Hello All,
I just wanted to share my experience with my Nexus4 so far. I hope this helps some one who is planning on getting one! It has been about a week since I received my new toy. I sold my 6 month old Galaxy Nexus to make the jump. This is NOT a review and just my personal opinion.
User Type: Moderate User. I mostly use it for my emails and with a little bit of browsing, reading and listening to music. I occasionally play games and watch a few videos.
Short Opinion: Overall, its a good phone with a few "ifs n buts".
Build Quality:
-While the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was made of plastic it was definitely not cheap looking and did not produce any creaky sounds. That being said, Nexus4 has a more premium feel with nice soft rubber grips on the sides and glass on both sides. The phone is fragile and requires constant pampering and care. I would highly recommend a case and screen protector if you are particular about maintaining the phone scratch n cracks free!
Display:
-The Galaxy Nexus display had a calibration issue as most of you know, the greys would look blue and the whites look pretty washed out. Guess what, Nexus4 display has its own calibration problem.
Most of you might already be aware that the gamma setting is completely mis-calibrated resulting in once again the blacks appearing with a bluish tint. This is not easily noticeable when you are inside the app drawer (which has a black background) but is definitely seen when watching movies with night/dark scenes.
-There are a lot of apps and custom kernels that allow the user to tweak these settings. But Google has blocked out these settings completely on stock kernel starting 4.2.2. I believe you can now only change the color settings but cannot control the gamma values :-(
-The viewing angles are not as great as the SuperAMOLED display on Galaxy Nexus. I think this is partly because of the excessive contrast ratios on the screen.
-The colors also look washed out.
-P.S: A first time user who is directly playing with Nexus4 would not notice these issues.
-I actually like the unique contoured (curved) display...just a personal thing
I really wish Google allows users to tinker with color settings!
Storage:
-Like the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus4 comes with just two options 8 and 16GB.
-Is it enough? It depends..My first android smartphone was a Samsung Captivate. So, I was "used" to a high capacity SD Card. I was pretty hesitant when purchasing the galaxy nexus with no SD card slot. I eventually realized its not that bad! I found that having an SD card was just a convenient thing and NOT an absolute requirement for ME. I have the 16GB version of Nexus4 with about 600songs, 200apps, few hundred snaps, wallpapers and 5 games (not very graphics intensive like racing (or) shooting games). That left me with 7GB free space!
-I do use my box and dropbox accounts though.
In short, I am not that worried about running about space..but I wish Google offers the 32/64GB versions.
Camera:
Sorry..I am the wrong guy to provide any opinion on this one :-( Camera is not something I use daily..so I am fine with whatever comes with the phone. But there is one thing I dislike in both my previous and current Nexus phone. It takes a long time for the camera to focus and then it does not stay focused consistently. So a lot of times the snap turns out be blurry. I believe this is a software glitch and gets fixed.
Battery:
-For my usage, the battery has been really good. The standby time (on 4.2.2) is extremely good. I intentionally left my phone untouched for a couple of days and just let it do its thing (sync, email checks, updates) with very little screen time. The battery was at 84% after 1day 8hrs! That's pretty impressive. But with the screen turned on and using the phone, it does seem to drop pretty fast..I expect a max of 4hrs-5hrs usage time with Moderate usage.
Performance and Heat:
-This phone is extremely snappy. There is absolutely no lag whatsoever. 4.2.2 looks extremely fluid and now comparable to iphone or even better.
-2GB RAM is plenty! For Moderate users like me ...this is honestly an overkill
-This phone does have throttling implemented. It does not affect the CPU as much as the GPU. At 36C, both CPU and GPU start getting throttled. While the effect with respect to CPU is not visible to the user, GPU throttling is visible indeed. If the temperatures exceed 40C, you will definitely start observing a little bit of choppiness and drops in frame rates. So for serious gamers, this might a be deal breaker.
-The phone gets a little hot as well but not to the point that it becomes unconformable...at least not in my case.
Audio Quality:
-External Speakers sound a bit tinny. But I don't care as I use headphones most of the time and they sound fine.
-Call quality is fine and I believe this depends on the carrier signal quality as well. I have no complaints or comments in this regard. It does what it does!
WIFI/Bluetooth/HSPA+/NFC:
-Everything works fine.
-My Wifi signal is better compared to my previous phone. I experience less buffering issues when watching youtube in HD mode now.
