Reader Review: 5 Nexus, Google's Android with performance ... - Good info

Imprint : The Nexus 5, new Android smartphone with pure manufactured by LG, will be released in Brazil in 2014. Our reader Henrique Pinheiro could get their hands on the device before us and wrote a very complete review detailing his experiences with the smartphone. If you are thinking of replacing the Nexus 4 or want a new Android, reading is recommended. (Paul Higa)

Every year, Google makes hardware partners to demonstrate new versions of Android. For two consecutive years, your choice to LG phones have been, and this partnership born the Nexus 4, in November 2012, and the Nexus 5 in October 2013. The Nexus 4 in Brazil was marked by a wave of discounts that occurred on it in recent months, but was in need of an update by stopping some key problems: an unpredictable camera, the lack of 4G support to the Brazilian and questionable design choices, such as Rear glass.

Nexus 4 was announced in Brazil with an official somewhat hefty price tag when compared to prices in the rest of the world, despite the discounts that followed the launch. No one knows for sure how the Nexus 5 will cost here. Officially, LG says only that it arrives in the first quarter of 2014.

successor to the Nexus 4 is based on the LG G2, a cell with some of the best specifications found in the market. G2, Nexus 5 won the Snapdragon 800, module Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), among other internal components, but the camera sensor was reduced from 13 to 8 megapixels and the battery from 3,000 to 2,300 mAh. These changes helped the cell to remain at the same level of price of its predecessor.

Many people wonder if it’s worth waiting for the national launch of Nexus 5, or whether it is better to opt for other phones that we already have here. The anticipation of Nexus 5 was unprecedented, one that no other Android phone had experienced in communities of tech geeks. It proceeds? Worth the wait? I’m using the Nexus 5 a month ago and will try to answer these questions in the analysis after the bling bling.

Design and footprint

Nexus 5 has a simple design. There are no edges polished aluminum as the iPhone, as colorful and flashy plastics in Lumias, or even enigmatic drawings behind a rear glass, as the Nexus 4. But this industrial design, plan, is not uninteresting to look at. Rather, he points out, even the small details because it stand out more, either call the phone to ring, the large ring around the camera or ceramic volume and lock buttons.

Something you do not see much, but it happened with the Nexus 5, were the differences in the choice of materials in two color options. While the black model has a soft plastic, like the Nexus 7, which wraps the sides of the cell, the white model (which I tested) opted for a different rear material, which helps keep the color without dirt or stains. And the side of the white model was also modified:. Instead of continuing with the same material of the back, was placed a reflective plastic, which many know by name “piano black”

is a double-edged sword: the material is a very attractive contrast to the back, but I feel that attract fingerprints and ends up requiring constant cleaning. While the side of the white model attracts more dirt, the rear is the opposite. The back cover of the black model gets greasy easily as the Moto G, but the white leaves nothing appears.

positioning the speaker was very well received. Instead of the back, it was placed in the bottom of the cell, with a decorative grill with small holes for both the sound on the left side, as for the microphone on the right side. Disappointed to know that the two are no audio outputs, because stereo sounds are rare in cell phones, but not the volume leaves something to be desired. Some units came from the factory with internal defects that left the speaker with less than what it can offer, too low volume. Fortunately this was not the case unit.

LG opted for an ergonomic shape with very little rounded edges and a relatively thin profile. Combined with a featherweight 130 grams, the result is a cell that despite the big screen, is well in hand. You can not compare with phones like the Moto X, with aggressively rounded edges, but it does not do ugly. Even because, despite increased from 4.7 to 4.95 inch screen, it was possible to maintain the same width as compared to its predecessor.

‘s hard to say when we will reach the size limit of mobile screen. It’s amazing seeing how this limit has been pushed from year to year, with people always saying that you can not use that current phones with larger screens. Nevertheless, do not think the Nexus 5 hard to manipulate, but rather it is slightly more comfortable than the Nexus 4

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Screen

screen Nexus 5 is without doubt the best I’ve seen on any mobile device. I’m criticizing the phone with 1080p screens, but despite the high spending power and processing, have to agree on one thing: the sharpness is amazing. Color reproduction is extremely faithful, the brightness is high and facilitates vision even in the sun, with angles of vision blameless in IPS display. The contrast could be better, the Nexus 5 suffers evil of LCD screens do not reproduce as well as black AMOLED

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The technical specifications are also impressive. We went from the Nexus 4 format 5:3 to 16:9 in Nexus 5 is a great news for lovers of movies and series. With resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels, it gets amazing 445 ppi with its 4.95-inch screen, value hit by few phones like the HTC One, which is not even sold in Brazil.

