Nexus 5 Review: 4.4.1 Updated
Is this the king of Android, or just another pawn in the smartphone game?
”OK, Google” Give me the Nexus 5.
The Nexus 5 has arrived, after months of leaks and purported release dates and announcements. It’s finally here. Is this the new Android King, or is it just another pawn in the smartphone game?
Hardware
Look and Feel
At first glance, the Nexus 5 is a very simple and understated device. Google’s entire philosophy of the Nexus 5 is abundantly clear. The experience on the screen. That’s definitely well represented here. The design is simple, elegant, and premium. The soft touch matte black that coats the back and sides of the device feels fantastic. It isn’t slick like the glass of the Nexus 4. Though it does attract fingerprints and oils somewhat easily, it’s not a detriment to the device itself. The back of the device is actually slightly wider than the front. This ever so subtle inward slope makes the device feel much more natural in the hand. The more angular edges around the top and bottom are a departure from previous Nexus devices. It is also a welcomed one. The ceramic buttons are very sturdy, and the way they actually stick out so you can notice they are there is a surprisingly pleasing experience. The power button is placed on the top right side of the device, while to volume rocker is lines the left side. Both are very responsive to being pressed and are placed where you would naturally want them to be, much like the Nexus 4.
Unlike the Nexus 4, the Nexus 5 feels as though it actually may be able to survive a fall. Though I would never actually test that out. Android Authority did though, and it did great. Up until the drop flat on it’s screen. The circuitry was showing, the entire screen was shattered to oblivion, and it was just gruesome. But, the phone somehow still worked. I’d put a case on the device though.
The camera sits slightly raised from the body of the device, this causes the device itself to not sit flat on a surface. Typing or scrolling with the device laid flat causes it to rock left to right, which can be very annoying.
The device is incredibly lightweight. I for one, prefer heftier devices. I like to feel as though I’m holding a phone, not a piece of paper. The Nexus 5 made me rethink that concept. The lightweight feel of the phone is very refreshing and amazing to hold. The phone weighs in at 130 grams. That’s only 9 grams lighter than the Nexus 4, but in a marginally larger package, it makes the Nexus 5 feel much lighter than the Nexus 4.
Screen
As noted earlier, Google clearly wants the screen to be the star of the show. Boy, it is. The screen has vivid, crisp, and accurate colors. This is a gorgeous 4.95 inch 1080p display(445ppi). Watching a 1080p movie on the device is incredibly immersive. The Dark Knight was my choice to run this screen through it’s paces. The deep blacks of that film were accurate and on par. But where the device really shines is in color reproduction. The red makeup and green hair of the Joker was vivid without being over-saturated. Pictures look just as great as video. Viewing the pictures I have taken of the fall leaves from my Sony NEX-7 look amazing. The Nexus 5 screen reproduces fantastic colors without being washed out. A side by side look of the same 6000x4000 image from my NEX-7 on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 shows the stunning quality of the 1080p display on the Nexus 5. The display is brighter and more vivid. The Nexus 4 display is quite a bit dimmer and mutes colors when comparing the two. Text looks razor sharp and crisp as it would on a 1080p display.
Speakers
The speakers on the phone are to be expected for a 2013 phone. No, they’re not BoomSound. But they’re still pretty good. When you get up to the louder volumes, which is anything above 75%, there will be some noticeable muffling and tinny sound at hand. But if you keep it at or below 75% they sound just fine. Bass sounded good, as well as vocals listening to a variety of music.
One odd thing, the left side speaker is the only one that actually produces sound. The right side speaker acts as a sort of echoing mechanism. Plug the right side speaker, no sound loss. But if you plug the left side speaker, the sound becomes drastically reduced. This same thing occurs on iPhones as well. This is because there is only a single speaker on the Nexus 5. Stereo speakers would have been nice, but this is where a corner was cut.
Call Quality
No matter how little people actually talk on the phone anymore, the Nexus 5 is still a phone. Call quality is great on AT&T in Northwest Arkansas. I can hear people clearly and concisely, and they agree they can hear me as well. That’s important, seeing as we’re talking on the phone, we need to be heard.
Specs
For the spec junkies, the Nexus 5 has:
2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU
2GB of RAM
Adreno 330 GPU
4.95” 1080p Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display
8MP camera with OIS(Optical Image Stabilization).
2300 mAh battery
LTE capabilities
Dual band 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS with GLONASS
Accelorometer, Gryro, Proximity, Compass, and Barometer
16 or 32GB of storage
There’s also wireless charging and NFC support in tow.
