Galaxy Nexus or Galaxy S2 HD LTE?

[Doom4life]

I have the opportunity to buy a Galaxy Nexus for $399 off contract, Galaxy Nexus on contract or the Galaxy S2 HD LTE on contract.

Which route would be the best to go? I was thinking the $399 for the Galaxy Nexus so that way I save my upgrade until a few months when the newer phones come out. I feel like I'm right in the transition where there are good phones that have already been out for several months but newer ones are coming soon. I was thinking the S3 or a future Nexus.

[Ian Brantford]

If you do any significant Web browsing using the mobile network rather than WiFi, LTE is the way to go. That rules out the Galaxy Nexus,.

[HC - NO "i"]

Doom4life,

Greetings.

I have read your comment in another thread. As I have mentioned there, my major concern with the Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE (SGH-I757M) is relatively high power consumption. If you have decided to go for it, be wise to get a spare battery and standalone charger. I do not know if the reviewing unit is defective or not, but both synthetic benchmark and real-world usage show me the same kind of disappointing battery... only lasts for my typical usage for half a day. Yet, the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE (SGH-I727R) does not behave this poorly in power consumption. So I suspect the HD display may be the reason, rather than just the LTE operations.

Ian Brantford,

Would you trade the battery life for just the LTE capability? To me, I would neither settle with Galaxy Nexus (lack of the external storage expansion) nor Galaxy S II HD LTE (relatively short battery life).

[LouisR]

I'd pick the Nexus over the S II HD LTE... The advantage isn't massive but going with what I've read:

-Battery life
-LTE isn't available, and won't be for a long time in most areas I travel to. YMMV.
-The S II HD LTE is an oddball if you're into modding and custom ROMs. There's a Korean version, otherwise AT&T cancelled theirs so dev support is probably going to be limited.
-For the same reason I would be concerned about future update support.

I know lots of people must have a removable SD card, but I've lived without one very well for over a year on the Nexus S.

On the other hand, a non-removable, non-replaceable battery is something I have issues with. (Water damage prevention, easy replacement of a worn out battery, easy removal in case of phone crash or worse)

[Doom4life]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think I am leaning towards the Galaxy Nexus. I COULD buy it on contract for $49.99, but this seems like a waste of utilizing the hardware upgrade that Bell has offerred me so I'll probably buy it for $399 and buy a future phone when the new ones are released in the fall/winter.

I looked up LTE coverage and it is available in Vancouver - but most of my time is spent outside of Vancouver so I wouldn't get a chance to enjoy it.

Not having removable storage does suck, but I currently have a 16GB SDHC in my HTC Incredible 2 and so far its been fine so I'm sure I could handle not having removable storage until I decide to upgrade.

[Ian Brantford]

Ian Brantford,
Would you trade the battery life for just the LTE capability?

Yes, to a point. It depends on how well the local HSPA network is. I'm on Fido, using the Rogers HSPA network, and it frequently leaves me waiting while I'm trying to use the Web browser. On the occasions that I use my backup PC Mobile account on Bell's HSPA, it's much better in dealing with a busy network, but the latency is still a problem when loading complex Web pages. I want that LTE action. It's available in my area, though I can't use it yet on Fido. I would not invest in a new high-end handset that cannot use the new and tangibly improved network. Reports here on HoFo are that LTE is a dramatic improvement in this regard over HSPA.

I am currently living with the fact that battery life on my Nexus S is such that a bi-daily charge is required with Gingerbread and daily charge is required with Ice Cream Sandwich. That has proven to be less annoying than delays caused by high network latency of HSPA.

To me, I would neither settle with Galaxy Nexus (lack of the external storage expansion) nor Galaxy S II HD LTE (relatively short battery life).

The lack of external storage is not a significant factor for me, but I agree with the sentiment that both of those handsets have shortcomings that are hard to overlook. I just re-read the original post and realised that "S3 or a future Nexus" were on the table. Yes, I'm waiting too. It's easier for me because the Nexus S is already quite good overall. LTE is my only big motivator to upgrade.