Nexus 5 is also equipped with an interesting technology called PSR (Panel Self Refresh or Update Panel with Self, in free translation). It makes the screen able to save energy by not updating all pixels when the image it receives from the graphics processor of the phone is not modified.

Touch is highly responsive, with one of the lowest response times for Android smartphones. The screen is considered by many the most important component in a cell these days: we even stop to measure the battery with talk time to measure by time it supports the on screen, and I can say without doubt that in this regard the Nexus 5 does not disappoint.

Software

After dozens of months suffering only incremental updates, with a few changes, we saw with the Nexus 5 for the first time since the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a new version of Android, the 4.4 KitKat, with serious design changes. The Holo Blue, blue tone that dominated virtually every screen in the system was removed and replaced by white. Perhaps the rush, it was not adopted as a whole in the system:. Settings of the application is populated with the famous # 33B5E5, as well as many other standard applications

But the design changes are not only a simple color change. New icons, a new API transparency that allows better utilization of the application status bar and navigation (API that is used both on the lock screen as the default launcher), an immersive manner in which such bars can be completely hidden, among other small details and completely redesigned apps can be found in the new version of Android.

On the Lock screen, the user is greeted with some visual cues that make use of simple system even for first-time browsers. The bottom-up gesture that brings Google Now is now explicit by using up arrow, and the widget of the camera is always present, both in the navigation bar, which hid the buttons that are not used on the lock screen. Now, music albums that are playing are full screen, taking advantage of the screen resolution.

The default launcher has been completely redesigned. Now called Google Experience Launcher, it is stuffed with native integration with Google Now and the biggest icons in the previous version. For now, the GEL is exclusive to the Nexus 5 and can only be used in other devices by installing an APK, a method far from official.

To perform a search, while in launcher can simply say “Ok, Google” and he will listen to a command. Unfortunately, this phrase does not work when the phone is in Portuguese, but as hope is the last to die, remains to be seen if any software update to the national launch will repair it.

Something that many expected, but did not get, was a mode of constant listening, as the Moto X, that understands voice commands even with the screen off. The Nexus 5 has the necessary hardware to make available through the Snapdragon 800. Some attribute this failure to the fact that the Moto X also has to sell, and this is the most plausible explanation to me.

visual changes were not the only ones who were present. The addition of SMS functionality in Hangouts, something long anticipated, has finally arrived. Moreover, the native keyboard, besides losing all shades of blue, won emojis, the Japanese emoticons that are gaining fame.

You must, however, admit the failings of the Android Nexus 5: it’s not perfect. It is common to criticize the skins of manufacturers such as Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC Sense, but you also need to charge Google consistency in design of the system, even if all this is new remodeling, and adding small details that make so many users have refuge in really neat ROMs based on Android and open source (AOSP), like CyanogenMod.

There are details that are available up to Nexus tablet, but for some reason do not enter the cell, such as expandable volume control which enables individual adjustment of calls or notifications, or even the widget to lock the rotation of the cell on the bar quick sets. Some bugs are also present, as in the notifications area. Often it locks in the middle of the screen, and get that push any button in the navigation bar to restore it to its common place.

Hardware, connectivity and accessories

Nexus 5 features the Snapdragon SoC 800, 2 GB of RAM and settings 16 or 32 GB of internal memory, microSD card slot for expansion without. The Snapdragon 800 has a quad-core Krait 400 that reaches 2.3 GHz are not just numbers, processor it actually has the most advanced processor in Android smartphones, second in performance only in memory speed to the last cell of the Chinese Xiaomi the Mi3. In addition, the SoC Qualcomm Adreno 330 provides one of the best GPUs market. Despite the low price, LG did not think cheap in the specifications of this monster.

