Consumer enthusiasm for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone seems to know no bounds at present, despite the fact that we still don’t have a confirmed release date for it. This Android handset has had hardly anything but positive praise since it was made official but now there is news of a problem in the facial unlock feature. If that doesn’t put you off though we also have news of a contest where you could win one of 10 on offer.

The Galaxy Nexus is set to trounce rivals such as the Motorola Droid RAZR and HTC Rezound also on Verizon but as with most new smartphones sometimes the odd flaw is discovered. In our most recent post about the Galaxy Nexus we spoke about the facial recognition feature to unlock the handset, which sounds pretty impressive. However it has now been found that a photo of the owner can be used to unlock the phone instead, which could be a real security flaw.

The facial recognition sounds cool enough and will save users typing in a code to unlock their handset each time. However one blogger, SoyaCincao, decided to test it out by merely using a photo and claims to have managed to trick the system. According to the Huffington Post, a digital photo was taken using a Galaxy Note and this photo was then shown to the Galaxy Nexus, which then unlocked. You can see the video of what happened below this story. It seems that some people queried whether he had set the Nexus up for facial recognition using the photo rather than his own face but that doesn’t seem to be the case. SoyaCincau has now updated the YouTube description saying, “I can assure you that the device was set up to recognise my face.”

It will certainly be interesting to see how this one develops seeing as Tim Bray, Android Developer Advocate at Google, said last month via Twitter, that it would not be possible to use a photo to break into the phone, as reported by The Next Web. Onto the competition then and it seems that Google is to give away 10 Galaxy Nexus handsets via a contest on Twitter, with one a day starting from today (Saturday 12). There will be a different question or challenge on Twitter every day for 10 days as reported by Digital Trends, where you can find a pdf link for the official rules. To take part you have to be following the @GoogleNexus account.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus. Would the facial recognition flaw put you off purchasing a Galaxy Nexus or do you think this will be easily sorted before release? Will you be trying to win this much-awaited handset? Let us know with your comments.

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