreen is bright and has great viewing angles.

The NOOK Tablet’s software is likely to be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time with the NOOK Color, though multimedia has been injected throughout. As well as ebooks there are now options for video – including Netflix and Hulu Plus – and Music – including Napster and Pandora – together with the tablet’s own onboard media players. 16GB of internal storage and a microSD slot should mean there’s plenty of space for local media, but B&N has strangely opted to reserve all but 1GB of the internal memory for content bought from its own store. Any microSD you slot in is fully available for your own use, however, though it’s worth noting that Android .apk files won’t install.

B&N may have built the NOOK Tablet to a budget, but the essentials are all there. There’s a microphone and a battery the company reckons is good for up to 9hrs of video playback or 11.5hrs of ebook reading, and the 1GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core processor is paired with a healthy 1GB of RAM. That should help the NOOK Tablet find favor among Android hackers, who are likely to be keen to get their unofficial ROMs running on the slate. The microphone also comes in useful for B&N’s Read and Record ebooks, which allow parents to record audio tracks for their kids to listen along to.

We’ll be testing battery life and seeing quite how good the NOOK Tablet is as a multimedia ereader in time for the full SlashGear review, so until then enjoy our hands-on unboxing and demo video and gallery!

Hardware

HTC’s unibody design language is getting, dare we say it, and a little old now, and though the Rezound is arguably the best implementation of it we’ve seen in some time. The combination of textures and almost cartographic layers, along with the splash of red around the main camera lens, the earpiece and backlighting the touch-sensitive fascia buttons pick up on themes from the Sensation XE, Incredible 2 and other recent HTC handsets, and while this isn’t a small phone (measuring 129 x 65.5 x 13.7 mm), it’s one that feels sturdy in the hand.

Up front there’s a 4.3-inch S-LCD display running at 1280 x 720 resolution, like the Galaxy Nexus but even more pixel-dense. It’s a brilliant screen, bright and colorful, and best of all there’s no squint-worthy text or graphics in Android 2.3.5 and Sense 3.5 to spoil things. Viewing angles are broad and the panel as a whole is a joy for browsing, video viewing and snapping shots with the 8-megapixel camera (that’s 1080p HD capable, and paired with a dual-LED flash). Up-front a 2-megapixel camera serves for video calls.

Inside there’s Qualcomm‘s 1.5GHz MSM8660 dual-core, paired with Adreno 220 GPU, 1GB of memory and 16GB of storage; a microSD card slot – helpfully pre-loaded by Verizon with a 16GB card – extends that. Connectivity includes LTE, obviously, along with EVDO Rev.A to fall back on when you’re outside of 4G coverage. However there’s no UMTS/WCDMA support, since the Rezound isn’t a World Phone: go abroad and you’re stuck with WiFi a/b/g/n to get online and use VoIP. Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, an accelerometer, digital compass, gyroscope and light/proximity sensors round out the main features, though you also get an FM radio with RDS. Pair the Rezound’s microUSB port with an MHL HDMI adapter – sadly not bundled in the box – and you can hook it up to your HDTV.

Although LTE and the 720p display are headline grabbing enough, HTC has also made the Rezound the first of its devices for the US market to offer Beats Audio, the music-centric spoils of its partnership with Monster. As in Europe, where we’ve already seen the HTC Sensation XE launch, the Rezound uses a combination of hardware and software for its Beats implementation: in the box you get a pair of special “beats” in-ear headphones, complete with matching red cords and a carry pouch, while a custom tuning profile automatically loads when they’re plugged in.

Beats Audio is known for its love of bass, and unsurprisingly the preset EQ profile is keen to emphasize the low-end. Since you can toggle it on and off easily, using a control that appears in the notifications menu, it’s straightforward to audition your favorite tracks to see if they benefit from the audio crunching. Expect increased loudness and a broader soundstage, but don’t forget that music benefits anyway from the higher-quality headphones versus the usual dire offerings bundled with most phones. We’re not entirely convinced that the Beats Audio processing is the be-all and end-all of music quality, but offering more capable headphones as standard is definitely welcome.

Software

While the target audience for the Rezound and the HTC Rhyme may be relatively different, HTC Sense 3.5 makes an appearance on both devices. It’s still the most cohesive and consistent of the Android smartphone UI modifications, straightforward for entry-level users to get to grips with but – with apps like the media-streaming HTC Watch – not leaving behind those who are familiar with smartphones and want to make the most of that excellent display.

Otherwise it’s Android as we know it, which means the usual suite of Google apps – Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, etc. – along with access to the Android Market. Verizon does its usual job of preloading a range of apps, both free and premium – including Polaris Office, Slacker radio, NFL Mobile, VZ Navigator, V Cast Music and V Cast Video, among others – and we’ll have to wait until unofficial ROMs to get rid of them since there’s no uninstall option.

Performance is silky-smooth and everything you’d hope for from a fast dual-core chip. Apps open with no lag, multitasking is smooth and webpages render, pinch-zoom and pan with no jitter to be seen. HTC’s custom UI can sometimes stutter, especially if you pan between homescreens too quickly, but the Rezound shows no such issues.

Camera

Eight megapixels is – with a few notable exceptions – become the baseline for top-tier smartphones of the moment, and the Rezound doesn’t disappoint on paper. We’ve criticized HTC’s optical abilities on previous devices as falling short of what rival phones from Samsung and others can deliver, but the Rezound borrows the f2.2 backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor of the well-received MyTouch 4G Slide and generally holds its own.

Daylight shots are unsurprisingly best, with strong colors and great contrast. There’s little graininess, though once you step into low-light conditions we did find the usual degradation. The BSI tech does mean you don’t have to reach for the dual-LED flash quite so quickly as with other cameraphones – which generally results in over-exposure – and darker areas of the picture aren’t as crunchy as other recent HTCs have delivered.

Full 1080p HD video recording, meanwhile, prefers slow-moving or stationary objects, with some blur introduced in fast-changing scenes or over-enthusiastic pans. Still, it’s definitely good enough for some impromptu sharing on YouTube or via the MHL output.

Phone and Battery

Verizon’s voice network didn’t let us down, with the Rezound putting in a solid – if not outstanding – performance during our testing. We experienced no dropped calls or problems connecting, though in-call audio quality wasn’t the strongest we’ve heard. Mono and stereo Bluetooth support is present.

LTE has generally meant dire battery life, so we were wary of the Rezound’s 1,620 mAh Li-Ion pack and exactly how long it would keep us mobile for. Still, we couldn’t resist the lure of 4G, given just how fast Verizon’s data speeds are: we’ve seen download highs of 15-23Mbps and uploads from 4-5.5Mbps in our testing. The Rezound allows you to share the 3G/4G connection via its Mobile Hotspot app to up to 10 WiFi-tethered devices, though Verizon will add an extra $20 fee onto your data plan for the privilege.

