Is Google moving forward of backward with their Nexus devices?

[FreakyLocz14]

While each new Nexus signals the release of a new version of Android, it also seems to signal the loss of cherished features, such as expandable storage, physical buttons, and a removable battery.

What is your take on this?

 

[Ziptied]

No to answer your question in the title.

 

[Fairclough]

Cherished? Please.
Expandable memory - how fun is it having to constantly use sd reader apps / apps not updating on sd card etc. If we get good data plans cloud will dominate. Its a probably better shift for the future. Look even Apple is on it.

Physical Buttons - They jam, get sticky, fall off, become non responsive, I enjoy just having a power/volume button. Apple having 1 key button, now i know everyone who has it gets pissed when that stuffs up. Least if your on screen buttons fail you know its not their fault its the digitizer, expensive yes... but its easier to get a digitizer then a key and less parts to go wrong.

Removal Battery - I don't care. Personally I only remove my own phones battery to put the sim in or if i drop it in the toilet. I would have carrying a spare battery on me, but thats just me. I view that the phone looks great being all close and least when you drop it the back cover does fall off and going flying across the store your in.

Sorry for the criticism, but that is my own view, others can have theirs. This is just my belief on it, I am a bit optimistic on this/

 

[anon(847090)]

Google just made a gaint leap forward with Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Android 4.2

 

[FreakyLocz14]

Cherished? Please.
Expandable memory - how fun is it having to constantly use sd reader apps / apps not updating on sd card etc. If we get good data plans cloud will dominate. Its a probably better shift for the future. Look even Apple is on it.

Physical Buttons - They jam, get sticky, fall off, become non responsive, I enjoy just having a power/volume button. Apple having 1 key button, now i know everyone who has it gets pissed when that stuffs up. Least if your on screen buttons fail you know its not their fault its the digitizer, expensive yes... but its easier to get a digitizer then a key and less parts to go wrong.

Removal Battery - I don't care. Personally I only remove my own phones battery to put the sim in or if i drop it in the toilet. I would have carrying a spare battery on me, but thats just me. I view that the phone looks great being all close and least when you drop it the back cover does fall off and going flying across the store your in.

Sorry for the criticism, but that is my own view, others can have theirs. This is just my belief on it, I am a bit optimistic on this/

You may have a point with the physical buttons, but wireless carriers are moving away from unlimited data plans in favor of tiered plans. That makes cloud storage very unpractical.

As for a removable battery, you'll be glad to have that if your phone ever freezes on you.

 

[jd914]

Expandable storage is overrated. Most people are ok with a minimum of 16GB internal storage. Quite frankly when I had devices that had micro SD cards, the most use I had for them was to put my photos on them and that's it. IMO Micro SD cards at this day and age are obsolete and phones that have them have an "outdated" aura to them.

Removable batteries? Again, devices at this day and age are more power efficient and the need to swap batteries or use those ugly extended batteries is no longer needed. If you want to reboot your device simply hold down the power button.

Physical buttons? That's the major reason why I like Nexus devices and Jellybean. Physical buttons can fail and like the iPhone give you unwanted screen real-estate.

Say goodbye to physical buttons, removable batteries and expandable storage and say hello to 2012. Google is delivering the best user experience with Nexus devices by streamlining their devices and eliminating legacy features.

 

[anon(847090)]

You may have a point with the physical buttons, but wireless carriers are moving away from unlimited data plans in favor of tiered plans. That makes cloud storage very unpractical.

As for a removable battery, you'll be glad to have that if your phone ever freezes on you.

we are talking about Nexus here. a $30 plan will give you unlimited data.

as per your freeze issue. just press and hold power button for 10 seconds and the phone will reset.

 

[mazzmoney95]

Moving backwards? No. SD Cards are old (I have an SD Card slot in my E4GLTE and don't use it). I'd be fine with a non removable battery if I knew what good comes from it. If it gives better battery life or some other added feature then sure. But I'd like to know what they accomplished by making it non removable. Some people here will assume I'm complaining but I'm not. My current phone has a non removable battery and I'm fine. But my E4GLTE's battery is on par with the S3 which is removable so I don't see better battery life as a reason.

 

[jd914]

You may have a point with the physical buttons, but wireless carriers are moving away from unlimited data plans in favor of tiered plans. That makes cloud storage very unpractical.

The solution to that is more internal storage

for a removable battery, you'll be glad to have that if your phone ever freezes on you.

Wrong, if for any reason a device with a non removable battery freezes or crashes on you, all you need to do is hold the power button until it reboots. These devices aren't blackberries you know?

