one week with N5 after one year with N4, first impressions

bagou01

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Hi,
i thought i'd share my first impressions of the N5 compared to my N4, and answer in a post, all the questions i asked myself before swapping from N4 to N5...

First, i precise my N5 is the 312K batch, then, i have to say, if it was to be done again, i think i wouldnt... The N4 being already snappy as hell i don't really see a difference here in my day to day usage.
The screen, despite being higher DPI, makes not much difference either, unless you stick your eyes to it... but held in a normal distance, a human eye can't see no difference between N4 and N5...
For the screen, once again, it's been talked about much and much, but i even think i prefere the N4 screen which had whiter whites compared to the "yellowish" N5 screen (it's supposed to disappear with time but only time will tell).

For the battery, i read here and there about everything, but i could EASILY hold one day with my N4 with screen at full brightness. when trying to optimize things (less presicion in geo location, auto dim screen), i managed to hold 3 days without cheating...
The same seems to go for my N5... i can easily hold one day, full brightness and precise geo location... now if i dim the screen, lower location precision to battery saving mode, and shut 4G for 3G, i think i can take it to two days...

for sound quality, i don't see any difference...

for the camera, yes it's better, but it's not like it was a canon 5D, it's just "better" but doesn't justify the swap.

Concerning the LED notification (seems ridiculous but it really was a great deal for me), the N4 led rate was once every 15 secs. the N5 is once every 10 secs, which, on my opinion, is still not enough to know, in one quick look, if you have a message. (i know, there's lightflow, i've used it for years, but i'm kind of a "pure" freak and want as few bloat on my phone as possible).


Finally all in all, given i had already installed Google Experience Launcher on my N4, and it's about the only thing new on the N5, and given the N4 being still snappy as hell, i wouldn't recommend swapping, but keeping the money aside for some Nexus 6 in a year or so.


If you have any question feel free to ask.
 

LegalAmerican

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Interesting. My sister has the N4 and I haven't spent as much time with it as you have obviously, but I think the N5 is a huge upgrade and very justified. The reason I say this is because of the things you weren't as impressed with. Side by side, the N5 screen is much much better. Very sharp and I can certainly see a huge difference. Also the camera was a big upgrade when we compared the two side by side. It probably depends on how you've altered your N4 cause she has kept hers stock and not rooted.

She still loves her N4 and I was so impressed with it that I was convinced to get the N5. I also could see waiting until the N6 however as i'm sure it will be awesome.
 

bagou01

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my N4 was also stock, non rooted, and had almost nothing installed on it except for whatsapp and ridiculous fishing and VLC :p
i held both my devices next to one each other and i really didn't see a huge difference in screen, but then again, it's a personnal matter :)
 

kgbkny

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I bought the Nexus 4 in January 2013 and sold it the same week. To me, LTE is a necessity and the N4's lack of LTE was a dealbreaker. The N5 is a very significant upgrade over the N4. LTE connectivity, Snapdragon 800 processor and Adreno 330 GPU are reasons enough to upgrade.
 

yfan

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Hi,
i thought i'd share my first impressions of the N5 compared to my N4, and answer in a post, all the questions i asked myself before swapping from N4 to N5...

First, i precise my N5 is the 312K batch, then, i have to say, if it was to be done again, i think i wouldnt...
Hmm... why aren't you returning it then? You said a week, so you're within your 15-day return period.

I owned the Nexus 4 for a year before buying my Nexus 5, which I have now used for the past two months. Is it a significant upgrade? Very much so. Is it a must-have/no-brainer/necessary upgrade? Absolutely not. It depends on you what you need. The N5 is more future proof, but that depends on how far into the future you're looking.
 

LegalAmerican

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my N4 was also stock, non rooted, and had almost nothing installed on it except for whatsapp and ridiculous fishing and VLC :p
i held both my devices next to one each other and i really didn't see a huge difference in screen, but then again, it's a personnal matter :)

I see. I figured when you mentioned you had installed the Google Experience Launcher that you had possibly modified it.
 

B. Diddy

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I never had a Nexus 4, but as mentioned above, I think the LTE radio on the Nexus 5 is a huge upgrade. I was always a little baffled that the Nexus 4 didn't have this capability.

Posted via Android Central App
 

ottscay

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I also just upgraded from an N4 to an N5 (yesterday, in fact), and while I agree that subjective user speed isn't a huge upgrade (apps launch faster, but otherwise both phones are as smooth as...butter) I do feel that the LTE connectivity, call quality, and especially camera and screen are significant upgrades. The screen is far more accurate in terms of color (whether someone prefers accurate color is of course a matter of opinion, but I do and it's a definite fact that the N5 has better color accuracy), and when reading text I notice the extra resolution, though not with any sort of moving images. As for the camera I am seeing night and day improvement shooting HDR+ on the N5 over any sort of pictures I took on the N4, and especially in lower lighting situations.

One area the N4 did win out (for me) is that it feels more premium to my hands. Not that I don't like the look or or build quality of the N5, but the materials feel cheaper in my hand (especially the shiny black border on the white version that I got). But it's a small price to pay.
 
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B. Diddy

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One area the N4 did win out (for me) is that it feels more premium to my hands

I imagine I would have constantly been worried about cracking that glass back. Sure, you can protect it with a case, but then what's the point of having a snazzy sexy glass back if you can't see it?
 

tgp

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I imagine I would have constantly been worried about cracking that glass back.