Battery life, with LTE turned on and regular use of push-email, browsing, navigation, IM and some media playback came to 8hrs. Turning LTE off and only enabling it when needed pushed that out to the normal nightly-recharge cycle most smartphones can achieve. We’re still yet to see an LTE phone that can deliver both runtimes and data speeds without demanding a car battery scale power-pack, but the HTC Rezound does better than others we’ve seen.

Wrap-Up

There’s a risk in trying to attempt too much with a smartphone: you can end up delivering a number of mediocre experiences rather than standing out in any one place. HTC skirts that challenge with the Rezound, and while battery life with LTE enabled and in action still isn’t up to scratch for the everyday user, it’s definitely getting there. The phone may not be as skinny as the DROID RAZR but the screen is better and the unibody chassis feels solid and comfortable in the hand.

Beats Audio is one of HTC’s big promotional drives with the Rezound, though to our mind the superlative dual-core performance and immersive 720p display are better selling points. With 3G it would be a great Android smartphone: LTE demands you make use of the manual power toggle if you want to go from dawn to dusk on a single charge, but Verizon’s 4G performance leaves us glad to have the speedy option.

The Rezound isn’t exactly a small phone, unsurprisingly, but its bulk is at least partly disguised by the tapering edges. Still, at 13.65mm thick it’s a noticeable addition to your pocket – just as Verizon’s $299.99 sticker price will significantly lighten your pocketbook – though the soft-touch battery cover is a nice change from glossy plastic.

720p HD resolution on 4.3-inches of HD Super LCD display makes for higher pixel density than the iPhone 4S, and the Rezound certainly has a brilliant screen. Icons and text are crisp, colors bright and saturated, and viewing angles are broad. Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus will certainly challenge it with its similarly polished Super AMOLED HD panel, though we imagine owners of each will have plenty to brag about.

The Galaxy Nexus has Ice Cream Sandwich from the start, however, whereas the HTC Rezound will have to wait until early next year to step up from Gingerbread. Still, it’s fast and neither Sense nor third-party apps show lag. We’ll be putting it through its paces properly in time for the full SlashGear review, but so far there’s a lot to like.

Neither cheap nor small, then, but the Rezound is looking very competitive if you’re capable of looking past ICS’ temporary absence. Until our full review, enjoy the hands-on video and gallery!

Hardware

Big and flat. The DROID RAZR – which will drop the “DROID” prefix outside of the US – follows other recent Android smartphones in the race to be the world’s thinnest device while still offering a huge display. It comes in at 131 x 69 x 7.1 mm, although there’s a bump for the camera which bulges out to around 11.1mm, and is fronted by a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD Super AMOLED Advanced touchscreen. Overall it’s slightly thinner but both longer and wider than the 4.5-inch Galaxy S II; at first, it feels good to hold, but gets tiring over a period of using it. The width makes it tough to get a good grip, and the narrow edge buttons – for volume and lock – are tricky to locate with a finger.

The camera bulge isn’t the only compromise Motorola has made to achieve its thinness marketing. The 1,780 mAh battery is non-user-accessible, and the bezel on either side of the display seems unnecessarily thick having used Samsung Super AMOLEDs. Still, the panel itself goes a long way in making up for that: it’s an amazing screen, white is white and black is black, and it shows off photos, webpages and video brilliantly. Covering it is a sheet of Gorilla Glass, probably vital given people will be slotting the RAZR into tight pockets.

Motorola DROID RAZR Unboxing and Hands-on:

Inside there’s a TI OMAP4430 1.2GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage. A microSD card slot is present, as is a Verizon SIM for the LTE; you also get EV-DO Rev.A for areas without 4G coverage, but no World Phone support. GSM versions of the RAZR will lack LTE but have quadband GSM and triband UMTS/WCDMA instead. There’s the usual WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and various sensors, along with a rear 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash, capable of 1080p HD video recording, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera good for 720p video.

Motorola will also offer a range of accessories for the DROID RAZR, including the Lapdock 100 we reviewed recently. There’s a full RAZR accessory review over at Android Community.

Software

The RAZR runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, though Motorola has confirmed that an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update is in the pipeline. On top of that, Motorola has made some UI customizations as well as adding a Smart Actions app that promises to not only make using the RAZR more straightforward, but prolong battery life too.

Motorola has thankfully stepped away from its all-consuming MOTOBLUR experience, and as with other recent smartphones from the company its more of a custom icon set and color scheme than a true reskin. Those looking to install their own custom ROMs should know that, in the US at least, the DROID RAZR will come with a locked bootloader, though rooting the smartphone is still possible. The GSM RAZR will apparently come with its bootloader unlocked.

Motorola DROID RAZR Review:

Smart Actions has a lot of promise, basically allowing you to set up custom routines that are automatically triggered depending on external or internal circumstances. So, you can have the RAZR shut off cellular data and GPS when it’s on your home or office WiFi, based on the assumption that you’ll need neither in that situation, or have the ringer automatically muted between certain hours of the day or night. Certain contacts can have a text message automatically sent if you miss their call. Custom actions are straightforward to set up, after some initial exploration, and can be easily deactivated if you need to overrule them temporarily.

Motorola is pushing Smart Actions as a way to bypass some of the battery complaints we’ve leveled at other LTE handsets. It’s possible to set the phone to a true sleep mode, only turning on data and synchronizing your various accounts when you unlock it or pick it up. Unfortunately, we were unable to set the RAZR to automatically turn on WiFi when we got back home, which meant we had to do that manually in order for the data/GPS Smart Action to occur. As a free app it’s useful in places, but it still needs some refining.

Camera

8-megapixels and Full HD video has become the baseline for Android flagships, but we’ve seen on several occasions that spec sheet compliance doesn’t necessarily equal top-tier performance. The DROID RAZR falls into the middle ground for camera quality, it’s not the best we’ve seen, but neither is it the worst.

As in iOS 5 and Ice Cream Sandwich, there’s quick camera access from the lockscreen, but if you’ve PIN-protected your RAZR then you’ll still have to punch in the code before you can take a photo. The handset is slightly slower to lock focus and be ready to shoot than the iPhone 4S and, based on our previous experience with the newest Googlephone, the Galaxy Nexus, too.

Stills are better than we’ve seen on other recent Motorola phones, though as usual they demand good light if you want decent results. Even outdoors they can look dark and lose detail in shadows. Indoors, the single LED flash struggles and pictures look grainy. Colors are accurately balanced but muted: there’s none of the pop that we’ve seen on images from recent Samsung devices or the iPhone 4S.