 

[cnguyen0320]

I think they are trying to go "Apple" with their approach but more Android of course and cheaper. They are making it easier for consumers, and some of it I praise. I see why I would need a removable battery but the lack of the battery cover falling out is amazing. I'll never have the clip of the battery cover break like I had before. I'll never even have to go into the insides of my phone and risk messing something up. Aside from that, I would like expandable storage but it is also confusing for some people... Ie "why cant I put apps on here" etc. Although I would personally love it so I can put movies and songs on my device, something I cannot do on my iphone. Coming from ios and iphone, I have to say f**k physical buttons. On my iphone the only way to get to the home screen is my home button (unless i turn on the on screen touch assistant which blocks my view of apps) and its a pain cuz physical buttons break down. As long as the screen works, the buttons on the nexus will work so I like the software buttons. It also makes the device look cleaner when off but thats personal preference.

Funny though how I mention it makes it easier for average users... Nexus isnt typically your average user kind of phone. Therefore I think they should add things like expandable storage and maybe removable battery. It'll be good for power users who want more from their phones. But with this comes extra cost and build quality issues. In my opinion, without the removable battery ( and cover) there isnt an extra piece of the phone that can go flying off and I LOVE this. This is great, the phone instantly feels sturdier and better built. The microSD is something that should be accessible by method like the sim cards so that actually wouldnt degrade the quality much though perhaps bump costs up a bit. I would prefer to pay an extra $50 and then like $20 for the microSD card and be able to quadruple storage. I guess if they offered high storage models this wouldnt work as a business model since everyone would buy the smallest size and add microSD but I mean seriously add it to your biggest size, ask people to pay more, and get more customers because of the switch.

So there you have it. The 1st paragraph was from a business(ish) perspective and the 2nd was as a consumer.

 

[Fairclough]

I feel 16GB is enough, I broke my hard-drive awhile ago and stopped downloading music. So my old phone had a 16GB only really used it for pics so i had plenty of room left. Well that is just for me i know a few mates which feel the need for all the music but I am not one of them. As for freeing I had a phone with about 256mb ram, they rarely froze, like VERY RARE... with a phone with 2GB ram, about 8x the ram my previous phone had, i think thats an even slimmer chance. The end of the day, if the costumer believes its a step back don't buy it... However I view its a step forward and I AM BUYING IT <3 Google.

 

[Dave_k605]

Pretty sure any device with external or expandable sd slot on it, Google has to pay Microsoft $15 per unit. So as a pure Google experience device it makes sense to not use a competitor system in it.

And the most important part, internal hard drives write/read way faster so the user experience and faster/fluid

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[cnguyen0320]

Physical buttons can fail and like the iPhone give you unwanted screen real-estate.

I dont think anyone will complain about extra screen real estate. I do agree with your point that physical buttons fail but when I buy a 4.8in screen, I wont be complaining if it uses all of that 4.8in lol

 

[cnguyen0320]

Pretty sure any device with external or expandable sd slot on it, Google has to pay Microsoft $15 per unit. So as a pure Google experience device it makes sense to not use a competitor system in it.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

This is a very good point. I totally forgot about that fee to microsoft. Makes sense but I'd be willing to pay that $15 plus the cost of making the slot for extra space for movies, pics, and music.

 

[FreakyLocz14]

I think they are trying to go "Apple" with their approach but more Android of course and cheaper. They are making it easier for consumers, and some of it I praise. I see why I would need a removable battery but the lack of the battery cover falling out is amazing. I'll never have the clip of the battery cover break like I had before. I'll never even have to go into the insides of my phone and risk messing something up. Aside from that, I would like expandable storage but it is also confusing for some people... Ie "why cant I put apps on here" etc. Although I would personally love it so I can put movies and songs on my device, something I cannot do on my iphone. Coming from ios and iphone, I have to say f**k physical buttons. On my iphone the only way to get to the home screen is my home button (unless i turn on the on screen touch assistant which blocks my view of apps) and its a pain cuz physical buttons break down. As long as the screen works, the buttons on the nexus will work so I like the software buttons. It also makes the device look cleaner when off but thats personal preference.

Funny though how I mention it makes it easier for average users... Nexus isnt typically your average user kind of phone. Therefore I think they should add things like expandable storage and maybe removable battery. It'll be good for power users who want more from their phones. But with this comes extra cost and build quality issues. In my opinion, without the removable battery ( and cover) there isnt an extra piece of the phone that can go flying off and I LOVE this. This is great, the phone instantly feels sturdier and better built. The microSD is something that should be accessible by method like the sim cards so that actually wouldnt degrade the quality much though perhaps bump costs up a bit. I would prefer to pay an extra $50 and then like $20 for the microSD card and be able to quadruple storage. I guess if they offered high storage models this wouldnt work as a business model since everyone would buy the smallest size and add microSD but I mean seriously add it to your biggest size, ask people to pay more, and get more customers because of the switch.

So there you have it. The 1st paragraph was from a business(ish) perspective and the 2nd was as a consumer.

I also think that they're either trying to mimic Apple. Nexus devices were never meant for the average consumer. They were meant for developers, and other power users who are more tech-savvy. While internal storage does write and read faster, I don't see any harm that is done by allowing people to option to expand their storage, instead of having to buy a new device if they run out of space.

As for a removable battery. I don't see what good that accomplishes. If it improved battery life, then that would be another story, but family and friends of mine own Android devices that have just as good, if not better, battery life than the Nexus 4 is supposed to have, and their devices have removable batteries.

