Inside the Google Nexus 5: Powerful, Cheap and Chocolate Coated
Google’s new flagship Android phone includes a big, bright screen, faster processor and a new version of the Android OS
Google has just taken the wraps off their vision of the perfect cell phone: the Nexus 5. Manufactured by LG to Google’s design, this new phone includes a lot of new features, including the latest version of the Android OS. So, what’s new with the Nexus 5? There are lots of new goodies, but the big surprise is the price: $349 for an unlocked version with 16GB of storage. That’s a great price for an unlocked phone that will no doubt make it popular.
Big on the outside and the inside
The Nexus 5 is not a small phone: at 2.7 inches wide and 5.4 inches tall, it is on the larger side of the phone market. That isn’t quite into phablet territory, but it will need a good sized pocket to slide into. It is not chunky, though: it is an impressively svelte 0.35 inches thick, with a smooth back. But there is a fair amount of weight in there: it weighs in at 4.59oz, about half an ounce heavier than the iPhone 5S.
Android 4.4 — KitKat
The Nexus 5 comes with the latest version of the Android operating system: Version 4.4, codenamed KitKat. This new version adds a lot of new features, including improved voice search: on the home page, just say “OK, Google” and ask it to do something, and it will translate your voice command and do it. It also includes improved business software, which is more powerful and compatible with desktop apps. There is a full list of the new features in Android 4.4 here.
Big Full HD Screen
The undoubted highlight of the Nexus 5 is the screen: the phone is built around a 5-inch screen with a 1920 by 1080 resolution. That’s the same as a HDTV, so you can watch your HD videos on it in their full glory. This is also a dense screen, with a claimed density of 445 ppi (pixels per inch), which is higher than the iPhone 5S (326 ppi). The benefit of this is that the small pixels become mostly invisible to the eye, so the image looks smoother and cleaner.
The screen is an IPS (In-Plane Switching) type, which means that it works like most HDTVs. Some other manufacturers (such as Samsung) are using OLED (Organic LED) displays, which are brighter and have stronger color.
8 Megapixel Camera
The Nexus 5 has two cameras: an 8-megapixel one on the back and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.The back camera includes optical image stabilization, where an element in the lens moves to compensate for hand shake. That’s the same spec as the iPhone 5S, although we don’t yet know if the two phones are using the same camera module (the iPhone 5S uses a Sony camera module). The Nexus 5 looks like it uses this LG camera phone module, but we won’t be able to confirm that until someone takes one apart.
Big Battery
The battery inside the Nexus 5 is pretty large: holding 2300 MAh of charge, it is as big as the battery of the iPhone 5S (about 1500 MAh), which goes some way to explain the long battery life. Google claims an impressive talk time of up to 17 hours and a standby life of up to 350 hours. These figures should be taken with a large pinch of salt, but the signs point to a long battery life here.
More Memory, More Processor
The brains of the operation is a speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, running at a maximum of 2.3 GHz. This quad-core chip has a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) built into it, which Qualcomm calls the Adreno 330. Alongside this is 2GB of RAM and either 16 or 32GB of storage flash memory.That’s a powerful combination, and this phone will no doubt perform well in graphics-heavy games.
Now With LTE
The big addition from previous Nexus phones is support for the fast LTE wireless standard. This means that it can talk to the super-fast networks now being deployed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint at the highest speeds they support: up to
Pricing: $350 or $395
Google is selling the Nexus 5 directly to the public unlocked, which means it will work with any compatible network. At present, that includes AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.
The price is perhaps the most impressive thing about this phone. Most unlocked phones (which means they are not locked to only work with a specific phone network) are more expensive than their locked cousins. However, Google is keeping the price low for the Nexus 5, selling it at $349 for the 16GB version, and $399 for the 32GB one. Considering the cost of similar unlocked phones (like the HTC One at $599, or the unlocked iPhone 5S at $749), that’s a great deal.
