Gadgetory

hey guys it's Brandon I'm in front pocket now calm the Samsung Galaxy Nexus ships with a new version of Android and with it a new web browser how fast is it in this video we're going to talk about the new functionality then we're going to compare it to the samsung galaxy s2 and the iPhone 4s let's get to it okay so let's jump into the browser of Ice Cream Sandwich there are a lot of really cool improvements that deal with tab management and full-screen viewing and a lot of other things and of course we're going to talk about speed since speed is very important in a mobile browser so let's jump into the browser here and we default to the home page here we've got an address bar up here tab management over here and talk more about that in a minute and going with the new paradigm in Android 4.0 when there are more options to see there are the three dots that show you that there is a menu but first let's go to a web page so what we're going to go and we're gonna go to the tab view here and then we're going to go into pocket now is mobile site very quick loading we can't really pinch to zoom here because it's not the desktop version let's load the desktop version certainly more graphic intents as it loads I'm going to flip down the page see if we get any checker boards and we don't it's very clear and everything is loading and caching very quickly let's zoom in slight delay there but very good one of the ways that this device shines the Galaxy Nexus is in the high resolution 1280 down by 720 across display which means you just get to see a ton of data on the screen and it might be hard to see on video but I can actually make out what it says here in the completely zoomed out view so you really get that desktop like browsing experience let's see how screen rotation speed is there we go then we can flick down the page we can go in on a link we can tap on a link see how fast that comes up pretty fast or over pretty fast Wi-Fi network here and everything works and everything looks good let's go back into portrait let's go into that tab manager so it's pretty cool how it works so here it is let's open up a new tab the beauty is when you get multiple tabs open what happens then so we're going to go back to the bookmarks lets open any and as you can see it's not slowing down and on now we have two tabs open let's go to another site will go to Gizmodo I'll go back into the tab manager now we have it actually didn't open up a new tab there so we'll go over there and open up a new tab go to Gizmodo again back to tab view now here's something quote when you're done with the tab you have two choices to get them off of the screen you can hit the little X or you can swipe and that's really cool because you can really quickly close all tabs unfortunately there is no button up here to close all tabs even if you go up here to the menu option they should have added that seems like a very simple thing to do now here's a really cool setting if we go into the settings and we go into labs there's something called quick controls and if you've used honeycomb you've seen this before so what it will actually do is hide the address bar give you full screen browsing now the way that you need to bring back the address bar is with a swipe from the right or a swipe from the left and you get these quick controls let me just open up some new tabs to show you sort of how cool this can get once you have a bunch of tabs open so we'll go into the tab view we'll open up the verge and so now you get this really fast way to switch between tabs with this quick control access and again I'm gonna open a couple more tabs just so you can really get the full effect on how cool this works so we're gonna go plus I'll go back at the tab view and plus again okay so now four tabs open and if I go over here let's go back there if I go over here and move my finger up I can see all of my tabs I can actually flick between them just with my thumb super fast way to move between tabs while you're browsing the web in addition to the tab interface here you can also go to the URL bar by swiping into the center there or go to the menu options by going to the three dots as you've come to expect so really cool web browser here in an Android Ice Cream Sandwich it's a lot faster than we got in previous versions of Android the pinch-to-zoom is buttery smooth tab management is very slick and it's really cool to get this full screen browsing you can actually even remove the top bar you might have seen that in the settings when we were over in the lab setting we go totally fullscreen we can even remove the top bar and Android and just have a full-screen browsing experience that is really really nice and really shines with this high resolution display so how fast is this browser well let's compare it to the samsung galaxy s2 and the iPhone for us okay so here we are we're actually running opera mobile here on the samsung galaxy s2 the stock browser isn't as fast we're trying to get the best representation of the speed of the web browsing on all of these devices so we're gonna try to hit up Engadget is the exact same time here you might actually have a little trouble doing that since they are all in different places but we'll try it let's try one two three mmm that was pretty good except for the galaxy s2 so we'll let it load we're actually going to the desktop version over here so let's go to the desktop version on the iPhone 4s and on the Galaxy Nexus not terms but desktop there we go all right right away you can see that the higher resolution screen on the Galaxy Nexus is letting us see more of the website actually right here so let's click down the page a little bit more motion here on the Galaxy Nexus but very smooth on the iPhone 4s and also on the galaxy s2 let's do some speed tests here let's zoom in to a particular story let's go to the top story here zoom in over here all right so we're gonna tap on these three headlines let's make a bigger click target here on each and we're gonna tap ready-set-go they're off at the exact same time let's see which gets there faster okay the Galaxy Nexus followed by the iPhone 4s and the Galaxy S 2 is coming in last year let's flip down the page see how the page looks again once the pages are rendered everything is buttery smooth on all of these devices it's just a matter of how fast they actually get to the particulars question let's zoom back in and we're going to go over to this hubs button let's get a big click target here so we can get it all at the same time let's try that and they're off at the exact same time and they all finished pretty much at the same time there again let's click on to this big button here the evo 4G now the Galaxy Nexus finished first followed by the iPhone for us and the Galaxy s2 is struggling a little bit there it's seems to be loading there it is a little bit behind the galaxy s2 it's interesting to see if the galaxy s2 is actually lagging behind the 4s and the Galaxy Nexus here because for so long it's been the fastest device in terms of web browsing speed that we've tested here and a spinal test we went to youtube.com to see how these devices handle video differently so we're gonna go click on the same story here on all three of these devices and just see perhaps how long they take to render the video and bring it up certainly all of them have their own dedicated YouTube player and that is where they will play and instead of doing it in the browser itself in most cases so let's try to play these videos at the same time okay iPhone 4s was first followed by the Galaxy Nexus followed by the galaxy s2 didn't play just sort of stop that was actually just loading let's go back back and back it's interesting how the back buttons are always in different places its back okay we'll head back we'll go into another video and see that in action again let's do this second video in the listing here again we get the same presentation very similar this is YouTube's mobile site it's gonna kick off the mobile browser enable plugins so far as settings so an incompatibility there so here we've got the Galaxy Nexus and the galaxy s2 trying to load the same video something must have happened here with the Galaxy Nexus it just doesn't play automatically so out of these three devices the fastest phone in we're housing the web is definitely the Galaxy Nexus it's faster than the iPhone 4s it's faster than the galaxy s2 and it shouldn't be because it's Google's latest and greatest Android flagship premiere phone for the next year so very high marks with web browsing we really like the way that the Galaxy Nexus handles tabbed management I can flick tabs off the screen you can use the labs feature where the browser bar is hidden and you can actually access it with a swipe from the right or the left that is really cool it's fast it renders well the high resolution screen really brings the web to life five stars high marks for the web browser on the Galaxy Nexus and four Ice Cream Sandwich in general we're to see the same experience come out on other devices when we get Ice Cream Sandwich on newer phones with fast processors and beautiful border screens so if you liked this video please give us a thumbs up and if you want to see a rundown of all the highlights of Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Nexus Joe made a really great video put the link up here so you can click back to that and check it out we'll have the full review soon on pocketnow.com so keep an eye out for that and thanks for watching