This phone is very obviously a flagship, poised to compete with the Galaxy S4, HTC One, and LG G2.
Battery Life
Battery is great on this phone so far. On my initial rundown test for the battery, I had the screen on it’s highest brightness, LTE downloading 2.5GB of music, 550MB of my Pocket list, and constant web browsing. I streamed 1080p video, HD YouTube videos, and viewed high res pictures through Google+ backups. I was constantly on social media or texting throughout the entire day. Using Navigation and taking about two hours of phone calls. With all of that, the battery held strong for 7 ½ hours with 4 hours of screen on time.
With normal usage today, the phone is sitting at 5% battery with 13 hours on battery and 2 hours of screen on time.
Once the battery wears in as I continue to go through battery cycles, I fully expect the device to last a full day easily.
Recharging the phone is quick, too. From 10% to fully charged, it takes roughly four hours.
Overall this is a phone that has great battery life that can last all day with moderate to heavy usage.
Hardware Experience
From the hardware perspective. This phone is a joy to use. It feels great in the hand. It’s lightweight but feels sturdy. It has a premium feel with the matte black soft touch finish. The sloped inward edge from back to front feels great to hold. For slightly larger than average hands, this devices is fantastic to use. Smaller hands may have trouble, as they may with all five inch phones.
One thing to note. This phone is like a smaller Nexus 7. I own a Nexus 7 and absolutely love the look and feel of the device. I find it rather intriguing how Google finally brought unity to the hardware side of their devices. Apple does this with the iPad Air and iPad mini. It’s great to see a common design language amongst the Nexus family of hardware. Especially with the continuing optimization of Android to be tablet and phone centric, having both the hardware and software unified brings forth a remarkable experience.
Software
No matter how the phone feels in the hand, the hardware under the hood, or what the benchmarks show. What drives people to phones is what they do with them. That’s the reason iOS was so alluring when the App Store launched. Users flock to where the apps are. We’re in 2013, and iOS and Android are neck and neck when it comes to content and apps. Quality experience and apps are found on both platforms.
Kit Kat is definitely a refinement rather than a redesign(the 4.4 upgrade rather than a 5.0 indicates that).
Kit Kat
Kit Kat is buttery and svelte. Thanks largely due to Google’s Project Butter and Project Svelte. Project Butter was introduced in Jelly Bean to make transitions and overall fluidity of the device better and buttery smooth. Kit Kat on the Nexus 5 is absolutely fantastic. With the introduction of Project Svelte in Android 4.4 Kit Kat, Google allows lower spec devices to run Kit Kat. This brings more of Google’s intended experience to a broad array of devices. This isn’t to say this flagship doesn’t perform because of Google’s focus on lower end devices. Quite the contrary, Google has made some fantastic subtle improvements in Kit Kat to further polish an already elegant OS.
Gone is the Holo Blue color and the harsh black backgrounds that were present in the Navigation Bar on the bottom and the Status Bar on the top of your display. White has replaced blue as the color of choice for text and notification icons such as battery and WiFi. There’s transparency in the launcher and status bar as well. This makes the entirety of the home screen much smoother. Departing from the defining lines between Status Bar, Navigation Bar, and actual Home Screen that the black color projected; bringing forth a transparent design makes the Nav Bar and Status Bar melt into the background image. This design choice makes the entire experience much more immersive as a whole.
Immersive mode is a tool Google is giving developers to hide all system UI to allow a fully immersive experience in their apps. It’s designed with gaming, video watching, and reading in mind. You can either tap to show the system UI in video. Or in games you pull down from the top or bottom to reveal the Status Bar or Navigation Bar.
The lock screen recieved some subtle improvements as well. Lock Screen widgets are disabled by default. You’ll have to go to Settings->Security->and select “Enable Widgets”
The full screen lock screen display when music is playing is absolutely gorgeous. Also on the lock screen, you have a small camera button in the bottom right corner. When the button is pressed, the camera lock screen shortcut quickly peeks out from the right edge, giving you the hint that you swipe to the right to access the camera. The subtle, fun animation is a great addition. Adding polish to the Android experience as a whole.
Google Now is much, much more present in Android 4.4 as well. Swipe from the left edge of your home screen, and Google Now is front and center, full screen. If you’re on your home screen, all you have to do is say “OK, Google” and you’re thrust into a Google Now Voice Search instantly. Google is making a large push to be contextually aware of you and what you’re doing. Google Now started this, and they have evolved the concept by having Google always attentively listening to you. Ready to help you at the drop of a simple phrase.
