The Galaxy Nexus finally arrived in Malaysia recently, albeit with much less fanfare than the iPhone 4S. It's main feature is the new Ice Cream Sandwich OS, and it brings Android closer to being a distinct OS all on its own, while maintaining its usefulness for tablets - something Honeycomb couldn't do.

At first look it does seem much nicer. The new font Roboto is definitely a step up from the old one, and the slight UI lag is gone. There isn't a "killer feature" like iPhone's Siri (which I admit I rarely use nowadays) or camera, but everything seems much slicker overall.

I won't wade into the Android vs iOS app store war here, but if you use Google applications a lot (Gmail, Calendar) etc then Android does a much better job of integrating them. The Nexus will support offline search of your Gmail account for example.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the plasticky feel: the case is mainly plastic, with the battery cover especially feeling "cheap". This boils down to personal preference - using plastic makes the phone much lighter - but I prefer the solidness of the iPhone and Lumia 800.

If you have small hands like yours truly, the generous 4.65" screen might be a tad unwieldy for one-handed handling. I could barely reach the top quarter of the screen. On the flip side though, all that real estate makes HD videos and photos positively pop on the Nexus.

If you're looking for an Android phone but are still undecided about the Nexus, a look at DiGi's price plans for the Nexus should tip you over the edge. At a mere RM28/month for a 1GB plan or RM38/month for the 3GB plan (with auto-billing), you'll end up paying less than half of what an iPhone user would, and you save RM400-RM500 compared to going with a Celcom plan. That is seriously a rock-bottom price! Someone at DiGi definitely loves this phone :).