Video, meanwhile, has a surprising amount of noise, and the color balance is unimpressive. We saw some focus-hunting with closer subjects, too. The digital image stabilization is reasonably successful, but overall it falls short of what rival devices can do with 1080p.

Motorola DROID RAZR 1080p HD video sample:

Phone and Battery

Call quality on Verizon’s CDMA network was solid, hiss-free and safe from drops. The earpiece and speaker occupy the RAZR’s “hump” and so are given a little extra space to do their thing, and the result is decent in-call volume and clarity. Data performance, meanwhile, delivered the Verizon LTE speeds we’ve grown accustomed to, with download and upload rates besting what many people expect from their home broadband connections.

The launch of the DROID RAZR also sees a new data promotion on Verizon arrive, with double the monthly allowance offered for the same price. So, opt fro the 2GB plan, at $30 per month, and you’ll get 4GB instead. The $50 5GB plan and $80 10GB plan are also doubled, though overage remains at $10 per gigabyte. The promotion applies to any Verizon 4G smartphone, not just the RAZR, and will be offered for a limited period; existing customers can also get in contact with Verizon and have double data allowances activated on their account too.

The data is fast, then, but the speed at which the RAZR gulps down battery life is also rapid. Motorola was off to a good start, fitting a 1,780 mAh Li-Ion pack into the DROID RAZR’s chassis, but we’ve still been unimpressed with how fast it’s run down. On WiFi, with cellular data turned off, the full battery dropped to 90-percent in under 30 minutes. Over the space of a couple of hours, with minimal usage, it burned through 40-percent. That’s with LTE turned off, mind: we raced through 40-percent of the battery in less than an hour of 4G data use.

Motorola claims to have had significantly better performance from the RAZR’s battery than we experienced. The company also sent us an portable external charger, which works but is certainly less convenient than a replaceable battery. We’ll continue testing and update after more time with the RAZR, in case some extra conditioning lengthens runtimes.

Wrap-Up

There’s plenty to like about the DROID RAZR. The display is superb, performance is swift and Motorola’s commitment to Ice Cream Sandwich is, in these times of Android fragmentation, welcome. Although thanks to the “hump” Motorola’s thinness claims aren’t entirely true, the DROID RAZR is certainly slim and easy to pocket.

Unfortunately, like the original RAZR, there are also compromises made to achieve a slimline package. Motorola’s battery is, in our experience, insufficient, particularly if you want to make prolonged use of LTE – and, based on the speeds we’ve consistently seen from Verizon’s 4G, you really do want to use it – and the form-factor can be uncomfortable to hold over extended periods. The camera is an excellent example of how spec-sheet features aren’t the sum total of the story.

The first RAZR had fiddly buttons, a rubbish display, confusing software and a poor camera. It also marked a true shift in cellphone design, shaped the market and cemented itself as a style icon (despite Motorola’s best efforts to sour that as the years went on). The DROID RAZR won’t redefine the industry but it will undoubtedly be a fashion favorite, particularly for those who aren’t swayed by the incoming Galaxy Nexus’ slightly chunkier, curved design. Still, the experience of Ice Cream Sandwich on the narrower Nexus may give the DROID RAZR only a small window in which to make its mark.

Of the six new phones, only two have any relevance to the US market, and exactly zero are going to end up on US store shelves. The four-strong Asha range of entry-level phones are targeting Nokia’s “next billion users” and, despite most in the US never having owned or perhaps even held a Nokia, they’re not among that billion. Probably a good thing: their saving grace for developing markets is price, and we already have enough cheap, uninspiring phones in the US.

Then there is the Lumia series, the flagship Lumia 800 and the more affordable Lumia 710. The first of what Nokia says are many, many Windows Phone 7 smartphones, they’ll never make it to the US but devices like them will. This was Nokia’s opportunity to shine, to make its case for why it was still relevant in a world where iOS and Android hold sway, and a lot of it made sense. The 710 makes a few too many style and build quality compromises to meet its price to be relevant to the US, in my opinion, but the N9-inspired 800 is distinctive and unlike anything on the North American market.

The pared-down design feels as good as it looks, and works great with Windows Phone 7′s tile-based Metro interface. Nokia didn’t spare the parts bin, either: the AMOLED display is fantastic while picture and video performance from the camera wowed too.

Nokia Lumia 800 hands-on:

Nokia opened the door on what custom work it has been doing with Microsoft, tailoring Windows Phone to suit its purposes. In the last few years the company has basically had Symbian to itself – because, frankly, nobody else wanted to use it any more – but now it has to share Windows Phone with other OEMs. We saw some of how Nokia will differentiate itself beyond just hardware. Nokia Music, with its streaming Mix Playlists, is a neat value-add when you consider most carrier-bundled services like it would add a few bucks to your monthly bill. Nokia Drive, though, is going to be the big hitter: iPhone lacks a great native turn-by-turn navigation app, and Google Maps on Android still doesn’t have the same offline mapping support that Nokia has developed. They’re elements that will help set Nokia apart from not only rival platforms but other companies pushing out Windows Phones and holding a bigger existing footprint in the US.

In some places, though, it felt like a backward step. Nobody in the US bought the Nokia N8, C7 or E7, but at least Nokia made an effort, including pentaband UMTS/WCDMA wireless so that both AT&T and T-Mobile USA SIMs were welcome. Both the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 are triband-only, however, a limitation introduced by Microsoft’s insisting on Qualcomm radio hardware. For an event packed with developers, there wasn’t much talk – beyond the ESPN app – of what software specialness we could expect.

Nokia Lumia 800 hands-on:

The biggest gap, though, was where I wanted to see carrier partners. Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, promised Windows Phones for the US market in early 2012, along with LTE and other country-specific technologies, but there was no sign of which carrier or carriers Nokia might be working with. LTE is maybe a hint toward Verizon Wireless being involved, though AT&T has its own, smaller LTE network, but there was nothing about the issues around handling both GSM and CDMA networks, or international use.

I’d also liked to have heard something about pricing strategy. As I was reminded when I checked out some London phone stores, Europeans generally pay nothing up front for their new cellphones when they buy them on contract. That’s definitely not the case in North America, and it would have been great if Nokia could have given us at least a hint that it was not only looking to compete on hardware capabilities but on aggressive pricing. That, after all, is expected to be one of the company’s biggest strengths.

