Google's second phone has already seen release in the US and UK as well as other markets. While the Nexus S is expected to be a big hit it wasn't released early enough to see a large volume of sales for Christmas. The Nexus S was produced in conjunction with Samsung and takes a lot of design inspiration from the Samsung Galaxy S. The new Google Phone has a couple of noticeable differences but should still prove to be as equally successful as Samsung's flagship, which was one of the biggest selling phones of 2010.
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One of the main differences between the Nexus S and the Galaxy S is the operating systems in use. While both run on Google Android the new Nexus S runs on the latest Gingerbread (2.3) release while the Galaxy S runs on the comparatively archaic Éclair (2.1). Eventhough the Galaxy S can be upgraded the new Google Phone is the first handset to feature Android Gingerbread out of the box. Gingerbread offers many improvements over earlier Android releases, including better power management, an improved on-screen keyboard and the introduction of Near Field Communications (NFC).
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In terms of hardware the Nexus has very much in common with the Galaxy S, with a virtually identical physical appearance, matching processing power and the same 4" Super AMOLED touchscreen that made the Galaxy S so popular. The only noticeable hardware changes with the Nexus S include the omission of a microSD card slot (effectively limiting internal storage to 16GB) and WVGA video recording on the 5 megapixel camera, which is a slight downgrade from the Galaxy S's 720p HD video capabilities.
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With this in mind it has been argued by some that the Nexus S is ever so slightly behind the Galaxy S in terms of hardware features but ahead of its Samsung sibling in the software department. As it is a Google branded phone the Nexus S inevitably comes with pretty much all Google features included, meaning that you are guaranteed access to YouTube, Picasa, Google Talk and the very latest (albeit still a bit beta) Google Maps. While the Nexus S is seemingly based quite heavily on the Samsung Galaxy S there are rumours afoot that Samsung plans to release the handset in Europe under its own name as the Samsung GT-I90003.
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