[DirkBelig]

Some snips: "Android has a new champion. The Nexus 4, built by LG in collaboration with Google, is the best overall Android handset currently available, and it’s one of the best phones to be released this year.

It’s a truly exemplary piece of hardware that showcases the best of what Google can offer in a smartphone when crufty user interface skins from hardware makers and bloatware from carriers are cut out of the equation.

It’s as close to perfect as I’ve seen any Android smartphone get. But the Nexus 4 falls just short of perfection due to one major omission: It’s not compatible with any LTE networks.

Living with the Nexus 4 and using it over the last week has been a joy. The first thing you notice when you pick up the handset is just how sturdy and luxurious it feels. The front and back of the device are coated in Gorilla Glass 2. I took a set of keys, a fork and a pocket knife to the front and back glass panels of the Nexus 4 and couldn’t get a scratch to show up anywhere. I also slipped and dropped the phone while pulling it out of my pocket this week, and it showed no signs of my fumble.

The display on the Nexus 4, which packs a density of 320 pixels per inch, is one of the best I’ve seen on a smartphone handset. I wouldn’t say it’s the absolute best, as I still prefer the color reproduction of the One X and the sharpness of the iPhone’s Retina display, but it’s very close. While colors do lean toward the cool side, LG’s True HD IPS LCD display is flat-out gorgeous. The level of detail and definition seen here is worthy of a flagship phone. Everything looks spectacular: apps, e-books, magazines, comics, websites, videos and photos.

It not only looks great, it runs like the wind. I couldn’t find a single stutter or hiccup during my week with the phone....The rear-facing 8-megapixel camera is also very nice, but falls just shy of greatness. The photos it takes aren’t quite as clear or detailed as the ones we’ve seen from the cameras on the HTC One X and iPhone 5. When it comes to battery life, the Nexus 4 is also performs just below the One X and the iPhone. Under normal use, I could go a day before having to charge it. If I was using the handset non-stop, I’d have to charge the Nexus 4 before I left work. This is good battery life, but not exceptional."

Read it all. Discuss.

[Subsound]

Some snips: "Android has a new champion. The Nexus 4, built by LG in collaboration with Google, is the best overall Android handset currently available, and it’s one of the best phones to be released this year.

It’s a truly exemplary piece of hardware that showcases the best of what Google can offer in a smartphone when crufty user interface skins from hardware makers and bloatware from carriers are cut out of the equation.

It’s as close to perfect as I’ve seen any Android smartphone get. But the Nexus 4 falls just short of perfection due to one major omission: It’s not compatible with any LTE networks.

Living with the Nexus 4 and using it over the last week has been a joy. The first thing you notice when you pick up the handset is just how sturdy and luxurious it feels. The front and back of the device are coated in Gorilla Glass 2. I took a set of keys, a fork and a pocket knife to the front and back glass panels of the Nexus 4 and couldn’t get a scratch to show up anywhere. I also slipped and dropped the phone while pulling it out of my pocket this week, and it showed no signs of my fumble.

The display on the Nexus 4, which packs a density of 320 pixels per inch, is one of the best I’ve seen on a smartphone handset. I wouldn’t say it’s the absolute best, as I still prefer the color reproduction of the One X and the sharpness of the iPhone’s Retina display, but it’s very close. While colors do lean toward the cool side, LG’s True HD IPS LCD display is flat-out gorgeous. The level of detail and definition seen here is worthy of a flagship phone. Everything looks spectacular: apps, e-books, magazines, comics, websites, videos and photos.

It not only looks great, it runs like the wind. I couldn’t find a single stutter or hiccup during my week with the phone....The rear-facing 8-megapixel camera is also very nice, but falls just shy of greatness. The photos it takes aren’t quite as clear or detailed as the ones we’ve seen from the cameras on the HTC One X and iPhone 5. When it comes to battery life, the Nexus 4 is also performs just below the One X and the iPhone. Under normal use, I could go a day before having to charge it. If I was using the handset non-stop, I’d have to charge the Nexus 4 before I left work. This is good battery life, but not exceptional."

Read it all. Discuss.

Not exactly sure what my thoughts about this should be...

[Ry]

No LTE is going to be the dealbreaker for the mainstream.

[mzanette]

Read this review earlier. First all out gushing review I've seen all day. Most other reviews said it was a solid phone but had drawbacks such as spotty battery, some software glitches and the aforementioned lack of LTE seemed to really bug some reviewers. I always thought Topolsky was a huge Google fanboy but even his review was less than stellar.

