This is a really great stuff happening in Techie Talkz. After months of hoping and waiting, the author of Techie Talkz finally get selected for the famous Maxis10 Reviewers Programme (and it’s the 10th!) to review the long awaited, second official phone from Google and the first phone running Gingerbread (Android 2.3) – the Google Nexus S. In this review programme, the author is given a chance to hold the new Google Nexus S for two weeks to do reviewing and experience sharing about the phone, without bias. As a tech blogger (as well as a end user), I will be focusing on the technical review on the phone, as well as the daily experience that Google Nexus S provides me.

Experiences in Day 1

After the Nexus S launch event in Pavilion KL, all Maxis10 reviewers are given a review unit of Google Nexus S by two lovely ladies (April and Fiona). Plugging in the battery, turn on the phone, and I am immediately greeted by the Google Android loading screen. As expected, setup wizard comes right after the loading. Only a few minutes of setting up the phone with my Google account, the Gingerbread homescreen shown up on the beautiful curved Super AMOLED display Super LCD display (Correction on 21/03/2011). It is really bright at the maximum brightness setting, but it doesn’t cause much strain on the eyes for long time viewing – this is something really impressive. With the Gingerbread and the 1GHz Hummingbird processor on board, Nexus S feels really smooth and natural in screen transitions and apps switching. Being a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 (which run on Android 2.1) user, this is definitely an eye-opener experience. Call quality wasn’t sacrificed on Nexus S despite of all the advanced hardware and software; it is really sharp and loud under good network condition.

However, Nexus S comes with the stock Gingerbread OS, which is, unfortunately, lack of a few apps that should be come pre-installed. I failed to find a simple note app to quickly write down my idea, and there is no Skype pre-installed even the phone is claimed to be VOIP supported. While it is well known that the Android Market is filled with thousands and thousands of apps available for download, however, it is definitely not a bad idea to provide the user the best possible experience without relying on third party apps (IMO though).

As a side note, I really liked the headset provided together with Nexus S which is meant for some serious music. It is way better than the one provided together with Apple iPhone or iPod.

Day 1 with Nexus S has come to an end with 12% of battery life remained after some testing and medium usage. It was using the pre-charged battery so definitely no complaint here. Let see what the battery can provide after a full charge for day 2.

More experiences sharing on Day 2!