What happens when you take what’s arguably the best smartphone that’s currently shipping, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and then put it on the largest 4G LTE network in the world? Some lucky little devil managed to score the elusive Verizon Nexus, which starts shipping later this month, and he did what any sensible mobile geek worth his muster would do: run some speed tests. With just 2 bars of signal he managed to get roughly 8.5 megabits per second down and 2 megabits per second up, with a ping that hovers around 60 milliseconds. In other words, this guy has a midrange home broadband connection in his pocket. Combine that sort of performance with the new web browser in Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and you’ve got the fastest mobile browser to ever see the light of day. Now the radio purists out there will say wait a minute now, whenever you’re not in an LTE coverage area you’ll be knocked down to EV-DO, which is painfully slow by today’s standards, and that’s true … but judging how aggressive Verizon has been with rolling out LTE coverage, we don’t think it’s going to be a problem.
Look, if you’re looking to get an Android smartphone this holiday shopping season, then you don’t really have a lot of options. The Nexus isn’t perfect, no device ever is, but it’s as close to perfect as you can get. The Droid RAZR is gorgeous, but has a terrible screen. The HTC Rezound has a magnificent screen, but it runs HTC Sense and is about as thick as an encyclopedia. The LG Nitro HD just came out, so we can’t really say much about it, but come on, it’s an LG!
Do yourself a favor and check out Blake’s review of the Galaxy Nexus. If it’s too long for you, then here’s the key takeaway:
“In a nutshell, the Galaxy Nexus is the best phone I’ve ever touched.”
The rest of our team, including the iPhone owners, agree.