Nexus-Five thread

Wife just texted me a picture of a box that just arrived this morning. Unfortunately, I won't be home until late tonight, so it may be tomorrow before I can get it setup.

Can't wait to try it out.
 
Nexus 5 battery life first impressions: Good enough, but not great
http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-5-battery-life-first-impressions-good-enough-not-great

This is the reason I am not getting a Nexus 5, and I have owned all four Nexus phones. Really upsets me too :( I so wanted the G2's large 3,000mAh battery in the N5, just sucks the one thing they don't keep from the G2, is one of it's best features :mad:

Oh well, I am super happy with my Galaxy S4 battery life, been getting 6h On Screen time consistently, and easily overall use of 18 hours on busy workdays with no WiFi, and weekends at home on WiFi I can go 36 hours.

Motorola can cram a massive 3,500mAh battery into a slim phone, the Ultra MAXX is a hair thinner than the N5. Why others cant? Imagine the Droid Ultra MAXX as the basis for the Nexus 5 instead, just replace the screen with a nice 1080p one. I'd be all over that, even if it was a little slower in performance for not having the Snapdragon 800.
 
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What's the story with the camera? I'm seeing reviews all OVER the place with that. Some say it is disappointing and not comparable to any flagship phone and is behind the times even in comparison to some mid-range phones. Other people are saying it is a huge upgrade and does great in lots of scenarios, even low-light. I'm not sure who to believe anymore.

The camera is a big upgrade compared to the Nexus 4. The pictures that the Nexus 5 takes are pretty good, but it can be slow to focus and take the picture. HDR+ fixes dynamic range issues that might pop up in regular mode, but it adds shooting and processing time. According to The Verge review this stuff might be fixed, a la the Moto X:

There is a glimmer of hope, however. Representatives from the Android team say that software is to blame for the weak performance, not hardware, and reps tell me that a fix is coming to deal with the issues in the upcoming weeks. I've even seen an early build of the new software, and while it's only a minor improvement — autofocus is a hair faster, but still inconsistent, and picture quality hasn't changed — it's nice to see Google already at work.

The stock camera app is also lacking in shooting modes - no burst function, can't change video fps, limited adjustment. This is one area that both the Galaxy Note 3 and iPhone 5S excel. The Nexus 5's built in editing features are pretty good for posting pictures to social media straight from the phone.
 
Tell of your disappointment.

Might be personal, but..

1. The phone is too big for my hands. Its so stretched in length that even icons seem weird. Not even a single wallpaper looks nice on it. The N4 was perfect.

2. Google ripped me off on that original OEM bumper. Feels more a $19.99 product, but definitely not the $34.99. Makes the phone thick and bulk, and I am not the fan of holding a monster in my hands. On the other hand, the N4 OEM bumper was very nice.

3. The display. It's horrible. I am a fan of good IPS displays. It's washed, poor blacks, poor color reproduction. I've compared to my gf's iphone 5s yesterday side by side and couldn't believe how horrible the N5 display was.

4. The speaker. Whoever was in charge creating it needs to be fired. It wobbles through the whole phone. My 10 year old flip flop phone has a better quality speaker than this.

5. The Hangouts. I am not cool with two available conversations per person. The Google has created a clutter with this crap integration.

6. The phone feels very generic alike. It almost feels like that Google gave this device for devs to test it.

7. Underwhelmed by KitKat. I see pretty much no improvement except for a few updated apps.
 
Might be personal, but..

1. The phone is too big for my hands. Its so stretched in length that even icons seem weird. Not even a single wallpaper looks nice on it. The N4 was perfect.

2. Google ripped me off on that original OEM bumper. Feels more a $19.99 product, but definitely not the $34.99. Makes the phone thick and bulk, and I am not the fan of holding a monster in my hands. On the other hand, the N4 OEM bumper was very nice.

3. The display. It's horrible. I am a fan of good IPS displays. It's washed, poor blacks, poor color reproduction. I've compared to my gf's iphone 5s yesterday side by side and couldn't believe how horrible the N5 display was.

4. The speaker. Whoever was in charge creating it needs to be fired. It wobbles through the whole phone. My 10 year old flip flop phone has a better quality speaker than this.

5. The Hangouts. I am not cool with two available conversations per person. The Google has created a clutter with this crap integration.

