Also this week: my review of the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus and its eye-popping 4.65-inch touchscreen; 10 classic, must-have Blu-ray movies; and 7 upcoming gadgets to keep an eye on next year.

Holiday Gift Guide: 4 tips for last-minute shoppers
There’s still time to leave something under the tree—a digital something, anyway—even if you’ve waited until the last yawning moment. Read more…

Hands-on review: the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, powered by “Ice Cream Sandwich”
With its jumbo HD screen and button-less face, the “Ice Cream Sandwich”-powered Samsung Galaxy Nexus is scene-stealer, but is it worth the hefty $299 price tag? Read more…

The 5 best YouTube Yule logs
Stuck without a fireplace this holiday season? No problem. Just crack open your laptop, fire up YouTube, and warm up with one of these cozy digital Yule logs. Read more…

Holiday Gift Guide: 10 classic, must-have Blu-ray movies
Putting a Blu-ray player under the tree for your favorite movie buff? Consider throwing in a classic Blu-ray movie, like “Ben-Hur” or “Gone With the Wind.” Read more…

7 gadgets and tech products to watch in 2012
Coming in 2012: a spiffy new iPad, a camera that you’ll never have to focus, data plans for families, two game consoles your kids will be longing for, and more. Read more…

Year in tech: The 5 “improvements” you hated the most
From the redesigned Gmail to Newsstand on the iPhone, here’s 5 new and “improved” features on your favorite products that you wanted undone, pronto. Read more…

Holiday Gift Guide: 6 super smartphone accessories
From a stylish Bluetooth headset to a roll-up keyboard, we’ve got six great gifts for your favorite iPhone-, Android-, or BlackBerry-toting road warrior. Read more…

How to set a hard data limit for your Android phone
The new “Ice Cream Sandwich” version of Android boasts a data-usage monitor that warns you if you’re approaching your monthly data limit. Here’s how to do it. Read more…

Podcast 008: Gadgets to watch next year; last-minute shopping tips
This week: the so-called tech “improvements” that readers absolutely, positively hated. Also: gadgets to watch in 2012, and (very) last-minute shopping tips. Read more…

How to unlock the Galaxy Nexus Android phone with your face
Can’t be bothered to tap in a PIN to unlock your phone? Here’s a novel solution: a camera that unlocks your handset the instant it recognizes your face. Read more…

Happy Holidays from here’s the thing!
I wanted to take time out and wish you and your families all the best in this Holiday Season. I’m looking forward to an amazing 2012! Read more…

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Slim body, huge screen
First things first: let’s talk about the Galaxy Nexus’ gorgeous display, which measures a whopping 4.65 inches from one corner to the other, versus just 3.5 inches for the iPhone. Even better, the screen itself is one of the few on a smartphone to quality as true HD quality, with a pixel resolution of 1280 by 720—the same as on many big-screen HDTV sets. Impressive.

Despite (and perhaps because of) its overall size, the 5.1-ounce, 0.37-inch-thick Nexus feels surprisingly thin and light. Strangely enough, it feels lighter than the smaller iPhone 4, which is actually slightly thinner and lighter than the new Nexus. Go figure.

It’s the first “Ice Cream Sandwich” phone
OK, so what does ice cream have to do with smartphones? Well, “Ice Cream Sandwich” is Google’s code name for the latest version of Android—version 4.0, to be exact.

You can read my rundown of the 10 most important things about Ice Cream Sandwich right here, but suffice to say that the revamped OS brings several features of the latest Android tablets to the smaller screen of a smartphone, along with a clever “face unlock” feature (which lets you unlock your phone with your face) and the ability to set a “hard” usage limit for mobile data.

Nope, no physical "Home" key here.

Where’s the home key?
The Galaxy Nexus marks the first in what’s sure to be many more “Ice Cream Sandwich”-powered Android phones to arrive without any hardware keys at all—well, besides the power and volume buttons, anyway.

Instead, you only get three on-screen navigational keys—Back, Home, and a third for pulling up a list of running applications—at the bottom of the screen, and even those virtual keys may disappear in some circumstances.

The Nexus’ missing home key is a bit disconcerting at first, until you realize that you can always make them appear again by tapping on the bottom of the screen.

So, is losing the physical “Home” key a good thing or a bad thing? That depends on your point of view, of course. If you like the idea of twirling your smartphone this way and that without worrying which way is “up,” you probably won’t miss the plastic Home key at all. But if you like having at least one “real” button you could press, the missing Home key might leave you feeling a bit unsettled.

