Google Nexus S review

Build quality is OK, but the plastic construction means that the handset doesn’t feel as well made as the iPhone or the HTC Desire. When you take into account the SIM-free price of this handset, we’d expect a much tougher-feeling phone.

The main thing that people are excited about with this phone in Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). This latest version of Google’s mobile OS is actually a fairly minor update to Android 2.2, but has some important features bar support for the NFC scanner. For starters, it feels that bit much faster and more responsive, improving the Android experience.

Running apps are easier to deal with and the Manage Apps feature is now selectable by pressing the Menu button on the homescreen. Apps are supposed to be better managed, too, with processes eating up too much CPU time while running the background or keeping the handset awake automatically shut down.

Battery life in our MP3 playback test was pretty good, with the battery lasting 27hours and 14minutes (just a couple of hours shorter than the Galaxy S). Google also quotes 17.8 days standby time and 6.7hours talk time.

We love the new copy-and-paste feature in Android 2.3, which gives you a set of bounding arrows that you can drag to accurately select the text you want to copy. With previous versions of Android, it was a nightmare to accurately select anything.

The keyboard has also been improved, with a long-press on some keys bringing up alternatives, such as holding ‘Q’ to enter the number ‘1’. It’s also multi-touch, so holding down Shift or Alt, brings up the alternate letter or character selections; once you’ve hit a key and released Shift or Alt, the keyboard returns to its native QWERTY mode. It seems a little more accurate to type on, although users of HTC phones will already know what it’s like to have the long-press selection method.