The other omissions were maybe understandable. Subtle suggestions of a Nokia Windows 8 tablet strategy, but nothing concrete: I guess Nokia (rightly) thought that would only distract from its phone plans. Nokia pitched the keynote at an audience pretty much unaware of what Windows Phone can do or how it works, whereas – with all the Microsoft execs milling – I’d like to have seen some more of what’s in the pipeline for the platform. That might have better emphasized Nokia’s role as the key partner.

Still, overall, was my first time memorable? You can’t argue with Nokia’s enthusiasm, nor its ambition. It’s working from a position of having once been on top and now finding itself significantly outplayed by Apple, Samsung and others. That makes for a hungry company, and that’s something Nokia really needs to be right now. It looks like it’s getting the message, at least to begin with – release dates that are weeks rather than months after product announcements are a good example of that – and there’s no denying that Nokia Windows Phones are a whole lot more compelling than Nokia Symbian phones. That, however, wouldn’t take much, from a US perspective at least, and Nokia can’t afford to lose momentum or focus as it heads into 2012.

More on the Nokia Lumia 800 in our full hands-on report.

Apple was keen to point out the speed of its browser technology with the iOS 5 upgrade at the launch of the iPhone 4S, and we were seriously impressed by how quickly it rendered and loaded pages in our iPhone 4S review. Side-by-side with the Lumia 800, that optimization is clear. With the cache cleared and each on the same WiFi connection, the iPhone 4S led the way to the mobile version of the SlashGear homepage, the Nokia a few seconds behind. It was the same loading the full version of SlashGear, with Apple’s handset pulling ahead of the Nokia. It looks as though Internet Explorer on the Lumia 800 does some of its rendering in the background, before showing the results on-screen, and so we were often able to begin reading first on the iPhone before each page finished loading.

Nokia Lumia 800 vs iPhone 4S browser load speed test

Moving to the Galaxy S II, Samsung’s smartphone certainly brought the most power to the table (sorry – Chris says 1GHz in the video, but the dual-core Exynos in the GSII runs at 1.2GHz). We first tested with the Samsung browser set to load Flash on-demand (neither Windows Phone nor iOS support Flash, unlike Android). Head-to-head, the Galaxy S II brought up both SlashGear and Android Community slightly faster than the Lumia. Surprisingly, pages loaded slightly slower on the Galaxy S II when plug-ins like Flash were set not to run.

Nokia Lumia 800 vs Galaxy SII browser load speed test

All three browsers have pinch-zoom, which worked smoothly, as well as text reflowing. Once loaded, page navigation was smooth across the board. The differences in rendering will, of course, be very much dependent on the connection you have at the time – if you’re on EDGE or 3G, for instance – and so this side-by-side performance shouldn’t be seen as the final word on how the Lumia 800 handles browsing. Still, we’d like to see Nokia and Microsoft polish up the web experience on Windows Phone some.

Be sure to check out the rest of SlashGear’s coverage of Nokia World 2011 here.

Nokia Lumia 800 hands-on 1

Nokia Lumia 800 Hands-on 2

Nokia Lumia 710 hands-on

Nokia Asha 303, 300 and 200 Hands-on

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The big takeaway is how consistent Android feels in this 4.0 release. Google has obviously worked hard to not only introduce new features but bring the older functionality up to speed so that everything fits together seamlessly, addressing a common criticism by iOS users that Android can feel piecemeal. The Roboto font looks great on the Galaxy Nexus’ high-res display, and the animations shown in page transitions and when you tap on-screen icons like the new virtual buttons for home, back and menu are eye-catching enough to be interesting but not so involved as to slow the overall experience down.

Honeycomb’s recent apps switcher has been brought along, now boosted with a side-flick gesture that removes software from the list (but doesn’t necessarily stop it running in the background; that’s still left for the OS to manage); that side-swiping also navigates between similar screens in apps, such as moving through messages in your email inbox, while the flick-to-dismiss gesture can also be used to pare down Notifications in the pull-down. iOS 5 had borrowed some of Android’s previous system in its new Notifications Center, but Ice Cream Sandwich skips ahead with support for contact photos in the pull-down as well as control over individual notification dismissal. There’s also a new multimedia control pane that shows there if you have music playing in the background, minimizing the amount of jumping around you have to do, and you can usefully peek at the latest notifications from the lock screen.

The homescreen is more flexible now, with similar widgets to Honeycomb but resizable in Ice Cream Sandwich. Rather than just a selection of different sizes, you can now pull widgets to expand them, useful for showing more of your inbox or calendar. iOS’ folder creation system – dragging and dropping icons on top of each other to quickly create a new folder – now appears in Android 4.0, and you can reorganize icons within that folder as well as pin it to the favorites tray at the bottom. Both apps and speed-dials can be put in folders.

The iPhone 4S has Siri, while Android sticks with its existing voice control system – now supercharged for real-time dictation. Rather than speaking, waiting and then watching a block of text appear, you can now see your words appear in real-time, including dictating smiley faces. It was hard going fighting the background noise at the demo center here to get an accurate impression of how well it all works, so that will have to wait until the full review. Still, it gave us a chance to try the new text control tools for the onscreen keyboard – like tapping a word for the in-line spellcheck – a system which works well. Cut/copy/paste has been boosted with the ability to drag highlighted text around the page.

Android Beam is the other big, eye-catching feature, Google using NFC to transfer webpage links, Android Market listings, YouTube links, people cards and more. NFC’s promise has always been about simplicity, and Ice Cream Sandwich delivers: hold two Galaxy Nexus phones back to back and, if the app you’re in supports Beam then a dialog automatically pops up to send the information. Tap the display and it shoots across – it’s easy to do even if you’re not looking at the screen. Sensibly Google has bundled the Android Beam APIs with the 4.0 SDK, available now, so third-party apps will be able to join in, something which could well have more of an impact on NFC adoption than mobile payments.

Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on demo

Android’s browser has been reworked, now supporting up to 16 simultaneous tabs navigated between using the same UI as for the app switcher. A side-swipe shuts down an unwanted tab. Bookmarks are pulled across from Chrome on your desktop, but more useful is the new “Request Desktop Site” option in the menu which attempts to pull in the full webpage rather than the default mobile version many sites serve up. It’s a big improvement on trying to dig around a site’s page for an often well hidden option for the full site, and worked well on the test pages we tried it with. There are also new incognito mode options and the ability to see the most visited pages, as well as an offline page save so that you can come back to a site – images and all – even without a connection.

Google’s Face Unlock system for the homescreen obviously depends on your registering your face with the 1.3-megapixel front camera, but in the demos we’ve been shown it works well. If it can’t recognize you – we’ll have to wait until review samples arrive to see quite how often that happens – the regular gesture/pin unlock options are available too.