I'm still getting this phone. :-)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

[ChromeJob]

No LTE is going to be the dealbreaker for the "everything + pony" crowd.

I fixed it for you.

[nickacs]

I still don't get WHY LTE is a minus to the phone? Yes, we ALL know it doesn't have LTE and that will eliminate a large part of the cell phone consumer community on VZW/Sprint.
But the Nexus 4 shouldn't be dinged because of this. I want to know all the Pros/Cons of the phone ITSELF as it stands. Like battery, screen, Android 4.2, photosphere, speed, etc etc. These are the things that will affect ANYONE who actually buys the phone. Not having LTE just eliminates a part of the buyer market, has 0% to do with the phone.

Ugggg.. Please stop the stupid 'OMG THIS PHONE SUCKS BECAUSE IT HAS NO LTE". No it doesn't! Get a GSM carrier, not the f-ing phone's fault!

[Shadowriver]

I still don't get WHY LTE is a minus to the phone? Yes, we ALL know it doesn't have LTE and that will eliminate a large part of the cell phone consumer community on VZW/Sprint.
But the Nexus 4 shouldn't be dinged because of this. I want to know all the Pros/Cons of the phone ITSELF as it stands. Like battery, screen, Android 4.2, photosphere, speed, etc etc. These are the things that will affect ANYONE who actually buys the phone. Not having LTE just eliminates a part of the buyer market, has 0% to do with the phone.

Ugggg.. Please stop the stupid 'OMG THIS PHONE SUCKS BECAUSE IT HAS NO LTE". No it doesn't! Get a GSM carrier, not the f-ing phone's fault!

Well it's still the a con whatever you look at it

[Woosh]

Well it's still the a con whatever you look at it

Its not a con if it kept the price at $300, and it did.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[andr0idralphie]

Good article. Thanks for sharing. Now, can I my old SIM card into a microSIM...?

[Ry]

I still don't get WHY LTE is a minus to the phone? Yes, we ALL know it doesn't have LTE and that will eliminate a large part of the cell phone consumer community on VZW/Sprint.
But the Nexus 4 shouldn't be dinged because of this. I want to know all the Pros/Cons of the phone ITSELF as it stands. Like battery, screen, Android 4.2, photosphere, speed, etc etc. These are the things that will affect ANYONE who actually buys the phone. Not having LTE just eliminates a part of the buyer market, has 0% to do with the phone.

Ugggg.. Please stop the stupid 'OMG THIS PHONE SUCKS BECAUSE IT HAS NO LTE". No it doesn't! Get a GSM carrier, not the f-ing phone's fault!

Uh. No LTE is a con.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Android Central Forums

[Woosh]

Uh. No LTE is a con.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Android Central Forums

No LTE is a con for YOU....I don't want to pay for something I can't use.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[tube517]

No LTE is a big issue.

However, since I am now on T-mobile, it's not a dealbreaker for me. I am still debating if I get it. I am happy with my current budget Android smartphone but I may sell that and a few other phones to get this if I still decide to buy it.

[nickacs]

Well it's still the a con whatever you look at it

True, it is a "con" in that it doesn't have/work on the LTE VZW market, but I guess I feel that's not a fault of the phone, it's Google deciding not to do it. Like I mentioned, I want to know more of the good/bad aspects of the phone itself, which LTE doesn't matter.
I guess I would classify it as a "drawback" because of Google's no LTE offering, not because of the Nexus 4 phone.

[nickacs]

Uh. No LTE is a con.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Android Central Forums

Uh, OK.

[gone down south]

No LTE is a fact that should be mentioned. But it's in no way a 'con' for the phone, anymore than not having, say, a built-in AM/FM radio would be a con. You can ding the phone for not having a function through error or oversight; you can't when not having that function was a conscious decision.

[Ry]

No LTE option is a definite con.

- Three of the big four constantly promoting their next gen networks as the best user experience, with the fourth moving to that same place

- Phones like the iPhone 4S got dinged last year for not having an LTE option

- The previous generation of the Nexus smartphone had an LTE option



Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Android Central Forums

[MangoPowah]

My phone doesn't do my homework, spit out rainbows, or do my chores for me. This is going back immediately.

In all seriousness though, LTE isn't really a con to those who don't even have it in their area. I would be such folk. Although I'm holding my breath for it, WiFi at home is plenty fast, and HSPA+ at school covers my needs well.