6. The phone feels very generic alike. It almost feels like that Google gave this device for devs to test it.

7. Underwhelmed by KitKat. I see pretty much no improvement except for a few updated apps.

1. Personal preference

2. Personal choice as there are other choices out there for a bumper

3. :confused: you sure you got a N5 because it is indeed a beautiful screen

4. Personal view. It is a mono speaker and was not promised to be anywhere near what The HTC One speakers are.

5. Hangouts is something to get used to but you can get another sms app to handle the sms.

6. Phone is deliberately designed, it feels good and looks good to me. So I guess that falls under personal preference.

7. Kitkat was made to streamline android. Designed to be efficient in everything it does and optimized with a smaller foot print. Google is now dismantling Android to make it easier for updates to happen and not be subject to carrier approval. The goal is to get most of androids components updatable from the play store that bypasses the carriers certification process.
 
Yeah if you don't like Hangouts there is always Handcent SMS. That's what I'll use if I find I don't like Hangouts.
 
This is life with Android - you either compromise with getting a flagship like S4/One but have to live with custom skins and never getting updates. Or you compromise with getting Nexus phones, pure Google, updates (well some of the time), but the hw is definitely not as good.

You simply cannot buy the best hardware + best software on Android. Sometimes you might get lucky - able to root the phone, custom rom with everything working etc. But it will never be as stable and will not get updated either.
 
This is life with Android - you either compromise with getting a flagship like S4/One but have to live with custom skins and never getting updates. Or you compromise with getting Nexus phones, pure Google, updates (well some of the time), but the hw is definitely not as good.

You simply cannot buy the best hardware + best software on Android. Sometimes you might get lucky - able to root the phone, custom rom with everything working etc. But it will never be as stable and will not get updated either.
There might be a grain of truth to this, but I vehemently disagree with the last sentence. With both my HTC and Samsung phones, I've found custom ROMs (specifically CM) to be *more* stable than the carrier ROM they shipped with.

Been running CM10 on my Galaxy S3 for almost a year now, and can't think of one instance of bugginess/crashes that weren't due to a third-party app.

I've never owned a Nexus, but I don't see them as significantly stripped down the way you're implying. The N5 looks reasonably close to current "flagship" devices, if you don't care about microSD/removable battery. They're certainly a better value off-contract than anything else.
 
I'm not saying the Nexus is stripped down, just that its hardware is not as good as the flagships, which it can't be since its much cheaper. It remains a great value.

I also run AOSP roms on my GS3. And it is better than stock. But don't tell me you occasionally can't get random reboots, loss of data, signal issues etc. All that will happen if you regularly update the rom/kernel etc. Most normal people aren't capable of running custom rom's anyway, and the newer phones don't have an unlock/root.

It's accepted even on XDA that stock rom (like Sense/TW) provide the best stability and data/signal. But of course they are much heavier, don't get updated etc.
 
There might be a grain of truth to this, but I vehemently disagree with the last sentence. With both my HTC and Samsung phones, I've found custom ROMs (specifically CM) to be *more* stable than the carrier ROM they shipped with.
I think people that run these convince themselves that this is true. Threads running 50 pages long of people having problems and people still claiming it's stable and nothing's wrong with it. I used to run ROMs until I got a Nexus and realized what stable should be. I will never run a custom ROM on my phone ever again. Some are great but they all seem to come with a price in buggy operation and reliability. Every once in a while I get the itch to try something and open up threads claiming "100% working" only to see a list at the bottom of the dev's post of things that don't work. Well it's not 100% if things are still wrong. That sums up that community as a whole IMO.

Your mileage may vary but that's been my experience.
 
What's the story with the camera? I'm seeing reviews all OVER the place with that. Some say it is disappointing and not comparable to any flagship phone and is behind the times even in comparison to some mid-range phones. Other people are saying it is a huge upgrade and does great in lots of scenarios, even low-light. I'm not sure who to believe anymore.

The real deal-breaker to me is if T-Mobile will have wifi calling on it or if the community can port it over. I use that feature way too much. I know it never got ported to the N4 and there was a big bounty on xda for it but it was never fulfilled.

According to TheVerge, who contacted Google about this, they said its a software bug that makes the focusing on the camera to go slow, and some of the other minor annoyances seen on the camera app.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5062724/google-nexus-5-review

But, then again, my HTC One has severe focusing issues on the main camera, that HTC claims is related to the firmware (which I disagree with.. I think its just crappy materials used in the camera focusing mechanism).

Google is reportedly working on an update to "fix" the camera issue. We will see....
 
Just got my Nexus 5. There's no headphone in the box... really..Google?? It's that cheap? hehehe
 
Not sure if that Verge writer was smoking crack or shilling for apple But if you want a pretty unbiased review of the N5 camera check this guy's video out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp6clWG-b5c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIrrRLyFMVmmL9NDAU2obJA

EDIT: Yes he does need to shave his eyebrows.A lot.