Currently, most manufacturers apply a kind of overclocking when it detects some benchmark applications. Samsung, LG, HTC, among others, engage in some kind of mechanism to give advantages to benchmarks in the factory software to their phones. Software with 100% care by Google, the Nexus line does not suffer from this evil. It may seem that their phones will worse in benchmarks, but they just do not lie. Motorola, even before being acquired by Google, has never been caught practicing it.

performance Nexus 5, anyway, impresses

And that is noticed by the user: the fluidity of the system is impressive. KitKat stayed with for nearly a month on the Nexus 4 before moving to the Nexus 5 and the difference of speed when opening applications, multitasking, even in games – despite the more pixels that fold – it is so remarkable that binds the cell, because even boot time was reduced considerably. The value extremely underwhelming for a device of its class in the benchmark Vellamo HTML5 is probably due to an incompatibility with the new HTML engine that KitKat introduced, based on Chromium.

On the issue of connectivity, the Nexus 5 is a winner. The model that comes to Brazil, the D821 is compatible with national 4G. While LG has made two variants of the phone, the D820 to D821 and North America to the rest of the world, luckily Google does not fragmented software. The baseband that came with the phone is compatible with both models, which is great news for those who like to play with custom ROMs.

Nexus 5 is compatible with standard 802.11ac Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 LE, the whole package. Come, however, noticed several problems with GPS. When he came out of the box, accurate locations were the norm. Now, it is virtually impossible to obtain a result that helps the GPS on something. I do not know if the problem is due to a hardware failure or software, but in any case it is a defect that should not happen.

He sins in terms of accessories. In the box was, interestingly, both sets of identical warranty, opening tool of the Micro-SIM card tray, 1.25A charger and a USB cable. No instruction manual or headset, which undoubtedly should be to help lower the price of the phone. Unfortunately, the charger seems pretty cheap, flimsy, but it works, even with a slightly annoying buzz.

Camera

marketing strategy Nexus 5 prioritized your camera. Even the physical module itself is highlighted by the large ring on the cell that circulates. But what else has been criticized in the cell after its launch was the camera itself and the (lack of) quality of your photos. After an initial request for an apology, a fast and saving update has been applied, a month later. The Android 4.4.1 (which was soon replaced by 4.4.2, only a few devices have to win the original version) was very well received by all, why become an incredibly unstable and slow motion into one that is relatively fast, which can deliver photos with a fidelity above average and much faster focusing.

photos with the 8 megapixel sensor, diaphragm aperture of f / 2.4 and Sony IMX179 sensor have excellent color reproduction and contrast, and little grain. In low light, the pixels of large 1.4 mM help maintain a decent fidelity without turning on the flash. Nothing to level Lumia 920, but gives the expenditure. The focus, however, shows slow in low light situations. Constantly he simply refuses to focus on the object you desire, and you need to focus on something else to solve the problem.

The new camera comes with a new feature in software. The replacement of the HDR, HDR +, promises a way to take pictures with different lighting profiles without excessive motion blur as seen in HDR and a faster processing time -. Deliver it and

Virtually all environments take advantage of HDR +, which generates images with better contrast and color reproduction. Not, however, see it as a real substitute for HDR images because with really challenging lighting, in which different exposures combined would give a better result, are not as were in the old way. But no doubt he is a good addition.

camera software remains precarious in the tiny amount of settings available to the user and difficult to manipulate interface. When recording videos, a touch screen takes a picture, the focus is only automatic. Unfortunately, it has problems, and the lack of a manual focus makes recording videos as a lottery game, with chances of ever focus on the desired object. In the sample video, recorded at 1080p, it worked correctly, as well as the change in light exposure:

Optical stabilization helps a lot not only in moving scenes, but to eliminate any flickering that the user may have during filming. The videos are filmed with a maximum resolution of 1080p, with no way with a high rate of frames per second to create some kind of slow motion. The average bitrate of the video is 17 Mb / s, the same playback quality is decent. The audio has satisfactory noise reduction.

application gallery is slowly being replaced by the photos, Google+. It is an excellent application, no doubt, with various filters included photo editor bought by Google in the Snapseed. But many editing tools are only present in the default gallery app, part of the Android open source. Become a worse default application to try to popularize a service should not be common practice, but it is becoming one.

is necessary, the next version of Android, which is rethinking the current camera app. Being minimalist is a good thing, but taking resources to get there is not the best way to form a good user experience. The previewer cut images that have more content than you see before capture, which should also be reworked. The option to manually control the ISO, one “night” so that not only simply plug the flash, but change exposure, among other basic things, should be included as soon as possible.

Battery

Since rumors of the LG G2 began, there was a general idea that the next version of Nexus 5 would be based on it. When it was discovered that the cell would be equipped with a 3,000 mAh battery, all that anticipated the new Nexus raved about what may be the first distributed by Google that did not have a battery below the average cell.

