Hey guys, I have a shot story and then Nexus vs iPhone experience to share.
I switched from Sprint to Verizon on Saturday. Sprint screwed up my wife's phone and I'd had enough of their BS so we bailed. My wife was happy because going to Verizon she was able to get a new iPhone; I having been on Android platforms for a year (I had the iPhones 1-4 when I was with AT&T prior to Sprint) decided to go with the Galaxy Nexus. Verizon, however, apparently cannot provide coverage at my house, and after a few cordial phone calls they recommended I switch to a different carrier. I decided to go back to AT&T because after a year of CDMA I was ready for a good dose of GSM.
So for three days I had the Galaxy Nexus. No, it's not a long time to base an opinion on, but having had a Nexus S prior to the GN I am pretty familiar with Android and Samsung.
The GN is fast; one of the smoothest Android experiences you're going to have out there. Unfortunately, it takes that much horsepower to make it smooth; the way Android was designed and continues to process graphical information inherintly causes lagging in animations, including scrolling. It's not as noticeable as on lesser-powered phones to be sure, but it's nowhere near as smooth as iOS on the 4S and frankly I believe that anyone who says otherwise either has never experienced the 4S or is deluding themselves.
For me, the phone looked nice but felt kind of cheap. It was also too big to hold and use comfortably with one hand, and I have pretty meaty hands. I also have minor carpal tunnel syndrome, so stretching my thumb the height of the phone to pull down the notification bar was tough at times. The screen is nice and big but when you get down to it looks no nicer than the 4S' screen; it's just bigger.
Reception on the phone on Verizon's network was pitiful. Verizon has already acknowledged this and said they are looking for a software fix, but my experience with Samsung and CDMA networks tells me that this is probably going to get swept under the rug as much as possible. GPS also took a long time to lock on; another Samsung trait.
If you take a look at the Galaxy Nexus forum on XDA, you'll see tons of complaints about power drain. LTE certainly will kill the phone, as will poor connectivity. But outside of those two issues, there appears to be a bug in ICS that is affecting other phones as well that is causing the phone to stay awake too long. Combined with the reception issue, the battery life on the Verizon GN suffers big time.
ICS is nice to be sure, but as a longtime iOS and Android user, it's clear that Google took a lot of inspiration from Apple for Android 4.0. The new folder system is a perfect example of this; ripped almost right out of iOS. Of course you could make a counter-argument for the notification system in iOS 5, so this is really a quibble.
Today, with my shiny iPhone 4S sitting where my GN was yesterday, I am much happier. I had an interesting year with Android, and there were times when I truly thought that Android was it for me and I wouldn't go back to iOS. But the GN actually made me change my mind. Take that for what it's worth.