I've heard that the battery life is actually quite decent; a daily charge is needed, but that's par for the course for a smartphone these days. As for the voice input needing to be activated via internet; I'm not sure what someone would be doing shelling out for a nexus if they don't have internet. And given that you need to have internet to order one, it's a fairly reasonable assumption you'll have internet to activate it.

It's a stunning piece of hardware, and Android is going from strength to strength; I'm definitely getting one when they launch over here. I was going to order one from the US, but with VAT and import tax it's jsut too expensive. Plus, multitouch isn't enabled in the US software.