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Samsung Galaxy Nexus with Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on photos

Take a look at our hands-on photos of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Android Ice Cream Sandwich in action.

Richard Trenholm
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Richard Trenholm
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Roll up roll up, for the greatest show in the galaxy! The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, that is. We've dropped by Google HQ in London to get our hands on the new Android ringmaster, draped in the new Ice Cream Sandwich software and bursting with new features.

The Galaxy Nexus is a joint venture between Google and Samsung. Samsung's hardware shows off Google's software, showcasing the new features in Android 4.0, otherwise rather tastily known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

Click through our photos above to see the Nexus in action. As you can see, there are no physical buttons on the phone: instead, the usual physical Android buttons are now represented on the screen.

The screen is a giant 4.65-inch high definition affair, and it's very crisp for web browsing or watching video. It's a pretty big phone, but nice and slim. You'll certainly appreciate all that extra space when you're looking at maps or reading lots of text.

The big screen also gives you loads of room for apps and widgets. There's a nest multi-tasking menu which gives you dinky little preview windows of the apps you have running at the moment, so it's easy to switch between them.

Oddly, despite being a showcase for the latest and best technology in Android, the Nexus only boasts a 5-megapixel camera. But we did try out the nifty panorama function.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus arrives in shops on 17 November. Click here for more screenshots of Ice Cream Sandwich, or click for our full Galaxy Nexus review.

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The back, with textued grippiness.
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Apps galore!
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The Galaxy Nexus looking slim.
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A new multitasking menu is conjured by pressing an on-screen button on the bottom right. You can close apps by swiping across to the side.
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App previews on the Galaxy Nexus.
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The hi-res screen makes reading web pages really easy, and text looks crisp.
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Beam uses the phone's NFC tech to send photos, web pages, contacts, maps, YouTube video or apps. Here a flag quiz game is beamed from the Galaxy Nexus on the left, causing the app to open in the Android Market over on the right.
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Panorama mode lets you take panoramic shots in one smooth motion.

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