Updated: Apparently, couldn't edit the original post and thought it had saved (reached a character limit). So, going forward I will just add replies, starting here:
New Challenger -
LG Nexus 4 (Stock Android Challenger)
Well, I just couldn't resist. I had to throw in another to quench my thirst and curiosity for 'the perfect Android phone for me'. Besides, I had some time to kill while I waited for the HTC One anyway.
So, I picked it up today from T-Mobile and have finished setting it up the same way as the others. Strangely enough, the Nexus 4 came preloaded with 4.1.2. I wasn't expecting 4.3, but definitely thought 4.2.2. would have been loaded at least. Makes me wonder how few of these they are selling at T-Mobile for it to be shipped with that version of the OS - but that's another discussion entirely.
Either way, here are my first day's impressions:
- I really like the size of this smartphone. After having gargantuan smartphones for quite some time, this actually feels like a phone and less like a phablet to me and that's a good thing. If you're going to have the menu button at the top of the screen (because of no dedidated menu key) then having a slightly smaller screen helps quite a bit.
- You'll be hardpressed to tell the difference between this 720p display and the Galaxy S4 or HTC One at normal (think 12" away) viewing distance. However, get a little closer and it's there. You'll see the pixels with the N4, whereas you'll strain trying to find them on 1080p displays. Like I said, though, at normal viewing distance, this isn't noticeable. Colors are closer to the HTC One, meaning more natural and whites look more white, people look more natural, but of course vibrancy, saturation and blacks are king on the S4. Also, in terms of outdoor visibility, the N4 sits between the HTC One (as best in my opinion) and S4 (worst of the 3).
- Performance of stock android is superb - ever so slightly smoother than the HTC One, which I mentioned ran pretty flawless even with CPU Power Save on. Virtually everything opens and closes with no lag and almost instantly. It's a great experience. Given that this is 1yr old hardware, it's easy to tell how optimized the OS is. It's a pleasure to use. I'm normally a huge fan of physical buttons (hence my love for the S4), but I will admit I have absolutely no issue switching and using onscreen nav keys at all and today is only Day 1 of possibly 30.
- Haven't played around much with the camera, but I will say it will take some time to get use to the controls and options. It's a very different experience than the standard versions of the S4 and HTC One. Also worth noting is that on 4.2.1 the screen had to rotate when switching from landscape to portrait or vice versa. A dumb thing and not sure why and after upgrading to 4.3 it's still there, however it's much faster and has a different animation (fading in/out instead of rotating)
My overall first impression for Day 1 with stock android is that I'm impressed. It's very smooth and fluid and reminds me very much of my experience with the HTC One, albeit just ever so slightly smoother. The onscreen navigation keys are very easy to adjust to, even coming from a Galaxy S4 and I was so surprised by this in fact it really did sort of make me question why other companies haven't adopted this route yet. I'm still a huge fan of physical buttons, but the main advantage I see to onscreen is that response time seems to be much quicker than both the HTC One and S4. The downside I could see with this, though, is that if you drop your phone and crack the screen you may very well end up having a phone that's not usable if you damage it to the point of not being able to use the onscreen keys.
While I haven't gotten as much time yet to dive into the main areas I'm comparing (similar to my HTC One vs. S4 above), there were a few quick caveats I'd like to point out.
For starters, the stock email (not gmail) app is overly simplistic and also in a questionable way. For example, here are your options:
Yup, other than being able to change your display name, a basic (non-html) signature and the above that's pretty much all you get. Granted, I will say that in terms of looks it's still nicer looking than the one Samsung uses, but not nearly as elegant as HTC's. Samsung wins in options - also the only one having an HTML signature - whereas HTC wins in functionality. For stock android, you basically get a stripped down version of Gmail and I mean that quite literally. Take the Gmail add, strip out some options and that's email right down to the look except you don't get contact photos next to emails. Questionable omissions include the following:
- Inability to swipe left/right within messages to navigate to the next one (the Gmail app has this, why doesn't email?). There are arrows you can press at the bottom to go left or right to the next/previous message, but no swipe. Doesn't make sense.
- No options for sorting whatsoever
- No conversation view
- No way to send a new meeting invitation
- 'Flagging' is displayed as 'stars' (ala Gmail style)
- NO OUT OF OFFICE SETTINGS (NOOO!)
As someone who relies quite heavily on corporate exchange this alone may very well be a deal breaker. I haven't seen any good exchange replacements that don't look like sin (please, if you know of any let me know) and it amazes me how little attention Google has given this area. I guess Android people as a whole aren't business users apparently in Google's eyes for this to be as terrible as it is.
Some other weird quibbles I have are with the dialer. Why does the dial screen have an awkward lined background that doesn't show up anywhere else in the OS? This is really jarring since it doesn't match anything. It would have made more sense to use the same background gradient as the very next page over (call logs) that's also shared with everything else in the contacts area. The lines just look tacky.
I will say this though, the dialer at least works decently. Smooth animations and apparently in 4.3 they finally added 'auto complete' so that it will find names in your address book as you type the numbers/letters using the dial pad. They didn't give it an elegant solution by any means, though, as it just shows 3 options in a small line above the dial pad, but at least it's there. HTC One and S4 definitely win here to me in the fact that you at least get to see a half screen picture (if you have one) of your friends as you type it. Just looks more pleasing.
Also, I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but it's weird how previews show in 4.3. If you look, some preview windows only show a corner of the entire window. I took a screenshot to compare to my S4 to see how it shows the entire preview for all windows.
Lastly for today, I thought that in stock android you were able to have a pin lock and still pull down the notification shade? Doesn't seem to be the case with my N4 unless it has to do with my corporate email or some setting I'm missing. A little disappointed by that.
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