I used a Nexus 4 for about a year, and I was constantly worried about that. It did however give a premium feel to the phone. The other issue with the glass back is that it's very, very slippery. It will slide on almost surface that is not perfectly level. Interestingly enough, about a month before I upgraded to the Nexus 5 I put a high quality wet install screen protector on the front and back, and besides protecting the back, it took care of the issue of it being slippery. I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
 

ottscay

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I imagine I would have constantly been worried about cracking that glass back. Sure, you can protect it with a case, but then what's the point of having a snazzy sexy glass back if you can't see it?

Oddly I don't actually even like the feel of glass on the back - glass belongs on the front, so I get a sort of cognitive dissonance when I held it (especially when it was in my pocket and I could not see it). But even when I put a textured vinyl backing over it the phone still felt more premium. Again though, a pretty minor sacrifice for what the N5 brings. Also, had I got the black version with soft-touch plastic up the sides there might have been a less discernible difference, but I like the looks of the white back so it is what it is.
 

bagou01

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well i can't return it without reasons.... the two weeks return applys for online buys and defective device but not for "oh finally i don't want it" reason (at least in belgium) :p
 

bagou01

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for my side i bought spigen screen protector which came with front and back protection, so no case, but just screen protector to prevent thermal shock breaks of the glass back
 

zkSharks

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The N4 being already snappy as hell i don't really see a difference here in my day to day usage.
The screen, despite being higher DPI, makes not much difference either, unless you stick your eyes to it... but held in a normal distance, a human eye can't see no difference between N4 and N5...
For the screen, once again, it's been talked about much and much, but i even think i prefere the N4 screen which had whiter whites compared to the "yellowish" N5 screen (it's supposed to disappear with time but only time will tell).

I wouldn't disagree; the Nexus 5 is definitely a step in the right direction -- and, for that matter, a step up -- but those still with a Nexus 4 certainly aren't missing out on a revolutionary upgrade. From the software perspective, that's a side-effect of a maturing platform.

For the battery, i read here and there about everything, but i could EASILY hold one day with my N4 with screen at full brightness. when trying to optimize things (less presicion in geo location, auto dim screen), i managed to hold 3 days without cheating...
The same seems to go for my N5... i can easily hold one day, full brightness and precise geo location... now if i dim the screen, lower location precision to battery saving mode, and shut 4G for 3G, i think i can take it to two days...

Same here. I can do a full day with LTE, screen brightness set to full when appropriate, otherwise auto or minimum at night.

for the camera, yes it's better, but it's not like it was a canon 5D, it's just "better" but doesn't justify the swap.

Coming from the HTC One, I miss having a camera that shoots photos with the same wide aspect ratio of the display itself. That was very nice, and very underrated.

Concerning the LED notification (seems ridiculous but it really was a great deal for me), the N4 led rate was once every 15 secs. the N5 is once every 10 secs, which, on my opinion, is still not enough to know, in one quick look, if you have a message. (i know, there's lightflow, i've used it for years, but i'm kind of a "pure" freak and want as few bloat on my phone as possible).

I'm the same way; one of the big reasons I rooted my Nexus 4 way back when was to gain ROM control of the LED. I'm using Light Flow on the Nexus 5 right now, but I would still be very open to replacing it with built-in controls.

Finally all in all, given i had already installed Google Experience Launcher on my N4, and it's about the only thing new on the N5, and given the N4 being still snappy as hell, i wouldn't recommend swapping, but keeping the money aside for some Nexus 6 in a year or so. If you have any question feel free to ask.

Are you using ART (on either the N4 or N5)?
 

TraderGary

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from the HTC One, I miss having a camera that shoots photos with the same wide aspect ratio of the display itself. That was very nice, and very underrated.
The HTC One was simply cropping the top and bottom of it's 3x4 sensor image to fit the wide screen. You were actually losing image resolution to do that. You can use the crop tool in the Nexus 5 Gallery to crop the image to the wide screen and do the exact same thing if you want.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app
 

zkSharks

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The HTC One was simply cropping it's 3x4 sensor image to fit the wide screen. You were actually losing image resolution to do that. You can use the crop tool in the Nexus 5 Gallery to crop the image to the screen and do the exact same thing if you want.

That's actually not the case with the One, though it's standard practice for most other devices that return 16:9 images from their cameras. Our review of the One touches on this, and the Anandtech review has some great detail on the camera hardware. From the latter:

The HTC One sensor is 16:9 aspect ratio natively, not the usual 4:3 we’re used to seeing for sensors, with a resolution of 2688 x 1520, for 4.08 MP.
 

TraderGary

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Interesting. I had understood that all sensors were 3x4. I didn't realize that to get a standard ratio you would have to crop it. And I came from an HTC One and didn't use wide screen as I had understood it degraded the image.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app
 

bagou01

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@patrick
yes i use ART on all my devices N4, N5 and N7... don't see huge difference though.

Might i add, yesterday, still while using my phone "normally" (9gag when taking a crap, some games in waiting rooms, phone, etc....) and having unplugged it at 7am, when i checked at 8pm, i still had 61% battery.... (full screen brightness, full geolocation etc...) i really don't understand all the fuss people do about batteries, it was the exact same with my N4 while every review criticized the battery... that's something i don't pay attention anymore in reviews ...
 

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