It’s a great “cloud” phone
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Android phones are a cinch to set up for Gmail users, and the Galaxy Nexus is no exception. Just sign in with your Google account, and bam—your email, contacts, and calendars are synced automatically. And if you use Google’s Picasa and (especially) the new Google Music service, your online photos and tunes will be instantly synced, too. I love it.

Just tap a thumbnail to switch to a different application.

Multitasking made easy
Among many other features borrowed from the latest Android tablets, the Galaxy Nexus (as well as other forthcoming “Ice Cream Sandwich” phones) boasts a handy multitasking bar.

Just tap the on-screen button right next to the virtual “Home” key, and a column of running apps will appear, complete with a thumbnail of the app “frozen” in the background. Just flick and tap to switch to another app. Nice.

It’s peppy
Under its hood, the Galaxy Nexus is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, which means it has two processor cores soldered onto a single chip; in other words, it’s a “two heads are better than one”-type situation. Thanks to all that horsepower, the Galaxy Nexus is one peppy phone—pages load quickly, screen animations are smooth, and rarely did I catch an app chugging or stalling.

Nifty, but here’s the thing: in the not too distant future (probably within the next year or so), expect to start seeing smartphones with four-core processors instead of just two. In other words, it won’t be long before the Galaxy Nexus’ hefty engine (not to mention the processors in many other current, cutting-edge Android phones) looks like yesterday’s news.

So-so picture quality
The Galaxy Nexus comes armed with a five-megapixel camera that shoots 1080p-quality video—not bad, but not quite up to snuff with the eight-megapixel cameras in recent state-of-the-art smartphones. Indeed, my test shots and videos on the Galaxy Nexus were marred by a fair amount of noise and muddiness, especially in low-light conditions—par for the course for most handsets, but well shy of the image quality you’ll see from the best smartphone cameras.

The Galaxy Nexus' picture quality: good, not great.

Back on the plus side, though, photos are snapped the moment you tap the shutter release, and you can take 360-degree shots using the build-in “panorama” mode. There’s also a front-facing camera for video chat using Skype or another video-messaging app.

Wrestling with the battery
Reports are already pouring in about the Galaxy Nexus’ iffy battery life, particularly when the phone is connected to Verizon’s speedy but power-draining 4G data network. After testing the new Nexus for the past several days, I found that the handset’s battery held up fine under normal use—say, a few phone calls here and there, some light web surfing and email checking, a video or two. That said, expect the battery meter to dip quickly if you’re streaming video, uploading snapshots, or using the Nexus as a 4G hotspot.

The good news, though, is that the Nexus has a replaceable battery—meaning that in a pinch, you could swap out a dead battery with a fresh one.

Thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich, it's easy to find out which apps are hogging the most power.

Also, Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich software comes with a control panel that shows you which applications are hogging the most power, along with the option to quickly shut down any app before it sucks the battery dry.

No slot for memory cards
One of the biggest advantages that many Android phones have over the iPhone is that they come with slots for teeny, tiny microSD flash-memory cards, perfect for expanding your handset’s memory capacity or quickly moving large media files from your PC to your phone.

The Galaxy Nexus, however, doesn’t have a microSD memory slot; its 32 GB of internal storage is all you get.

It’s pricey
At $299 with a two-year Verizon contract, the 32 GB Galaxy Nexus is the same price as the equivalent 32 GB iPhone 4S—fair enough, right? The only problem is that there isn’t a cheaper 16 GB version of the new Nexus as there is for the iPhone, which starts at $199 for the 16 GB model.

And the verdict is…
No question, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is an impressive phone by virtue of its “Ice Cream Sandwich” software and glorious 4.65-inch display. Given the fast pace of Android phones, though, it won’t be long before this latest Nexus is eclipsed by an Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Droid or Evo handset, particularly in the camera department—and that’ll be a bitter pill for anyone who’s just put $299 on the barrelhead.

My advice: Unless you’re a die-hard Android fanatic who must have the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone right now, I’d wait until the Galaxy Nexus gets a price cut—or until the next Ice Cream Sandwich-equipped superphone comes along.

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Just like iOS 5, version 4.0 of Android packs in hundreds of new features, ranging from a new typeface for the home screen to a novel way of unlocking your handset: with your face, rather than your fingertips.

Also, you know the four main hardware buttons: Home, Back, Menu, and Search? Well, you can kiss ’em goodbye.