Don't know if you're serious, but... getting a bit tired of this attitude that suggests anyone in the media who's critical of Google (or even vaguely complimentary to Apple) is "biased" and/or on the take. There's likely much less conspiracy involved, and in many cases the real beef is simply that the reviewer didn't rubber stamp a preconceived opinion.

That video is helpful, although I do think he misjudged a couple of elements. The outdoor shot between trees, for example: he likes the N5's contrast, but it's also hiding more of the scene. The iPhone 5s brings out more of what you'd actually see. And the audio test was more complex -- yes, the N5 was louder, but it picked up all kinds of unwanted reverberation. There also wasn't any discussion of shot-to-shot lag, and he somewhat glossed over the N5's terrible low-light video performance.
 
Was gonna pick this up but due to factors beyond my control surrounding availability, I started looking at the G2. By all accounts, its a beast of a phone. Probably a long shot, but has anyone used both and what do they think? Will be buying off contract and because of market forces, prices will be approximately the same.
 
Just got mine today and initial impressions are that it is amazing. Feels much faster than my HTC One. Screen is awesome. Physical feel of the phone in your hands is excellent. Android 4.4 is kind of iOS'ish but runs as fast as I could hope for. It really is awesome.

I'll see how it performs over the next few days as far as battery life and camera performance.

I went with the 32gb black.
 
i've been using it since yesterday
size is perfect and really feels great in hand
screen is bright and good
i miss Note 2's large screen tho when i'm not outside
i'll probably end up getting galaxy note 8.0 or nexus 7 for that need
 
Not sure if that Verge writer was smoking crack or shilling for apple But if you want a pretty unbiased review of the N5 camera check this guy's video out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp6clWG-b5c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIrrRLyFMVmmL9NDAU2obJA

EDIT: Yes he does need to shave his eyebrows.A lot.

Verge writer is definitely not smoking crack or shilling for apple. What he said about the camera and battery life, I agree with him. Except I just don't see how this phone is google's answer for apple nor a flagship phone.
 
Verge writer is definitely not smoking crack or shilling for apple. What he said about the camera and battery life, I agree with him. Except I just don't see how this phone is google's answer for apple nor a flagship phone.

This is not a flagship for google it's just a way to get their phones into people hands. The camera is held back by the camera app IMO. The battery life is debated depending on usage and signal from carrier.
 
Got mine last night. Decided to sell it in Fs/Ft. I'm a phablet guy now I guess. I missed my Note 2 and a lot of the touchwiz features immediately. I may use the funds from the trade to get a note 3 or just keep the old note 2.
 
I think people that run these convince themselves that this is true. Threads running 50 pages long of people having problems and people still claiming it's stable and nothing's wrong with it. I used to run ROMs until I got a Nexus and realized what stable should be. I will never run a custom ROM on my phone ever again. Some are great but they all seem to come with a price in buggy operation and reliability. Every once in a while I get the itch to try something and open up threads claiming "100% working" only to see a list at the bottom of the dev's post of things that don't work. Well it's not 100% if things are still wrong. That sums up that community as a whole IMO.

Your mileage may vary but that's been my experience.

Quoting for truth. To many roms claim improvements but they fail to mention that these so called improvements are coming at the expense of stability and usability. Same with kernels.

However, one has stood above the rest. I have been running CM stable on my N4 for a few months and I will say that it is the first custom rom I have ever used that is as stable as stock. I have not encountered a single issues since flashing it.

Next time I buy phones my first stop is CM to see if they have a rom for it and how often they update it. Hell I may just buy an Oppo.
 
So I'm at school. I had my N5 shipped home. I paid for the phone with my own money. What happens? My father doesn't even give me the pleasure of unboxing it myself. :mad:
 
So I'm at school. I had my N5 shipped home. I paid for the phone with my own money. What happens? My father doesn't even give me the pleasure of unboxing it myself. :mad:

Time for some old fashioned revenge. Laxative in his coffee will teach him a valuable lesson.
 
I got my N5 today. This thing is beautiful. I used it for about 30 minutes stock. I have it rooted, TWRP installed, and a custom kernel. Now it's smoother than butter.
 
So I'm at school. I had my N5 shipped home. I paid for the phone with my own money. What happens? My father doesn't even give me the pleasure of unboxing it myself. :mad:

I hate when people do that. I ordered a PS3 last year and my roommate opened it and set it up while I was at work. There's satisfaction that comes with opening a new toy and seeing it come alive for the first time, and I was robbed of that!
 
