Can Samsung Galaxy Nexus Beat HTC Rezound?

The much-anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, is finally available in Verizon Wireless.

The smartphone battle can only get more intense, with the HTC Rezound and the Galaxy Nexus squaring off against each other.

Galaxy Nexus was also known as Samsung Google Nexus Prime, Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus I9250, Samsung Google Nexus 3, Samsung Google Nexus 4G and Samsung Nexus Prime 4G LTE.

Galaxy Nexus marks the commencement of the Android 4.0 era. The Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is a combination of two previous incarnations - the smartphone Gingerbread OS and the tablet Honeycomb OS.

The features of Android 4.0 includes widgets in a new tab, a customizable launcher, Gmail with offline search and a two-line preview, a new action bar at the bottom, better voice integration, improved copy-and-paste functions and a new tabbed Web browser that allows up to 16 tabs.

It comes with a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED Contour display, dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of internal memory, NFC, 4G LTE support, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls. On the flip side, the phone will not support Google Wallet.

On the other hand, the HTC Rezound, which runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, is said to be the only phone in the United States with Beats Audio integration. The HTC phone, which was made available on Verizon from Nov. 14, is also known as HTC Vigor, HTC ThunderBolt 2, HTC Droid Incredible HD and HTC ADR6425.

Apart from this, Rezound sports a 4.3-inch super LCD screen, 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8660 processor and Adreno 220 GPU, features an 8-megapixel camera in the rear and a 2-megapixel camera in the front.

Let's take a look at the specifications of both the phones:

Display: Galaxy Nexus sports a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED Contour display that may give a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with about 316 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, Rezound has a 4.3-inch screen with super LCD display which provides 1280 x 720 pixel resolution at about 342 ppi pixel density.

Size: Galaxy Nexus comes with 5.33 x 2.67 x 0.37 inches dimension and weighs 5.1 ounces. On the other hand, Rezound comes in 5.08 x 2.58 x 0.54 inches dimension and weighs 6 ounces.

Processor: Galaxy Nexus features dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU with 1GB RAM. On the other hand, Rezound features 1.5GHz Scorpion dual-core processor Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon processor with 1GB RAM.

Camera: Galaxy Nexus sports a 5-megapixel LED flash camera with 1080p video capture, while Rezound sports 8-megapixel rear-facing dual-LED flash camera with 1080p video capture capability. Rezound has a 2 megapixel front-facing camera for video calling while Nexus has a 1.3 megapixel camera.

3G/4G: Galaxy Nexus has HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps and supports 4G LTE. On the other hand, Rezound has Rev. A, up to 3.1 Mbps and LTE Class 13.

Operating System: Rezound has the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with the promise of an upgrade to Google Inc.'s latest smartphone OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Galaxy Nexus, however, comes preloaded with Android 4.0 OS. Android Head of Engineering Mike Claren has announced that the new OS - Ice Cream Sandwich - as Google's most ambitious release to date.

User Interface: Rezound uses HTC Sense 3.5 version user interface. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus uses Google's own user interface that starts at the new homescreen outfitted with a 360 degree Action Bar and fresh interactive widgets in an exciting holographic environment.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: Rezound supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot along with Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP and microUSB (MHL) 2.0 version. On the other handthe Galaxy Nexus has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, and microUSB 2.0 version.

Storage: Rezound has an internal 16GB storage with a 16GB microSD card included in the package that can be expanded up to 32GB. However, Galaxy Nexus has a fixed 16 / 32GB internal storage.

Battery: Rezound comes with a standard Li-ion 1620 mAh battery that gives more than 6 hours 24 minutes of talk time and 261 hours of standby. On the other hand, the Galaxy Nexus comes with a standard Li-ion 1750 mAh battery that gives more than 8 hours of talk time and 270 hours of standby on 3G networks.

Pricing: Both the smartphones are priced $299.99 each with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract.

Editors' Rating: Galaxy Nexus scores over the Rezound in technology editors' ratings. CNET has a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars for Galaxy Nexus while Rezound has scored 4. PCMag rates both smartphones with 4 stars.