Google has posted an exhaustive list of everything that’s new in Ice Cream Sandwich, but for now, I’ll just cover the 10 things you need to know about the update, starting with…

1. It’ll land in November
We only have a month to wait before Android 4.0 arrives, and it’ll make its first appearance on the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus, a sleek new handset with a huge, 4.65-inch display (versus the iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen) with a resolution of 720p—in other words, we’re talking a true HD-quality display, a first for a smarpthone.

2. Yep, it’s named after a dessert
The clever engineers at Google have given every version of Android a dessert-themed code-name. Android 2.3, for example, was “Gingerbread,” Android 3.0 was “Honeycomb,” and now Android 4.0 is “Ice Cream Sandwich”—and yes, the code names are in alphabetical order.

3. Current Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” phones may get the “Ice Cream Sandwich” update too, but not all at once
Tap Applications, Settings, “About this phone,” and “Software information” on your Android phone; if it reads “2.3” or higher under “Android version,” then your phone is (according to Engadget) eligible for the Android 4.0 update.

That said, don’t expect to unwrap “Ice Cream Sandwich” for your “Gingerbread”-powered phone right away. The new update must be customized for each individual Android phone, and there are dozens of makes and models—meaning you’ll have to wait your turn. Also, there’s no telling when—or even if—your particular Android smartphone will get the update. Frustrating, I know.

Android 4.0 ditches the four hardware buttons with three "soft," on-screen buttons.

4. It’ll boast a radically revamped user interface
Up until now, the tablet and smartphone versions of the Android software were different animals. Starting with Android 4.0, though, they’ll be one and the same, meaning that Androind smartphones will be getting many of the snazzy features that Android tablet users have been enjoying for months

Among the new features for smartphones: a multitasking bar for quickly switching between applications; a new notification center that lets you play music and dismiss individual alerts; and a custom “Action Bar” that lets you control the functions of specific apps.

Android users should also expect a new screen font tailored for high-resoltion displays, interactive widgets that you can install your various home screens (when will the iPhone get home-screen widgets, I wonder?), and the ability to create folders for your apps by dragging one app on top of another (yep, sounds familiar).

5. No more hardware buttons
Every Android phone up to this point has had a quartet of physical buttons just below the screen: Home, Menu, Back, and Search. “Ice Cream Sandwich” eliminates those buttons, replacing them with three on-screen “soft” buttons: Back, Home, and Recent Apps.

It’s an approach that goes beyond Apple’s minimalist, single “Home” button design—and personally, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Google’s “Honeycomb”-powered tablets have already ditched the hardware buttons, by the way.

Just aim the phone at your face to unlock it.

6. You can unlock your phone with your face
Using the facial recognition technology that’s already available in many digital cameras, “Ice Cream Sandwich” devices will let you unlock your handset merely by pointing the phone’s front-facing lens at your smiling mug. (You can also stick with a tried-and-true pass code, if you wish.)

Clever, no question, but what if you’re wearing sunglasses, or if you’re having a bad hair day? Again, it’ll be interesting to see the new face-unlock feature in action.

7. You’ll be able to take screenshots
Amazingly, “Ice Cream Sandwich” will mark the first version of Android to let you take a quick screenshot of your phone’s display with a single click. Up until now, there’s been no easy (or even official) way to take a screenshot on an Android phone.

8. You can send quick text messages to callers straight from the lock screen
Android phones have long had the ability to fire off short, canned text messages (like, “I’ll get right back to you”) to callers at the same time that you dismiss an incoming call. With Android 4.0, though, you’ll be able to dismiss a call and simultaneously send a text directly from the lock screen. Nice.

Now that's freaky.

9. You’ll be able to morph the faces of people in your videos, in real time
“Ice Cream Sandwich” comes with series of new photo-editing features, such as cropping, picture rotating, red-eye reduction, and even the ability to take panoramic shots.

But the most interesting (and spookiest, if you ask me) new photo feature is “Live Effects,” which lets you morph the faces of the people in your video clips—think gigantic eyes, massive grins, grossly over-sized noses, you name it. Freaky.

10. You can set hard limits for data use
Here’s a welcome feature, given the strict data plans that many of the big carriers have been rolling out over the past year: the ability to set a “hard” cap for your 3G or 4G data use. In other words, your “Ice Cream Sandwich” phone can cut you off before your handset gobbles up too much data, perfect for preventing you from creeping over your monthly data allowance and incurring an overage fee.

So, got questions about Android 4.0? Let me know!

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