The Nexus S has been around for a while now (15 months is a long time in phone-years), and been through several OS updates.  Currently, the phone is running Android 4.1.2 ‘Jelly Bean’.  I’d like to be able to report that all is well, but it isn’t.

Things had been going well with 2.3.4 and 4.0, but started to go downhill after 4.1.  Aside from a generally sluggish UI (no butter here) and the laggy camera, the battery charging and USB data connection have been extremely unreliable.  After upgrading from 4.0 to 4.1, the phone intermittently stopped recognising when the charger or USB data connection were plugged in, or failing to recognise when the cable was unplugged.  Further more, the phone wouldn’t (and still won’t) charge if it’s stuck in it’s micro USB dementia.  This seems to be a well-known issue and there is much speculation on the cause on any number of forums and other places to which I don’t feel like linking.

I’ve been caught with a dead or near-dead battery more than once, and I’m not happy.  I brought the Nexus S back to Vodafone and had them check it out and see if there was a hardware problem.  They took the phone for a week (remember that HTC review?), and returned it with 2.3.4 installed and kindly let me know that my Nexus S isn’t compatible with any of the OS updates from Google, or the OTA updates that they continue to push to the phone.  In my opinion, it’s a likely a known bug, and since I and the other two people using Nexus S phones running 4.1.x don’t constitute a large enough user base to matter, it will go unaddressed.

Whatever the case, I’m annoyed and just might see an iPhone or Windows 8 phone in my future.  Until then, here’s another instalment in my home screen series.  Will my next instalment be that familiar grid of icons?  Tiles?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

I like reviewing old, obsolete products, so here’s another.  The USB port on my Nexus S died recently, and I got this loaner HTC with the Nexus is in for repair.

While the HTC is a fairly recent phone, it still runs Gingerbread (2.3.3), and feels very dated when coming from my Nexus S running Jelly Bean (4.0).  HTC sense is also not much fun.

The HTCs most obvious feature is it’s fold-out physical keyboard.  I’ve heard that some people prefer ‘real’ keyboards, but I have no idea why.  Even the clunky stock-Gingerbread keyboard is better.   The keys on the HTC are too small, require too much force, and the layout is all wrong.  On the positive side, the ‘z-hinge’ is clever.  Maybe next time HTC can use it to conceal something useful.

Aside from the awfulness of the keyboard, it makes the phone awkward and heavy.  The weight, when combined with the sharp, cold metal edges, gives me the uncanny feeling that when I’m talking on the HTC, I’m actually holding a wrench to the side of my head.

I’m not done complaining.  Like the rest of the phone, the speaker is disappointing.  I’m not asking a lot of it, but I like to  listen to podcasts on my phone, and the HTC isn’t up to the task.

What’s good about the HTC?  The battery seems to last a long time, at least longer than my Nexus S.  Also, I like the notification LED.  Other than that, I’m looking forward to getting my Nexus S back.

Twice I’ve encountered Google’s attempts to keep me from accessing some apps for my phone. In both cases, the apps I wanted were restricted to the U.S. market. In both cases, I had to look up how to fix the problem. So, here’s the simplest solution I found:

1. Disable all location services on the device
2. Turn off the device and swap a compatible SIM for one from correct region
3. Turn on the device, connect to the store via WiFi and download the app
4. Turn off the device, swap original SIM back in
5. Turn on the device, reenable location services

There are some limitations when using this method.  First, you obviously need a SIM from the correct region/market.  Second, the restricted app won’t update unless you swap a compatible SIM back into the device.