Google Nexus 5 review
http://bgr.com/2013/11/06/google-nexus-5-review/

The battery life: Many Android fans were saddened when the Nexus 5′s specs leaked and the phone was discovered to have a 2,300 mAh battery. They were right to be upset.

Battery life is definitely one of the Nexus 5′s weakest attributes. I have only spent a few days with the phone so far but its battery has not impressed me. It struggled to carry me through a full day of moderate usage that included some email, some music streaming, plenty of Twitter checking and Feedly reading, a few phone calls, some Netflix streaming and other miscellaneous use.

I’ll update this review if anything changes after more use, but I doubt it will. Plan to pick up a few extra chargers and a car charger if you buy a Nexus 5.
 
Question for the owners of a N5 that I haven't seen answered anywhere: FM Radio status?
I've seen rumours of such but that was just folks looking at various manuals.

call me old school but I would like a working FM radio in my next phone, my current one has one and I use it almost daily.
 
Google Nexus 5 review
http://bgr.com/2013/11/06/google-nexus-5-review/

The battery life: Many Android fans were saddened when the Nexus 5′s specs leaked and the phone was discovered to have a 2,300 mAh battery. They were right to be upset.

Battery life is definitely one of the Nexus 5′s weakest attributes. I have only spent a few days with the phone so far but its battery has not impressed me. It struggled to carry me through a full day of moderate usage that included some email, some music streaming, plenty of Twitter checking and Feedly reading, a few phone calls, some Netflix streaming and other miscellaneous use.

I’ll update this review if anything changes after more use, but I doubt it will. Plan to pick up a few extra chargers and a car charger if you buy a Nexus 5.

I don't give two fucks what BGR says. If it doesn't have an Apple on it they hate it.

Question for the owners of a N5 that I haven't seen answered anywhere: FM Radio status?
I've seen rumours of such but that was just folks looking at various manuals.

call me old school but I would like a working FM radio in my next phone, my current one has one and I use it almost daily.

No FM radio.
 
I'm not saying the Nexus is stripped down, just that its hardware is not as good as the flagships, which it can't be since its much cheaper. It remains a great value.

I went from an HTC One to the Nexus, and I feel it was a worthwhile switch. Honestly, the S4 is an awful phone (in my opinion) and while I like the G2, it feels awful in hand when compared to the Nexus.

Maybe there are a ton of defective devices going out right now, but my N5 screen is on par with my One's screen. The camera is working great, too. I haven't had enough time to accurately measure battery life (nobody has). My one complaint would be the volume of the speaker. I was spoiled with the One's speakers, simple as that.
 
I went from an HTC One to the Nexus, and I feel it was a worthwhile switch. Honestly, the S4 is an awful phone (in my opinion) and while I like the G2, it feels awful in hand when compared to the Nexus.

Maybe there are a ton of defective devices going out right now, but my N5 screen is on par with my One's screen. The camera is working great, too. I haven't had enough time to accurately measure battery life (nobody has). My one complaint would be the volume of the speaker. I was spoiled with the One's speakers, simple as that.

Just love reading stuff like this :rolleyes:

You had an HTC One, which to most people is still a very good device, with the best display on the market, and an amazing device. The One is a major upgrade to most other phones people are still on. Never understand why people upgrade from a phone that's only 6 months old, and still a top tier high end smartphone. Majorty of people would go crazy to have an HTC One, over their current EVO 4G, or Galaxy S3, or iPhone 4S.

You say the S4 is shit ? Uh ok :confused: I have it, and find it my favorite smartphone of all time. I returned my LG G2 for the S4, best decision I made. And before that had the Note 2, and Nexus 4, and HTC One X. And out of all of those, the S4 is the best of them all, by a long shot, with amazing battery life, lasts two days, and a gorgeous display.

I am not dissing the Nexus 5, it's a great phone. Just not the battery life I could handle for my heavy workday use. My S4 gives me 6h On Screen time, and full day use easily, from what I read the Nexus 5 is just a hair better than Nexus 4 battery life, which for me only gave 4h On Screen time on it's best days.
 
nexus 5 battery life is like on par with likes of S4 / Z1
so just about average
 
nexus 5 battery life is like on pa with likes of S4 / Z1
so just about average

All the reviews in the Nexus 5 battery life, seem all over the board. But most saying battery life is OK not bad, not great, just a hair better than the Nexus 4.

I owned the Nexus 4, and was rooted with a good battery friendly kernel, and was only able to get 4h On Screen time at best. Which is not enough if your a heavy work day user that needs a smartphone for business, that is hammered on all day long.