As for the main camera, that gets a new app which loads almost instantaneously and is capable of shooting off frame after frame faster than we could hold the Galaxy Nexus steady. Instant upload to Google+ is obviously supported – the social networking app comes preloaded in Ice Cream Sandwich – and features you’d previously have looked to a third-party app for, like Hipstamatic effects, red-eye reduction and cropping/rotating, can all be done within the native Camera/Gallery apps. The latter has had a makeover too, with more emphasis on preview thumbnails and less on unnecessary animation; it’s a little like Windows Phone in places, but that’s no bad thing.

iPhone 4S vs Galaxy Nexus camera speedtest:

Video, meanwhile, supports 1080p HD from the Galaxy Nexus’ 5-megapixel optics, and adds continuous autofocus during recording along with the ability to zoom. Timelapse recording is also supported natively, another app you won’t need to download. Most useful is likely to be the ability to capture photos while simultaneously recording video, which works well.

Core Android apps like Gmail and Calendar have been refreshed in Android 4.0, with offline search for your email a particularly neat addition. By default it’s set to maintain an offline index of the past 30 days, but you can alter that depending on how many or few you’d like access to. We were able to turn off all connectivity and still search through old messages with no problems. The Gmail UI is new, too, with the higher-resolution Galaxy Nexus display being used to show more of a preview of each message in the inbox, and then the side-swipe gesture coming into play to flick between emails once you’re reading. That, and the new options bar with instant access to labels, make triaging a busy inbox straightforward, though we’d still like to see a universal inbox option added. Voice messages, meanwhile, now show up in the recent calls list, as long as you’re using Google Voice, and you can speed up or slow down playback.

While Android phones have not necessarily always offered the best battery life, Google has always delivered the best tools for monitoring power usage. That focus has carried over to data usage in Ice Cream Sandwich, with the ability to track and limit what’s using mobile data and when. As with power there’s a simple graph showing your consumption, though with a predicted data use trajectory for the rest of the month rather than an estimate of what runtime you have left. Pull down a capping line and you can set a warning alert for if you exceed, say, 1.5GB each month; optionally you can have the phone lock down mobile data altogether after that point, great if you’re roaming internationally and only have a limited amount of data before facing extortionate per-MB fees.

Stats-hounds will love the granularity on offer, with the ability to zoom in on a specific part of your historic use and see which apps have been using what data. There’s differentiation between foreground and background data use, too, which is great to see what’s been quietly chomping away at your bundle, and you can block background data use on a per app basis.

The best aspect of Android 4.0 is how it all sits together. Google’s smartphone OS has always been more flexible than rivals, but it’s also felt more ramshackle: sacrificing some consistency along the way. Ice Cream Sandwich doesn’t fix that completely, though it’s a big improvement on what we’ve seen before. Integration of multiple third-party services, like Facebook, Twitter and the like, is handled with zero fuss and in a way that appears seamless. Google is still polishing the release build, and so there was some performance jerkiness at times, but when it moved fast it simply flew on the Galaxy Nexus’ 1.2GHz dual-core.

Google couldn’t say when other devices might get Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades, so it seems the only way – for the moment, anyway – will be grabbing a Samsung Galaxy Nexus when it hits shelves in November. From what we’ve seen today, of both Samsung’s hardware and Google’s software, that’s something we’re very much looking forward to.

Galaxy Nexus Hands-on:

It’s hard to beat the 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display for wow-factor. Packing a 100,000:1 contrast ratio and huge 1280 x 720 resolution and 16:9 aspect, it’s incredibly bright, color-rich and vivid. Samsung’s preloaded demo videos were obviously picked to showcase the Galaxy Nexus’ abilities, but they’re definitely lag and smear free. More than that, though, Ice Cream Sandwich has apparently been designed especially to suit 1280 x 720 as a native resolution, which means there’s no icon jaggedness, while the new Roboto font has been designed to suit high-res screens. The 4.29mm bezel means the display is about as edge-to-edge in appearance as an Android device has managed to-date.

Galaxy Nexus Hands-on:

There’s been some surprise about the Galaxy Nexus’ specs, particularly the 5-megapixel camera. In a year where 8-megapixels has become the start point for high-end smartphones, Samsung’s choice is unusual, but the two companies still say the new Nexus can compete. The camera app loads quickly and the sharing menu is refined, with an icon carousel rather than the pop-up list of before. There’s tap-to-focus/exposure-lock too, as well as face detection, and Google’s zero shutter lag technology is incredibly fast.

You can shoot multiple images in rapid succession, too, though we found you can end up with blurry pictures since it’s all too easy to get trigger-happy when you’re moving the phone. Hipstamatic-style filters and panoramic shots can be easily accessed. Video, meanwhile, supports 1080p, while Ice Cream Sandwich’s support for continuous focus and zoom within video capture, time-lapse clips and the ability to take snapshots while simultaneously shooting video are incredibly useful.

iPhone 4S vs Galaxy Nexus camera speed test (first to five complet shots win)
This is a very close call. Note that iPhone 4S actually took 6 pictures to Galaxy Nexus’ five.

In the hand, the Galaxy Nexus feels solid and slick. Gone is the fingerprint-magnet, cheap-feeling plastic of the Galaxy S, replaced by soft-touch plastics and metal. The Contour Design curve is subtle, as before, but more obvious thanks to the bigger screen; whether it actually has an impact on usability remains to be seen, but it’s definitely straightforward to slide a thumb down the display while using it one-handed. Considering this is one of the biggest panels on an Android device – or, in fact, a smartphone – today, it surprisingly doesn’t feel oversized, either. You can slot it into a front trouser pocket with no problems.

Google is understandably using the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich to push its increasing app and services portfolio, and most notably the Google+ app comes preloaded. Google’s social network and Facebook rival will now be baked into every Android device. We’ll cover more impressions from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in a separate post shortly.

Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on demo

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus will go sale from November, with a Verizon LTE version in the US and other carrier versions in Europe and Asia. More details in our hands-on gallery and video!

Notification Center

Until now, the iOS notifications system has been the area of the platform, which was most un-Apple. Attention-stealing, unattractive and – worst of all – inefficient, the pop-up notifications were a problem that was only getting more significant, as apps proliferated and more services clamored for their share of our eye-time.

iOS 5 addresses that with an all-new system for notifying updates and alerts. At first glance it’s something of a hybridization of the best we’ve seen on other platforms: new alerts slide in at the top, discrete as on webOS or Windows Phone, and can be tapped to respond immediately or left to disappear after a short delay. Alternatively, all alerts can be accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen, Android-style, to open up the Notifications Center itself.