Sent from my HTC One X

[sidamos]

Depends on the country. Here in Germany, you can use the iPhone 5's LTE only on 1 of 4 carriers and only in bigger towns. Everything else is a different frequency.

[Ez Duzit]

Umm....No micro sd-card, so you're limited to only 8 or 16 GB. Deal breaker??

[Fairclough]

No LTE is a con for YOU....I don't want to pay for something I can't use.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

On the money, I view the same. I just went recently to prepaid. NO LTE FOR PREPAID IN AUS. Anyways, My mates in the iphone 5 were saying yeah it loads a lot faster when their on the internet but they want to find a proper way to turn it off because it kills their battery.

[Slender Troll]

Umm....No micro sd-card, so you're limited to only 8 or 16 GB. Deal breaker??

If you properly use the cloud storage that google or other companies provide you wont have to worry about storage.

Motorola Photon 4G

[Fairclough]

If you properly use the cloud storage that google or other companies provide you wont have to worry about storage.

Motorola Photon 4G

Agreed, I love the idea of it, I just need to find a good data plan in Aus.
One shame is they are producing great idea's, the carriers need to back them up. Once they will do that it will be perfect.

[qnet]

I know they do it for the average consumer but, I'm starting to wish all these revievers didn't get their hands on it first before everyone else. I've found many times that I like a device a lot more than than some of the reviewers and, sometime I know more about the phone than they do. If you have the chance, It's always bettter to try the product out for yourself IMO.

Stay tuned for my review LOL!

[Woosh]

I know they do it for the average consumesr but, I'm starting to wish all these revievers didn't get their hands on it first before everyone else. I've found many times that I like a device a lot more than than some of the reviewers and, sometime I know more about the phone than they do. If you have the chance, It's always bettter to try the product out for yourself IMO.

Stay tuned for my review LOL!

I find that some reviewers may not rly know how to work Android as well as they should. But tbh I feel actually rly good about these reviews and I actually don't see many negatives that apply to me. Sure they keep mentioning LTE being an issue but why do I care about that? Its something they certainly should be saying, perhaps not a half hour long podcast saying NO LTE AHHHHHH, but its something that a regular consumer might use to go out.

The other problem I have with the reviews is they don't seem to have many comparisons other than the negatives. I mean they say "This phone can't be compared to an iPhone because the iPhone has LTE".....Rly the only thing to compare is their cellular radios?

To me it seems like some reviewers are grasping at straws to find something wrong with this phone. Maybe its my fanboy eyes looking at it that way....But one reviewer said that they want something like a lightning cable because the micro usb is too annoying and difficult? Idr his exact words. But most of the review had some great things to say about it, he simply just had small minor "personal" problems that he didn't like. This likely stems from using an iPhone as a daily driver.

I won't be shouting bias review at every reviewer because its likely they are just reporting what issues they are having. But the reader needs to keep these things into context. Not everybody will be keeping their screen on for 4.5 hours at a time. Battery life will get better as it charges more, they have had it for 3 days or so before they wrote the article. Whats important is the battery number and by that I'd say almost certainly I'll get as much out of this as I did of my S3. Which was plenty.

What I'm taking out of the reviews is this phone is at face value. Its a great phone if you understand and can live with what the limitations are while you look at it. The storage, LTE, glass housing, etc.

I'm actually hoping they will start reviewing this thing as a T-Mobile phone since that is the network it'll be available to purchase on. At least compare it to other T-Mo offerings and since they have no LTE, they can shutup about that comparison.

[Bushido Brown]

No LTE is going to be the dealbreaker for the mainstream.

The mainstream doesn't care. No one looks at the 4G icon at the top of their GSM Galaxy S3 or iPhone 5 and says "this is actually HSPA+, not LTE" No, they simply call it "4G"

No LTE option is a definite con.

- Three of the big four constantly promoting their next gen networks as the best user experience, with the fourth moving to that same place

- Phones like the iPhone 4S got dinged last year for not having an LTE option

- The previous generation of the Nexus smartphone had an LTE option



Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Android Central Forums

- You're right, that's what probably led to the poor sales and lack of user satisfaction from the 4 and 4S, oh wait.....
- I have a Galaxy Nexus, and my battery life is atrocious. Having LTE doesn't make me feel any better about that. I would kill just to be average at this point, and I know several users who fall in the "mainstream" category who feel precisely the same

As always, the uber tech crowd is severely miscalculating the focus of the average smartphone user.