Google is clearly trying to mimic Apple, and is using the excuse that these features are somehow outdated to justify eliminating them, which might not be a good idea, seeing how lawsuit-happy Apple is.

 

[anon(847090)]

Pretty sure any device with external or expandable sd slot on it, Google has to pay Microsoft $15 per unit. So as a pure Google experience device it makes sense to not use a competitor system in it.

And the most important part, internal hard drives write/read way faster so the user experience and faster/fluid

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

++++++10000000000000000000000000000000000000000 screw MS.

 

[Fairclough]

As for a removable battery. I don't see what good that accomplishes. If it improved battery life, then that would be another story, but family and friends of mine own Android devices that have just as good, if not better, battery life than the Nexus 4 is supposed to have, and their devices have removable batteries.

Google is clearly trying to mimic Apple, and is using the excuse that these features are somehow outdated to justify eliminating them, which might not be a good idea, seeing how lawsuit-happy Apple is.

Are your family friends running a 2GB Ram Quad core processor?
Law suit over not using an SD card. Mate, that would mean the Nokia bricks would have Apple bent right over.
Last time i checked Apple tried sueing htc for multi-touch.. guess how that went. HTC turned it around with intellectual property theft over the idea of a smart phone. GF Apple. Both dropped court cases, but they did make a good example of how ludacris it is.

 

[tjw0]

My reasoning for wanting an SD slot is not for additional storage, but rather an external memory that is protected from factory resets. I flash a lot of ROMS and I don't want to have to pull all of my backup off the cloud or have to plug into my computer every time I flash a ROM. If there were a way to partition the internal storage and protect it from being erased, then I would be fine with no external storage. Maybe that exists and I'm just an idiot.

As for on screen buttons, I would be fine with them if the lower bezel was reduced. My S3 is almost identical in size to the GNex, but I have a bigger screen and the same size bezel. Its just that my bezel has buttons and I consequently have much more usable screen real estate.

As far as removable batteries, I have had phones in the past, namely the iPhone, freeze up and become unresponsive to the power button. I had an S3 ROM which made the screen turn off and the only way that I could get it back on was with a battery pull.

I love the idea of Nexus devices, but I don't think Google has developed the platform enough to make up for the shortcomings produced by these decisions.

I shall now retreat to a flame proof bunker... :beer:

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[cnguyen0320]

I also think that they're either trying to mimic Apple. Nexus devices were never meant for the average consumer. They were meant for developers, and other power users who are more tech-savvy. While internal storage does write and read faster, I don't see any harm that is done by allowing people to option to expand their storage, instead of having to buy a new device if they run out of space.

As for a removable battery. I don't see what good that accomplishes. If it improved battery life, then that would be another story, but family and friends of mine own Android devices that have just as good, if not better, battery life than the Nexus 4 is supposed to have, and their devices have removable batteries.

Google is clearly trying to mimic Apple, and is using the excuse that these features are somehow outdated to justify eliminating them, which might not be a good idea, seeing how lawsuit-happy Apple is.

Apple wont sue because of this since nexus rarely sells extraordinarily anyway. Both battery and MicroSD were done in interest of average consumer, perhaps to draw them in. I think the getting rid of the battery was a good idea to make the device look better and also better built (less flying parts if you drop it). The storage was kinda stupid I think. $15 to microsoft and a little more in terms of production of the actual unit isn't much and those who want a nexus will be glad to pay that little extra to get it anyway. But at the end of the day, what's done is done and we can't change that. The nonremovable battery will stay (for the better I think) but maybe 2 months down the road, they'll introduce 32gb if the demand is there. Maybe they'll add MicroSD in the next nexus.... But for now looks like we're gonna have to settle.

 

[cnguyen0320]

My reasoning for wanting an SD slot is not for additional storage, but rather an external memory that is protected from factory resets. I flash a lot of ROMS and I don't want to have to pull all of my backup off the cloud or have to plug into my computer every time I flash a ROM. If there were a way to partition the internal storage and protect it from being erased, then I would be fine with no external storage. Maybe that exists and I'm just an idiot.

As for on screen buttons, I would be fine with them if the lower bezel was reduced. My S3 is almost identical in size to the GNex, but I have a bigger screen and the same size bezel. Its just that my bezel has buttons and I consequently have much more usable screen real estate.

As far as removable batteries, I have had phones in the past, namely the iPhone, freeze up and become unresponsive to the power button. I had an S3 ROM which made the screen turn off and the only way that I could get it back on was with a battery pull.

I love the idea of Nexus devices, but I don't think Google has developed the platform enough to make up for the shortcomings produced by these decisions.

I shall now retreat to a flame proof bunker... :beer:

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Your iPhone will reset if you hold power and home until it resets. Nexus phones shouldnt crash as much as your ROM'd phones (it shouldnt need to be ROM'd anyway). The bottom bezel is there for landscape mode. Just quick points I had to make.