Unfortunately, prior to the launch rumors denied everything and proved that it would be equipped with a much smaller 2,300 mAh battery, which was rather larger than the Nexus 4, 2100 mAh, but it was not known whether the larger screen, twice as many pixels and a more powerful processor would make this simple increase still leave room for a longer duration.

turns out that despite the Snapdragon 800 is an extremely powerful processor, it is also very efficient, 5 and the Nexus achieves better results than its older brother the same use cases. With the same settings connectivity, ie lightweight navigation Wi-Fi and 3G in heavy, with GPS off, I just spent an entire day with the Nexus 4 if my active screen time was less than 2:30. With the Nexus 5, this number reaches 3:30, considerably greater value.

In synthetic tests, the battery charged at 100% until the phone off, you can get more than 8 hours of browsing on Wi-Fi while on the 3G got little more than 6 hours. Tests are out of common usage, it is not usual to use the phone with the screen on 100% of the time after you take the decision, but it is good to note that the drained battery in standby Nexus 5 is remarkably smaller than any phone I ever had.

However, something that bothers me is the unpredictability of the battery. Certainly a software problem: sometimes it is possible to note a much higher consumption than usual. Looking in a little more depth, it is possible to find the cause of this sudden drain is Google Now and the frequency with which the cell takes in deep standby mode to collect information about the location of the device. Disable access Google Now its location, however, only alleviates the problem, which is curious.

Negatives

• New Android design still inconsistent.
• Both colors have some material that dirty easily.
• GPS and unreliable battery.

Positives

• incredibly sharp screen.
• camera produces good results.
• impressive performance.
• attractive design.

Conclusion

Nexus 4 promised to be a device for developers, which help guide the ecosystem of Android in the direction that Google believed correct, as well as all other Nexus devices released. It turns out that, like the Nexus 7, he eventually attract ordinary people, maybe the quality of the software or the amazing price, and this has put great expectations around the Nexus 5.

Google marketing can rotate around the camera, but this phone also has several other notable qualities, such as performance, fabric and design. The price of $ 349 for the 16GB version and $ 399 for 32 GB, even if only in the U.S., may also indicate a future with a relatively low price for the Brazilians.

KitKat, that here in Brazil for now only officially see in Moto X and Nexus 4 is an upgrade to the system that preaches an even greater care with the design, the possibility of applications with its own identity, not only black or white with blue that you see in most applications Holo. Already by applications with different color tones, as in Play Music and its orange, but now this customization can be deeper: an example is the newly updated Pushbullet that colored status bar from green to match the rest of the Application.

This effort to improve the design of the ecosystem is an essential step on the road of Android to compete even more with iOS devices in the top line. But Google is expected a little more effort: launch KitKat while all the new guides appropriate standard design applications is not a good example for developers, as well as the camera application that preaches minimalism that function more

But all small software defects arrive not disrupt the great user experience that offers the Nexus 5. If you’re looking for your next smartphone, there are great options on the market, both in the region of R $ 2,000, as the LG G2, which has superior hardware to the Nexus 5 but with arguably inferior software, as the house of £ 1,000, as the Moto X, which does not compete in numbers, but has many specific applications that enhance the user experience. But if you can wait, I recommend the Nexus 5, which has a specially designed system for it, and that will probably be between these two price ranges.

Technical Specs

• Battery:. 2,300 mAh
• Camera:. 8 megapixel Sony IMX179 sensor (rear), 1.3 megapixels, sensor Aptina MT9M114B (front)
• Connectivity. 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0
• . Dimensions: 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm
• GPU:. Adreno 330
• Kit contains:. USB cable, charger, warranty manual, tool opening the Micro-SIM tray
• Internal Memory. 16GB or 32GB
• RAM:. 2GB LPDDR3
• . Weight: 130 grams
• Platform. KitKat Android 4.4
• Processor: Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.3 GHz 800
• Sensors:. accelerometer, compass, proximity
• Screen:. 4.95 inch IPS LCD with resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels and Gorilla Glass Glass 3

About the Author

Henrique Pinheiro

Newly formed

Travel Computer CEFET-MG, had attended some college related technology in 2014. He has 18 years, and enjoys various gadgets, electronics, games and music. Do not use open social networks with frequency, but has a Twitter (@ riquepss).

Warning : the views of the author of the text do not necessarily reflect those of Tecnoblog

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