Samsung Nexus S Smartphone Shows Off Android 2.3, Gaming, Multimedia, NFC

by Clint Boulton

The Nexus S sports a 4-inch, Super AMOLED screen Samsung has popularized in its Galaxy S line. It’s powered by 1 GHz Hummingbird processor with 16GB of internal memory.

The Contour display uses a thin-profile glass panel. The Nexus S can read information from “smart” tags, or everyday objects that have NFC chips in them. This paves the way for Android developers to write mobile payment apps.

This side view gives users a better appreciation of the contoured design.

Improved keyboard enables multitasking and displays the current character and dictionary suggestions in a larger style. There is one-touch word copy-and-paste capability.

Nexus S improves gaming with a gyroscope and a dedicated GPU. “Playing mobile games, browsing the Web and watching videos are fast, fluid and smooth. It’s like having a pocket-size multimedia and game console,” Google said.

YouTube for Android has been furnished with a personalized home screen feed, in-page playback, and a rotate-for-fullscreen gesture.

Google Places enables users to find local restaurants, gas stations, etc., and then use Google Maps Navigation for free turn-by-turn GPS voice guidance.

Of course, no Google co-developed phone would be completed without voice search, voice commands and other perks. Google acquired Phonetic Arts for speech synthesis, so expect even better voice interaction in 2011.

There are two cameras, a 5-megapixel back-facing camera and a VGA camera in the front to enable vide chat. NFC is the key differentiator, in our opinion, opening a whole new sector of mobile app development.

Pay attention to the sensors and gyroscope, as well as the fully integrated suite of mobile apps.