After a week of delay, the announcement of the Galaxy Nexus is finally here. I’m curious to see if the phone will have a removable battery cover and if there’s a microSDHC slot.  I’m really liking the new features that Google has added, such as the face recognition unlock and zero shutter lag camera.  Now the question is, am I really tempted to get this?  To a certain extent, yes.  But not on the scale when the Nexus One was announced.  This feels more of a spec bump along with an OS update.  I guess my expectations were too high and was disappointed in Google’s decision to go with a 1.2GHz CPU instead of a 1.5GHz.  Sure it’s only a 300MHz difference, but Google was supposed to set a new bar on what phones should be.  Another question I have is what kind of graphics does the Galaxy Nexus have.  I have not heard of any mention of Nvidia’s Tegra at all and that’s also a disappointment.  Now I notice that the power button is on the right side, okay I don’t mind that so far.  Then the headset jack is now on the bottom right next to the micro USB port, I’m not so sure if I like that spot.  I hold the phone in portrait mode primarily when listening to music and I’m thinking that the headset jack will make the phone more difficult to hold.  I should be fine when watching video in landscape mode though since viewing can be on either side.  What about Samsung’s trademark hump on the bottom of their Galaxy phones?  Will it be comfortable to hold and give a good grip?

The back cover does come off a la Galaxy S series and there will be no microSD card slot . That’s a pity.  I sure hope 16GB or 32GB will be enough storage in the long run.  To be fair, 16GB is a ton of internal storage for my app needs considering that I came from a Nexus One which came with a meager 512MB internal storage and not being able to move all apps to SD sucked.  Also, uploading photos with Google+ immediately after pics are taken is an excellent feature for social media sharing and backup purposes, who needs storage when it’s all already uploaded?

The Nexus One has USB mode, which acts as an external drive when plugged in.  However, the transfer speeds were terribly slow.  I really hope that the Galaxy Nexus will have fast file transfer speeds because that would be the only reliable method to transfer files.  There are wifi file transfer apps available on the Android Market, but the reliability isn’t great and files get cut in the middle of a transfer.

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So I just purchased the Invincible album by Two Steps From Hell and the tracks are just epic!  The symphony group originally made movie soundtracks but have now finally released their music to the public.  I wish I’ve known about this sooner!  Even better is that they have just released a second album called Archangel and will be definitely be adding that to my playlist in the near future.  In the meantime, I will enjoy Invincible and I urge you to support and listen to their epic music!

My new Logitech G700 came in yesterday to replace my super old Logitech MX700. Although similar in shape, the G700 feels more comfortable and has a nice gunk resistant surface. The MX700 had a nice soft rubber texture that wore off over time.

I’m liking the new sign-in page look. It still has a simplistic layout and the username/password is larger and distinct. Yes, I approve.

I got my hands on a HP TouchPad during the clearance a few weeks ago. It needs better apps, so I’m waiting for someone to port Android over.