I chose to exercise my JUMP upgrade and traded in my Nexus 5 for a black G3. I LOVED my Nexus 5 and was an unabashed fan and tried to sell it to the world that wanted a top notch, inexpensive phone. BUT... why both having JUMP if you aren't going to use it? And it seems like it might be until sometime in 2015 before a new 'small' Nexus phone is released, and the G3 had my curiosity AND attention. So after a little bit of time, I'll say this: I think I'm going to really like this phone...... one I get done fiddling with it.
First off... phone is a looker... nice chassis, blown up screen with no bezels, plastic back with a metallic feel....
Within the first few minutes us using it, I immediately thought "Yeah, gonna have to do something about this." The stock launcher is a bit well, meh. It reminds me of a plain ol' ICS era launcher with a little bit of TW mixed in. Why anyone would keep running it rather than jumping to a custom launcher is beyond me. Smart Notice? OK... Why... WHY are OEMs coming to the contextually aware gun fight with butter knives? Google Now is a killer, beast mode function. And Smart Notice is a poor attempt at a Now replacement. LG.... don't... just don't.... you're in over your head on this one. So to address that part of the issue I hopped over to gappsearly and snitched the Google Now Launcher apk and loaded it up. Voila!!!! First problem solved.
The notification panel is also a lot like Touchwiz... that is to say that it's a hot mess. Sliders, buttons, toggles, no room for notifications... it's the phone's junk drawer. HTC did a much better job in customizing Android with the new Sense UI. Unfortunately, LG didn't leave us many customization options. So I had to root (very easy process) and load up the G3 Tweakbox Xposed module. TB is fairly similar to the Gravity Box module that is in heavy rotation with Nexus devices, and I am quite fortunate that it was available. It let me strip out a fair amount of the extraneous crap in the screen (and do a fair amount of molding across the rest of the phone).... No more volume and brightness sliders.... now it's just notifications and quick toggles.
I also swapped out some UI sounds, replacing them with the Nexus sounds..... and imported in my library o' sounds/tunes so my notifications and stuff all sound right. AcDisplay is a mess on the G3.... so I have to go with a plan B for lockscreen notifications.
Now, I know what you are saying "You Nex-ified your phone... why didn't you just keep it!?" Well, because new phone. Bigger display, potentially better camera, massive battery, SD slot, etc....the Nexus 5 was based in part off the G2, I'm just taking things to their logical end. And thankfully, T-Mobile released this thing without a locked bootloader, so I hope that I might start seeing some custom ROMs for it at some point.
First off... phone is a looker... nice chassis, blown up screen with no bezels, plastic back with a metallic feel....
Within the first few minutes us using it, I immediately thought "Yeah, gonna have to do something about this." The stock launcher is a bit well, meh. It reminds me of a plain ol' ICS era launcher with a little bit of TW mixed in. Why anyone would keep running it rather than jumping to a custom launcher is beyond me. Smart Notice? OK... Why... WHY are OEMs coming to the contextually aware gun fight with butter knives? Google Now is a killer, beast mode function. And Smart Notice is a poor attempt at a Now replacement. LG.... don't... just don't.... you're in over your head on this one. So to address that part of the issue I hopped over to gappsearly and snitched the Google Now Launcher apk and loaded it up. Voila!!!! First problem solved.
The notification panel is also a lot like Touchwiz... that is to say that it's a hot mess. Sliders, buttons, toggles, no room for notifications... it's the phone's junk drawer. HTC did a much better job in customizing Android with the new Sense UI. Unfortunately, LG didn't leave us many customization options. So I had to root (very easy process) and load up the G3 Tweakbox Xposed module. TB is fairly similar to the Gravity Box module that is in heavy rotation with Nexus devices, and I am quite fortunate that it was available. It let me strip out a fair amount of the extraneous crap in the screen (and do a fair amount of molding across the rest of the phone).... No more volume and brightness sliders.... now it's just notifications and quick toggles.
I also swapped out some UI sounds, replacing them with the Nexus sounds..... and imported in my library o' sounds/tunes so my notifications and stuff all sound right. AcDisplay is a mess on the G3.... so I have to go with a plan B for lockscreen notifications.
Now, I know what you are saying "You Nex-ified your phone... why didn't you just keep it!?" Well, because new phone. Bigger display, potentially better camera, massive battery, SD slot, etc....the Nexus 5 was based in part off the G2, I'm just taking things to their logical end. And thankfully, T-Mobile released this thing without a locked bootloader, so I hope that I might start seeing some custom ROMs for it at some point.