Google struck gold and redid the dialer section of Android. Giving you information about businesses that calling you based on their number. It’s really quite a nifty feature.
I put this to the test with a restaurant. I went to my home screen, said “OK, Google” “Red Onion Bentonville”, Google instantly brought up the location, hours, and number for Red Onion in Bentonville(Thanks to AT&T’s LTE). I selected “Call”, It placed the number into my dialer, I hit dial. Instead of showing just the number, it had “Red Onion” as the call I placed. It will also work when a business calls you, I just haven’t had a business call me since receiving the phone.
Google is bringing more of Google into Android, which is something that helps us all tremendously, especially if you are invested in Google Service’s in any way.
Kit Kat bring a lot of polish and fluid design into an already powerful mobile operating system.
Speed
When you use a phone, you don’t want it to lag through everyday tasks. Luckily, with the Snapdragon 800 running the show along with 2GB of RAM. Everyday tasks are the equivalent of Arnie in his prime lifting a puppy. In a sense, effortless. Opening an app is nearly instantaneous. This phone glides through app switching so smoothly and quickly. It’s like a dream. Scrolling through a web page or through photos is smooth with little to no lag. Some lag comes when scrolling through Chrome, but at this point, that’s a Chrome problem. You can effortlessly open multiple apps and see no stutter or performance hiccup. I had more than 15 apps open at one time without any noticeable slow down. Day to day, this phone is a beast.
When it comes to powering on and powering down this phone shines as well. Especially compare to it’s predecessor the Nexus 4, and it’s tablet brother, the Nexus 7.
Shut down
Nexus 5- 6 Seconds
Nexus 4-12 seconds
Nexus 7-18 seconds
Power up
Nexus 5-22 Seconds
Nexus 4-32 Seconds
Nexus 7-28 Seconds
This phone shuts itself down very, very quickly. It also powers up fairly quickly as well. Definitely an improvement over the Nexus 4.
Gaming Performance
When it comes to gaming, this thing performs just as a flagship would be expected to perform. Current games like Riptide GP2 play flawlessly and look great on the screen. There’s no stutter or frame lag.
Overall Software Experience
The phone is incredibly responsive and receptive to touches and swipes. The overall fluidity of the device is amazing, there’s no lag going in and out of your daily tasks as it’s been stated. There’s an overall snappiness that I haven’t found on other devices. The Nexus 5 shines in responsiveness and speed. This is truly the premiere Android software experience. The refinements made in Kit Kat and the overall speed and fluidity of the Nexus 5 make a compelling case for anyone looking for a new phone.
Camera
Being honest, my hopes for the Nexus 5 camera were not very high. The Nexus 4 camera was terrible. Colors were muted, struggled with autofocus, and was slow to open and capture the first shot. As a photography enthusiast, I do always have my camera on me. But there are times where I want to just take out my phone and take a good shot. 9 times out of 10, the Nexus 4 would deliver disappointing results. So disappointing, in fact, that I would miss opportunities because of the lackluster camera performance of the Nexus 4.
I knew that the camera was where a corner was cut on the Nexus 4. With the Nexus 5, I didn’t have high expectations.
I’ve, for the most part, been very happily pleased thus far with the camera experience.
With the update to 4.4.1, almost all of my problems with the camera have been squandered.
Focusing Speed
From unlocking the phone, to opening the camera app, to initial focus. It takes roughly three seconds. It focuses fast, and with that, get’s a good shot right out of the gate. Those candid shots won’t be missed with this camera. When it comes to refocusing on shots, it can struggle from time to time. But that’s a few and far between issue.
With 4.4.1, the camera focuses much faster than before, and focuses correctly 90% of the time. It’s still not perfect, but no camera is, and it’s a amazing step up from the previous.
Color Accuracy
Colors look great with the shots taken right out the box. Colors are accurate and good. Obviously this is a phone camera, and it’s not the best. But it’s a very good shooter that I've been pleased with in terms of color accuracy.
With Android 4.4.1, colors have gotten a bit more saturated, but it isn't overdone or unrealistic.
Speed
The camera is fast, period. Once it’s up and running, you can take a succession of shots fairly quickly. They may not all be in focus, but it makes for some great Auto Awesome opportunities(Google Plus’ Auto Awesome feature compiles 5 or more images with a similar background into a GIF). With the focusing issue, an actual burst mode would have been extremely helpful rather than having to tap the shutter button repeatedly. Taking multiple photos does not have great focus, a negative in an otherwise good camera.
Sadly, enabling the “Action” scene setting for the camera doesn’t fix the blurring when taking burst shots.