This has each new update sorted by app, as well as optionally showing the weather and recent stock movements. Each set of notifications can be cleared on a per-app basis – though not individual alerts, so you can’t dismiss all but one outstanding calendar alarm, say – but it’s worth noting that clearing an alert removes it from Notifications Center but not from the app itself. The lock screen also shows alerts now, and you can swipe them to go straight to the relevant app (though not clear them without unlocking the phone and opening the Notification Center). New voicemails are also readily accessible from the lock screen, with a smaller slide-bar automatically triggering playback.

As an improvement over iOS 4.x it’s huge, and anyone who has struggled to use an app or play a game without pop-up boxes distracting them will appreciate the changes. More granular control over what gets dismissed and what can be left on-screen would be useful, but they’re relatively minor complaints.

iMessage

Instant messaging apps for iOS aren’t uncommon, but Apple’s own iMessage software in iOS 5 is likely to corner the market for most users. Supported on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch – and with conversations synchronized across all the devices you’re signed in on, meaning you can pick up a chat begun on your iPhone on your iPad instead – iMessage supports text, photo and video sharing over WiFi and 3G (depending on the capabilities of your device) along with location and contacts sharing.

The interface is familiar from SMS and MMS messaging on iOS, with a bubble interface showing in-line photo and video thumbnails. Delivery receipts and, optionally, read receipts are supported, so you know the recipient has seen the message, and those “are they there?” moments are diffused by iMessage showing “…” when the other person is typing.

Like BBM, all iMessage conversations are encrypted, which is likely to appeal to the enterprise crowd. It’s worth remembering that the app falls back to SMS when the iMessage service isn’t available, however, which means each chat bubble demands a new text message. That could eat through a text bundle fast, or get expensive if you’re charged per-message, and it would be nice to see a way of shutting it off completely.

The biggest frustration, though, is the absence of a Mac or PC client, since iMessage works so well as an IM system. There are rumors of integration with a future version of iChat on OS X Lion, though nothing confirmed as yet.

Siri

Although new with iOS 5, only the iPhone 4S (review) will get to enjoy Apple’s new Siri system. A combination of voice recognition, artificial intelligence and integration with Phone, Mail, Safari, Music, Messages, Calendar, Reminders, Maps, Weather, Stocks, Notes, Clock and Contacts, in addition to services like Yelp and Wolfram Alpha online, Siri can recognize not just a list of canned spoken commands but natural speech and complex tasks.

Hold down the Home button and you can ask Siri to call a contact, send messages to set up appointments – having automatically checked your schedule and slotted in a new reminder – find nearby restaurants that come Yelp recommended, manage your contacts and check the weather. That’s the tip of the iceberg, however: the magic is in Siri’s grasp of conversational instructions and ability to distill meaning from your speech.

Since the Siri beta is currently limited to the iPhone 4S, we’ve detailed its performance in our full iPhone 4S review.

AirPlay Mirroring

AirPlay already worked with music, but with the arrival of iOS 5 the wireless media streaming system has been extended to support video, too. You’ll need an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S in order to send video to your Apple TV (which must be a second-gen model), footage is streamed at 720p HD max, and for the moment there’s no Mac mini or other Mac support either. Nonetheless, it works as you’d expect, supporting screen rotation and zoom, and we were able to play HD video jitter free across an 802.11n network.

Reminders

Our phones have quickly become the device we carry with us at all times, and so it’s unsurprising they’ve also evolved to supplement our memory. Reminders is Apple’s answer to the to-do list, supporting list and date-based tasks with tick-boxes for that “job well done” feeling. They’re synchronized across iOS devices via iCloud – so a grocery list compiled on your iPad is automatically loaded onto your iPhone for when you’re at the store – as well as with iCal and Outlook on your desktop. You can optionally set priority levels – though doing so has no real effect on how iOS 5 alerts you – or organize individual reminders by different lists.

What’s clever, though, is the location support. Rather than expect you to remember to check for that grocery list, Reminders can be set to automatically flag it up at a specific location from your Contacts. For shopping, that might be when you pull into the grocery store parking lot, or it could be when you leave whatever has been set as your work location. Reminders supports both “when I arrive” and “when I leave” as a trigger.

It’s very dependent on having an accurate location fix, but in our testing the iPhone 4S was able to regularly notify us. One potential downside is the impact running Location Services – which iOS 5 uses to actively monitor your position and hence know when to flag up a task – could have on battery life, though even when the location icon is showing up in the status bar (which happens as soon as you set a location-based reminder) it doesn’t necessarily mean the device is relying on GPS for a position fix. Instead it can be using far more battery-friendly systems like cell-tower triangulation, only resorting to GPS when you change position considerably.

Twitter

Twitter integration into iOS 5 considerably boosts the sharing potential of the platform; assuming, that is, you’re a Twitter user in the first place. After logging in from the Settings menu, you can then send tweets from Safari (URLs), Camera and Photos (images), YouTube (video links) and Maps (location links). Contacts has been updated to include Twitter handles, auto-completing as you type, and any tweet you send can have location attached.

It’s a big improvement and reduces jumping between apps to send content out via the popular short-message service. You’re still dependent on what third-party services Apple chooses to include in iOS, however; unlike the Android “share” menu, which third-party apps can easily be included in, if you prefer say Facebook sharing to Twitter you’re out of luck. The upside is simplicity, of course, and consistency of Apple’s UI across Twitter shares.

Camera and Photos

Apple’s camera hardware varies across devices – from the relatively low-resolution iPod touch and iPad optics to the new 8-megapixel sensor in the iPhone 4S – but the camera app itself has had a significant boost in iOS 5. It’s now easier to access, thanks to a shortcut on the lock screen (or a double-tap of the home button when the device is locked) and faster to open, on the iPhone 4S at least.

When you’re in the app, there are optional grid lines to better frame your shot, and support for pinch-zooming. Tap-to-focus is intuitive and straightforward, and also locks the exposure to suit different light levels and the nature of your subject. The volume-up button has been repurposed as a shutter release when in the camera app, meaning it’s easier to keep the phone steady when shooting off a frame.

Once you’ve taken a picture, the Photos app supports basic editing including cropping and rotating, as well as photo enhancement and red-eye removal. It’s also possible to organize shots into different folders, directly on the device. Apple still offers iMovie for iPhone and iPad to edit video you’ve recorded, too.

Newsstand

Newsstand is an evolution of folder support in iOS, a customized layout designed to showcase your digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Tap the icon and the Newsstand shelves spring up, organized by the most recent issue, showing covers in full color. A Store button drops you straight into the App Store, with a new section for newspapers and magazines, with newly-released copies being downloaded in the background when available and flagged up on the Newsstand icon. If you’re an avid subscriber then it’s an easier way to manage your reading, though a list-view for easier browsing through previous issues would save some time.

