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This is, and has been for more than a year, one of the finest phones on Verizon Wireless in my opinion. I really prefer the open nature and usability of pure AOSP Android OS with full Google Services and that's what Nexus devices are known for. The Verizon and Sprint editions of this phone are plagued with a few issues such as only passable battery endurance, and updates that require carrier approval which means a rather lengthy testing period before release putting it months behind sibling unlocked GSM edition, but if your savvy it truly is a piece of cake to unlock the bootloader, install a custom recovery and flash a ready built up to current source code built rom from somewhere like the excellent XDA-Forums without issue. If your even more savvy its fully possible to install the Android SDK on your Windows or Ubuntu PC and roll your own build from the very latest source code from Google's Android Open Source Project repositories. You cant really say that about many Android devices outside of the Nexus family, and this device is completely worthy of the name.
Lets talk about specs. The Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65" 1280x720 Super AMOLED-HD display with pentile subpixel arrangement. To my eyes, the display density and color depth hide the usual issues of a pentile arrangement quite well and I quite enjoy the rich inky blacks and vibrant (if un-natural) colors of an AMOLED style display as opposed to LCD (although HTC and LG have managed to create some stunning LCDs lately). The Galaxy Nexus is powered by a dual core OMAP 4460 SOC at 1.2 ghz with 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal NAND storage, and a qualcom radio chipset that in this variant is capable of CDMA 1x, EVDO rA, and LTE c13. In my personal usage I have seen LTE download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps and EVDO at a solid average of 1 Mbps. The GPU is the now standard fare SGX540 which is capable of playing some higher end games at decent framerates, but without the jaw dropping special effects you would see in software optimized for Tegra based hardware. In other words, it competently gets the job done and does it well, but its not going to make your jaw drop and it was really never intended to in the first place. Call quality is what I would consider average. Noise cancellation works quite well and both parties can hear and speak clearly, but the earpiece volume could be louder, as could the speaker around back when using speakerphone or music.
Build quality is what one should expect from a Samsung built device. The body shell is composed of strong but flexible plastics, and the screen glass is scratch resistant, but lacks the rigidity of the Corning Gorilla Glass you would see in a Motorola or HTC device. Overall I would rate it quite good for impact resilience and overall durability, but after riding a few months in your pocket you can expect it to have a few random scratches and some fading in the gloss around the spine. Battery life is merely OK when you are not in an LTE coverage area or have LTE disabled. When you use LTE (4G in laymans) you'll suck down battery like a kid on a juice box. Luckily this phone continues Samsung's tradition of removable batteries and they are very reasonably priced. There are also numerous options to choose from for extended life batteries, so battery life is not as big an issue with this phone as many people make it out to be.
Overall I give this phone four out of five stars because it really is that great, and if you can nab it for $200 or less in decent shape and manage to keep your unlimited data plan intact with VZW the way I did (without a subsidized upgrade), I would totally recommend it. Its strong, beautiful, and because it is clean android without all the clutter, everything runs great. It truly is the reference platform for Android apps and even a full generation later it performs admirably.
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