[pnjunction]

Yeah bell hspa was amazing when I first got it in August 2010, now it is quite a bit more crowded and merely ok but still better than the horror stories I hear about Rogers.

LTE is also a must for my next device. At the very least it will be fast early on and it should stand up better under load. Also I predict the transition to it will be much slower than the one from cdma where they stopped selling cdma devices completely pretty soon after hspa came online.

I think the s2 also has a better gpu than the galaxy nexus, if that doesn't matter to you then get the nexus for sleeker roms and faster updates especially if you aren't into xda and all that stuff.

[Ian Brantford]

Yeah bell hspa was amazing when I first got it in August 2010, now it is quite a bit more crowded and merely ok but still better than the horror stories I hear about Rogers.

It's good to hear that there is still a substantial difference. While Rogers has had a big problem with calls not completing since Christmas 2008, that improved quite a bit over the past year... only to be replaced by very poor voice quality during calls. It's to the point where I have had to hang up and call from a landline or one of my backup mobiles (on PC Mobile / Bell network) on several occasions.

LTE is also a must for my next device. At the very least it will be fast early on and it should stand up better under load. Also I predict the transition to it will be much slower than the one from cdma where they stopped selling cdma devices completely pretty soon after hspa came online.

Oddly, before I got my Nexus S, I was considering picking up whatever was best among the CDMA handsets and sticking with that until the HSPA and LTE networks got the kinks worked out. With the user base migrating, CDMA would be not at all congested! One of my PC Mobile handsets is still on CDMA and it never fails.

[HC - NO "i"]

I'd pick the Nexus over the S II HD LTE... The advantage isn't massive but going with what I've read:

-Battery life
-LTE isn't available, and won't be for a long time in most areas I travel to. YMMV.
-The S II HD LTE is an oddball if you're into modding and custom ROMs. There's a Korean version, otherwise AT&T cancelled theirs so dev support is probably going to be limited.
-For the same reason I would be concerned about future update support.

I know lots of people must have a removable SD card, but I've lived without one very well for over a year on the Nexus S.

On the other hand, a non-removable, non-replaceable battery is something I have issues with. (Water damage prevention, easy replacement of a worn out battery, easy removal in case of phone crash or worse)

LouisR,

1. Battery life... I hope that it is just my reviewing unit but who knows.

2. Mods and Hacks... For the geeks, it will be a frustrating experience to wait for compatible custom ROMs or even "root for dummy" to show up.

3. Removable battery... this Galaxy S II HD LTE is using a removable battery. Not too sure which other handset you are referring to.

[LouisR]

Had the One X and the RAZR in mind when talking about the non-removable batteries.

[Sharky2006]

I have the samsung galaxy s2 HD LTE, but I'm tempted to get an HTC one X... but its only because I want ICS, and I've found with bell the nexus doesnt have good reception in langley area.

[weedb0y]

I have the samsung galaxy s2 HD LTE, but I'm tempted to get an HTC one X... but its only because I want ICS, and I've found with bell the nexus doesnt have good reception in langley area.

It got an OTA update few days ago. It's also on ICS now.

[IDEA_NXT]

First, I wouldn't buy a GN on contract now, since the phone is now cost $399 contract-free directly from Google. If you have more than 1-1/2 years from your contract, GN @ $399 it's a decent phone at a reasonable price that will hold you over until the end of the current contract; you can then upgrade to whatever that's the latest. I came from N1 to GN, and I didn't miss the mSDHC expansion much.

If your contract is coming up soon, I would check out GSIII and see if you can upgrade early. And if you can really wait until the end of the year, see if that "5 Nexus devices from 5 companies" rumour comes true.

As for battery life, I bought the OEM extended battery for the GN + JuiceDefender app. This gets my phone through the day and then some.

[Sharky2006]

It got an OTA update few days ago. It's also on ICS now.

ummm where did you find this out? theres been no update that I've heard of.

[IDEA_NXT]

Samsung-branded Android phones are not updated via OTA but through Kies. I don't know what he is smoking, unless what he meant was for GN, which there is one minor update after the main 4.0.4 (same version but fix the signal drop).