With 4.4.1, the camera opens a full second faster than with 4.4. This is great news. There is also a noticeable speed impovement in getting focused for your first shot.
Ease of Use
The camera is easy to use, which to some is a positive and to others a negative. Phone cameras are not going to replace your DSLR. They have, however, replaced point and shoot cameras. The auto settings that are set on the Nexus 5 camera will be great for 80% of users. If you really want complete control, you’ll most likely be disappointed. The features for the Nexus 5 are as follows:
White Balance: Auto, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight, Cloudy
Scene: None, Action, Night, Sunset, Party
Exposure:-2 to +2
There’s also flash, image size, self timer, and location settings.
The flash on the camera works well. It’s an LED flash and it fills the setting of the photo well. The flash does perform well in low light performance.
You can also take Panoramas with this camera, which turn out quite good. You can also take something called a Photosphere, which allows you to capture a 360 degree panoramic image. It’s quite a cool feature that performs well on the Nexus 5 camera.
Low Light
In low light, it does perform pretty well. It isn’t the best out there, but it’s definitely pretty good. In a trendy, mood lighting filled restaurant, it performed well.
HDR Plus
HDR+ mode takes a succession of three images in a burst, and combines them into one image. It takes a little longer to take the photo. But the result is actually a stunning image. Colors are accurate and vivid, the photo is bright, and it’s overall the best way to shoot an image of still life on the Nexus 5. I continually had great color and lighting turnout in what I shot in HDR+ mode.
HDR+ has a new animation in 4.4.1, making it easier to know why your photo isn’t immediately viewable. It also takes less time to switch between regular and HDR+ modes.
Video
Video is actually quite impressive on the Nexus 5. Colors are great and the Optical Image Stabilization makes it incredibly sturdy, no more shaky cam if you hold the phone correctly. You can capture photos while recording video by tapping the screen. Upon testing this feature, I was a little disappointed. When playing the video back, I saw a subtle yet noticeable lag from whenever I captured a picture while recording video. Minus the photo capture during video recording stutter, video quality is great. Audio comes back loud and clear. It’s a great video shooting phone.
Overall Camera Experience
The camera is overall a good one, and sometimes even a great one. It’s not the best on the market, but it is a step up from the Nexus 4 camera. I feel confident that the camera on the Nexus 5 can give me a good shot during my day to day use. There is good depth and crisp focus on the subject in pictures I've taken. But there’s also some glaring disappointments, like a lack of focus in shooting multiple photos, and lag in videos when photos are taken.
Android 4.4.1 Camera Update
With Android 4.4.1 on the Nexus 5, the camera has gotten a massive update. The app loads a full one second quicker, color quality is much better, and it focuses better. Not every shot is in focus as it should be, still. But going from a focusing issue 60% of the time to 10% of the time is a massive improvement. Colors pop a lot more, there’s better brightness and depth in the photos. Switching to HDR+ takes less time and has a new animation.
4.4.1 Camera Update Sample
Overall, 4.4.1 adds some great improvements to the camera, adding the the value of this phone immensely.
Conclusion
The Nexus 5 is a great phone. With a great screen, great battery life, great horsepower, and a good(great with 4.4.1) camera, all at a $350 price tag unlocked. It’s hard to beat this phone in terms of value for what you get. Google learned from most of it’s mistakes with the Nexus 4, and fixed them in the Nexus 5. The Nexus 5 is an incredibly polished, elegant device that should be the mainstream phone for Android. It’s a top tier device right alongside the iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy S4, and the HTC One. The Nexus 4 was a great budget phone that was worth more than it’s price tag. That trend continues with the Nexus 5, and elevates it to another level.
Positives
Simple, elegant design
Lightweight
Great camera with 4.4.1
Bright, vivid screen
Fast
$350 price
Negatives
Can’t lie flat because of camera
Fragile
Who Is This Device For
The ultimate question when reading any review is, should you buy this phone? If you are a someone who wants a great and consistent experience in a phone, the answer is very easily, yes.
The camera has been improved drastically, adding to the value of this nearly perfect Android phone.
With the Nexus 5, you will have the most recent Android update in 4.4 Kit Kat and will continue to get timely updates straight from Google. Kit Kat is a great OS which runs amazingly fast on the Nexus 5.
The Nexus 5 is poised to take on any Android phone on the market, and win. With a $350 price tag for a phone without a contract. It is impossible to beat. Google has managed to create a purely Google phone, with flagship specs, and consistently great experience, all in an attractive and elegant package.