Mail, Calendar and Safari

Email in iOS 5 has seen some polishing, with support now for simple font formatting – bold, underline and italic – as well as layout options like indents. Simple stuff in comparison to a desktop email app, but it makes for more flexible – and professional – looking messages sent when mobile. Other changes, such as being able to search not just by subject line but for in-body text are welcome improvements, while composing messages is slicker thanks to drag-&-drop support for recipients in the To/CC/BCC fields. Apple’s auto-prediction and auto-correction in the on-screen keyboard are as adept as ever, among the best on a mobile platform, and with Siri there’s now support for voice dictation too.

The Calendar app has new layouts, with a year planner view on the iPad and a week-to-view on the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s quicker and easier to add appointments, too, with the new ability to drag out the duration directly on the agenda screen, rather than spin through time/date wheels. iOS 5 brings greater independence, too, with the ability to create, edit and delete calendars all from your device, rather than having to set them up on a computer and sync across. However, there’s little calendar interaction with the new Reminders app, which seems short-sighted.

Safari has gained tabs on the iPad – though the iPhone/iPod touch still sticks with the separate thumbnail page – and a new Reader option similar to Safari on the desktop. Like Instapaper, this strips out adverts and unwanted page styling to show simply photos and text in an easily read layout. Along with bookmarking, you can now add a page to your reading list, a todo list of sites you want to come back to, and which is synchronized across all your iOS devices. Unfortunately, while mobile bookmarks are sync’d with Safari on your desktop, using iCloud, the Reading List isn’t.

The browser itself is faster, too; Apple isn’t making specific speed increase claims, but side-by-side with the iOS 4.x version you can see that pages render more quickly and scroll more smoothly. Considering the browser is often the most-used app on a smartphone, that’s a welcome improvement.

PC Free and WiFi Sync

Apple is keen to cut the cord between iOS 5 and your computer, and gives two options depending on how PC Free you want to be. Nudged perhaps by people giving up a laptop in favor of an iPad, iOS 5 now allows you to set up a new iPhone, iPod touch or iPad from the device itself, rather than having to connect it to iTunes on your Mac or PC. You can activate it as a new device, for a clean slate, or use an iCloud Backup (more on which in a moment) or iTunes to restore data from a previous device.

The independence extends to software updates down the line, too. Rather than downloading new iOS versions in iTunes and then using the USB cable to transfer them across, iOS 5 devices can download and install them standalone, just like Android and other platforms permit. If you’ve ever wished you could restore an earlier backup to your iPhone while out of the office, or picked up an iPad in duty-free at the airport and realized you can’t actually use it until you get back home from your holiday, then you’ll instantly see the value of PC Free.

For those less interested in complete independence but still wanting to do away with the USB cord, WiFi Sync is the answer. Triggered every time you plug your iOS 5 device into a power source, WiFi Sync automatically triggers a device backup over a shared WiFi connection to your Mac or PC (more of which in a moment), as well as synchronizing any new iTunes content such as TV shows and movies, music, photos and apps. It’s not as fast as a wired sync – you can still plug in direct if you have, say, an entire library of media to transfer – but it’s a lot more usable than before, especially when you factor in iCloud.

iCloud

Free with iOS 5 and OS X Lion – after the 10.7.2 update released on Wednesday – iCloud is the evolution of Apple’s MobileMe services to encompass media sync, cross-platform sharing and more. You’ll need to have iTunes 10.5 in order to use it, but once each of your devices are up to date, the promise is a fully joined-up work, play and entertainment ecosystem. We’ll go through each section individually.

iTunes in the Cloud

At first, you bought an iPod and loaded your iTunes music library onto it. When you upgraded your iPod, you transferred the library and just carried the new model. With more people having two or more iOS devices, however – an iPhone and an iPad, say – and the increase in on-device content purchasing, iTunes no longer makes sense as the hub for all your music, video and photos.

Instead, iTunes in the iCloud takes center stage, relegating iTunes on your Mac or PC to just another arm of the Apple ecosystem. Buy a track from the iTunes Store on your iPhone, now, and it’s automatically downloaded for your Mac, your iPod touch, your iPad – any device registered to the same account, in fact, and all done automatically. No need to wait until you’re back home to sync across a newly purchased TV show between your iPod touch and your iPad: iTunes in the Cloud automatically does it for you.

The auto-sync behavior is optional – useful if you’ve got a low-capacity iPhone or iPod touch, for instance, and don’t want it swamped with video content bought on your iPad – and there’s a manual route for those users. Tap the “Purchased” option and you can re-download anything bought previously. Some content will have download limits, restricting the number of simultaneous or repeat downloads to ten or some other figure, which is a limitation of the licensing. Devices with 3G connections can be set to allow sync’ing over cellular data, or limit it to WiFi so as to avoid chewing through a data allowance.

Apple TV also gets in on the iTunes in the Cloud action, which means it’s more straightforward to access content purchased while mobile when you’re back at home. It’s also a good workaround if you have a first-gen iPad or an iPhone earlier than the 4S, which don’t support AirPlay Mirroring.

iTunes Match

Although streaming music services like Spotify – which allow full catalog access for a monthly fee – continue to gain in popularity, Apple hasn’t thrown open its entire iTunes library on a subscription basis. Instead, the company now offers iTunes Match, a way to share all your music – even if you didn’t buy it from iTunes – with all your devices. Priced at $24.99 per year (and available, initially, in the US only) iTunes Match scans your music collection and matches any tracks that are already in its catalog with a 256Kbps AAC DRM-free version.

Those tracks it recognizes are automatically synchronized across your devices from Apple’s master copy. Those it doesn’t have, it uploads to the cloud from your original. Playlists, too, are sync’d, and you can match up to 25,000 tracks.

If you’ve already got a sizable catalog of your own music, iTunes Match makes more sense – and is cheaper – than premium streaming services like Spotify. If your originals are lower bitrate, such as the 128Kbps MP3s commonly seen, then you’re also getting a higher quality version to enjoy. On the flipside, of course, if your originals were ripped at a higher bitrate than Apple’s master – in Apple Lossless format, for instance – you’re losing quality in the name of convenience.

Photo Stream

Photo Stream works in a similar way to iTunes in the Cloud, pulling photos off your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and synchronizing them across devices. Take a shot on your iPhone and it automatically appears in the Photo Stream album on your iPad, for instance. Shots are also pushed to your Mac or PC, while photos can be pushed back to your iOS 5 devices from your computer by importing them into iPhoto or Aperture on Mac or dropping them into a pre-selected sync folder on your PC.