Where as my S4 easily gets 50% better battery life than my Nexus 4. My S4 gets 6h to 6.5h On Screen time, and lasts many hours longer on a heavy workday.

So is the Nexus 5 much better on battery life than the Nexus 4, in real world use ?
 
Finally got to get my hands on my N5 today from home. It's fantastic! At first I thought I'd really miss having flashy skins (like Sense - coming from an HTC Inspire 4G). The speaker on this phone impresses me with the volume. The device itself feels really nice and well built. I always need a case for my phone or I'll destroy it, so I got a Spigen SlimArmor case and it just increases how the phone feels in hand.
 
Just love reading stuff like this :rolleyes:

You had an HTC One, which to most people is still a very good device, with the best display on the market, and an amazing device. The One is a major upgrade to most other phones people are still on. Never understand why people upgrade from a phone that's only 6 months old, and still a top tier high end smartphone. Majorty of people would go crazy to have an HTC One, over their current EVO 4G, or Galaxy S3, or iPhone 4S.

You say the S4 is shit ? Uh ok :confused: I have it, and find it my favorite smartphone of all time. I returned my LG G2 for the S4, best decision I made. And before that had the Note 2, and Nexus 4, and HTC One X. And out of all of those, the S4 is the best of them all, by a long shot, with amazing battery life, lasts two days, and a gorgeous display.

I am not dissing the Nexus 5, it's a great phone. Just not the battery life I could handle for my heavy workday use. My S4 gives me 6h On Screen time, and full day use easily, from what I read the Nexus 5 is just a hair better than Nexus 4 battery life, which for me only gave 4h On Screen time on it's best days.

I was extremely underwhelmed by the S4. It is a decent phone, but at the price it was going for when it was launched, I felt it was not worth it. Battery life was mediocre, it got really hot when doing anything remotely processor intensive, and Touchwiz made me want to cry.
 
So is the Nexus 5 much better on battery life than the Nexus 4, in real world use ?

i can't comment on that since i never owned nexus 4
but those reviewers are right, it's just okay battery life
i've used S4 before for few weeks and honestly it's about the same as S4
 
Confused here. People agreeing the Nexus 5 is just ok battery life, and on par with the S4 :confused: That doesn't make sense, because if the N5 gets similar battery life as the S4, then that means the Nexus 5 gets insanely good battery life.

Just ok battery life to me means Nexus 4 type battery life.

S4 battery life is in a whole other category. The Galaxy S4 battery life is closer to the great Note 2 battery life. Just amazing battery life on the S4 compared to the Nexus 4 battery life.

In my real world testing, my Wife and I both had Nexus 4's earlier this year, now we both have Galaxy S4's. The S4 battery life is night and day, shockingly better than the Nexus 4's. I can say 50% better on the S4, no joke. My S4 gets closer to my Note 2 battery life.

Just checked my Galaxy S4 battery stats, I have been off the charger since 6:30am this morning, and on the network all day, no WiFi; 33% battery left, with 16h 14m total usage, and 4h 48m On Screen time, so fa, still have 1/3rd more to go.
 
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Confused here. People agreeing the Nexus 5 is just ok battery life, and on par with the S4 :confused: That doesn't make sense, because if the N5 gets similar battery life as the S4, then that means the Nexus 5 gets insanely good battery life.

Just ok battery life to me means Nexus 4 type battery life.

S4 battery life is in a whole other category. The Galaxy S4 battery life is closer to the great Note 2 battery life. Just amazing battery life on the S4 compared to the Nexus 4 battery life.

In my real world testing, my Wife and I both had Nexus 4's earlier this year, now we both have Galaxy S4's. The S4 battery life is night and day, shockingly better than the Nexus 4's. I can say 50% better on the S4, no joke. My S4 gets closer to my Note 2 battery life.

Just checked my Galaxy S4 battery stats, I have been off the charger since 6:30am this morning, and on the network all day, no WiFi; 33% battery left, with 16h 14m total usage, and 5h 3m On Screen time.

to me S4 felt like shit for battery life after using Note 2
 
to me S4 felt like shit for battery life after using Note 2

Yes the Note 2 was the king of battery life, I agree, I owned the N2 for awhile, and it was a beast. But the Nexus 4 was at the other end, with total crap low battery life. My S4 is in the middle of those two phones for battery life, but little closer towards the N2 battery.

On average my Note got 8h On Screen time. My Nexus 4 got 3.5h to 4h On Screen time. My S4 gets 6h to 6.5h On Screen time.
 
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