What Photo Stream isn’t is a permanent cloud backup of images. Only the latest 1,000 images are stored, for up to 30 days, with the oldest automatically being removed (you can’t remove them manually, either). A Mac or PC automatically keeps every shot – on the assumption that it’s likely to have plenty of storage space – but an iOS 5 device will only keep a copy if you actively select “Save to Camera Roll” (from where you can move it to an album if you choose). Apple TV owners can access the iCloud Photo Stream to browse the most recent 1,000 shots, though not save them locally.

In practice, there’s something close to magical in seeing a new photo turn up automatically across devices. Apple included an iPad 2 running iOS 5 for us to test the system, and it’s effectively seamless. It’s also a lot quicker than emailing images between devices if, say, you want to use your iPhone’s better camera but view on your iPad’s bigger display. We’d like to see a shared Photo Stream option added: the ability to tune into someone else’s public feed, great to show grandparents the latest holiday snaps.

Find My Friends

Find My Friends is Apple’s answer to Google Latitude, a location-sharing app intended to be used to quickly locate family and friends. Your contacts’ positions are shown on a map – with regular and satellite views available – and requests for your own position pop up as a regular notification. Location sharing can be either permanent, including parental restrictions on turning it on or off, or temporary, so that you can share your position for as long as an event lasts (e.g. until 7pm that day, or until the end of the week) and then have it automatically deactivate.

Usefully those temporary shares can be extended to a group of people rather than solely on a per-person basis, making it quicker to set up. Finally, it’s possible to instantly shut off sharing to all of your followers with a single switch. Tapping a nearby person on the map pulls up their contacts page, from which you can trigger a call, email, message or iMessage conversation. It would be useful to see some sort of floating current-status message – like “Looking for lunch company” – for each person on the map, however.

Documents in the Cloud

The work-focused version of iTunes in the Cloud, iOS 5′s document support operates with the iWork for iOS suite of apps: Pages, Numbers and Keynote. If you have one or more of those apps loaded on your various iOS 5 devices, files created and edited in them are automatically synchronized. If you haven’t got the relevant app, or you’re on your Mac, PC or a public computer, you can log in at icloud.com/iwork and download a copy of the document in either iWork ’09 format, Microsoft Office format, or as a PDF. Similarly, you can share a document through this web interface to your phone or tablet, by dragging it to the site.

Apple is throwing open access to Documents in the Cloud to third-party developers, too, so that they can support file sharing across multiple iOS 5 devices along with web access.

Sync, Backup and Find My iPhone

Although multimedia sync is the main draw for iCloud, the rest of your data hasn’t been forgotten. Contacts, calendar, mail, apps and books are all synchronized across devices, together with notes, reminders and browser bookmarks. It’s possible to share calendars – which can now be created on the iOS 5 device – with multiple people, and Apple throws in a free me.com email account if you haven’t already got your own.

As mentioned with the WiFi Sync, iTunes now supports wireless backups over WiFi, whenever your iOS 5 device is on mains power and has the screen locked. Any purchased music, TV shows, apps and ebooks are backed up in the cloud, together with photos and video in your camera roll, any app data and device settings, the layout of your apps, your messages (including SMS, MMS and iMessage chat logs) and custom ringtones. It’s a comprehensive list, and happily Apple uses incremental backup so a full copy of everything isn’t transferred each time. On the flipside, any media you’ve sideloaded – e.g. tracks you’ve ripped from CD rather than bought from iTunes – aren’t backed up, and if an item you’ve purchased, whether app, video, song or ebook, has subsequently been pulled from sale, you won’t be able to restore it from the cloud. For that reason alone it’s worth doing the occasional local backup over a USB connection to iTunes on your computer.

Find My iPhone works as before, offering a choice of browser-based or iOS tracking and remote control over a missing device. If it’s online – either via WiFi or cellular data – then you can see it on a map; if it’s offline, you can choose to receive an email when it next connects. As previously you can choose to play a sound – useful if you’ve dropped your iPhone behind the sofa – or show an onscreen message, remotely lock the device or even erase all the data. In this latest version, however, functionality has been extended to support Mac OS X Lion as well as iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Cloud Storage

Apple offers 5GB of free cloud storage space for all iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion users. That’s for me.com mail, sync’d documents and backup; saving or sync’ing a copy of anything you’ve bought from iTunes or the App Store doesn’t count against that total.

If 5GB isn’t enough, you can buy more directly from an iOS 5 device. 10GB is $20 per year; 20GB is $40 per year; and 50GB is $100 per year. There’s no option to set up your own “personal cloud” using a Time Capsule router with integrated storage, for instance.

That’s disappointing, because in our experience 5GB gets used up very quickly. Even with just our iPhone 4S review unit, after a few days we’d already got well past 4GB: if you have a second iOS device that you expect to backup to the cloud, plan on spending some money every year to increase your allowance.

Wrap-Up

As a free upgrade, it’s difficult to argue with iOS 5. We’ve grown used to our devices gaining new functionality as the months go by: people even buy products today based on what they may well do tomorrow. Nonetheless, as updates go, iOS 5 is a considerable one. The Notifications Center would be welcome alone, and does a huge amount to make iOS feel fresher and ready to cope with the multitude of apps most iPhones, iPads and iPod touches end up running.

Factor in iMessage, and we can see BlackBerry owners giving iOS a second look. What’s dangerous to RIM is not so much iMessage on the iPhone, but an affordable iPod touch running the IM client. It will need desktop support to fully pull ahead of BBM, but even limited to iOS it’s usable and makes us wonder whether we’ll ever need those messaging bundles from our carriers again.

Finally, iCloud is the glue that holds the new Apple experience together. It’s not too great a stretch to say that iOS 5 – along with OS X Lion – has welcomed in the next generation of Apple’s content ecosystem. Steve Jobs talked of Post-PC, and with its shifted focus from desktop to cloud, iOS 5 effectively downgrades your computer from essential to merely optional.

If Apple was charging for iOS 5, we’d tell you to pay for it. Free, and with iCloud services thrown in too, it could well be the bargain of the year.

iOS 5 will be a free upgrade for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3rd/4th-gen, iPad and iPad 2 this Wednesday, October 12. It will be preloaded on the new iPhone 4S – our full review of which you can find here.

Hardware

From the outside the iPhone 4S looks identical to the iPhone 4. Inside, it’s anything but. Apple has resisted the urge to change design for the sake of change, and stuck with the same 3.5-inch Retina Display, glass and aluminum casing, and minimalistic aesthetic as before. It’s a decision that frustrated some in the aftermath of the la