-Bluetooth, I used it with my headphones and did not experience any issues (no crackling,skipping,signal issues etc.) I am yet to try it out in my car.
-I was easily able to initialize my Google Wallet the very first time and all my previous account settings was successfully ported over. It was very easy! But am yet to try NFC on this phone.
Overall Impressions:
From a price stand-point this phone is a real steal! ..With Nexus, you are always running the latest and greatest from Google (which was the main reason why I started using Nexus Phones).
If you are looking for a lot of features, bells and whistles there are better options available but a higher price point.
Hope this helps!
I just wanted to share my experience with my Nexus4 so far. I hope this helps some one who is planning on getting one! It has been about a week since I received my new toy. I sold my 6 month old Galaxy Nexus to make the jump. This is NOT a review and just my personal opinion.
User Type: Moderate User. I mostly use it for my emails and with a little bit of browsing, reading and listening to music. I occasionally play games and watch a few videos.
Short Opinion: Overall, its a good phone with a few "ifs n buts".
Build Quality:
-While the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was made of plastic it was definitely not cheap looking and did not produce any creaky sounds. That being said, Nexus4 has a more premium feel with nice soft rubber grips on the sides and glass on both sides. The phone is fragile and requires constant pampering and care. I would highly recommend a case and screen protector if you are particular about maintaining the phone scratch n cracks free!
Display:
-The Galaxy Nexus display had a calibration issue as most of you know, the greys would look blue and the whites look pretty washed out. Guess what, Nexus4 display has its own calibration problem.
Most of you might already be aware that the gamma setting is completely mis-calibrated resulting in once again the blacks appearing with a bluish tint. This is not easily noticeable when you are inside the app drawer (which has a black background) but is definitely seen when watching movies with night/dark scenes.
-There are a lot of apps and custom kernels that allow the user to tweak these settings. But Google has blocked out these settings completely on stock kernel starting 4.2.2. I believe you can now only change the color settings but cannot control the gamma values :-(
-The viewing angles are not as great as the SuperAMOLED display on Galaxy Nexus. I think this is partly because of the excessive contrast ratios on the screen.
-The colors also look washed out.
-P.S: A first time user who is directly playing with Nexus4 would not notice these issues.
-I actually like the unique contoured (curved) display...just a personal thing
I really wish Google allows users to tinker with color settings!
Storage:
-Like the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus4 comes with just two options 8 and 16GB.
-Is it enough? It depends..My first android smartphone was a Samsung Captivate. So, I was "used" to a high capacity SD Card. I was pretty hesitant when purchasing the galaxy nexus with no SD card slot. I eventually realized its not that bad! I found that having an SD card was just a convenient thing and NOT an absolute requirement for ME. I have the 16GB version of Nexus4 with about 600songs, 200apps, few hundred snaps, wallpapers and 5 games (not very graphics intensive like racing (or) shooting games). That left me with 7GB free space!
-I do use my box and dropbox accounts though.
In short, I am not that worried about running about space..but I wish Google offers the 32/64GB versions.
Camera:
Sorry..I am the wrong guy to provide any opinion on this one :-( Camera is not something I use daily..so I am fine with whatever comes with the phone. But there is one thing I dislike in both my previous and current Nexus phone. It takes a long time for the camera to focus and then it does not stay focused consistently. So a lot of times the snap turns out be blurry. I believe this is a software glitch and gets fixed.
Battery:
-For my usage, the battery has been really good. The standby time (on 4.2.2) is extremely good. I intentionally left my phone untouched for a couple of days and just let it do its thing (sync, email checks, updates) with very little screen time. The battery was at 84% after 1day 8hrs! That's pretty impressive. But with the screen turned on and using the phone, it does seem to drop pretty fast..I expect a max of 4hrs-5hrs usage time with Moderate usage.
Performance and Heat:
-This phone is extremely snappy. There is absolutely no lag whatsoever. 4.2.2 looks extremely fluid and now comparable to iphone or even better.
-2GB RAM is plenty! For Moderate users like me ...this is honestly an overkill
-This phone does have throttling implemented. It does not affect the CPU as much as the GPU. At 36C, both CPU and GPU start getting throttled. While the effect with respect to CPU is not visible to the user, GPU throttling is visible indeed. If the temperatures exceed 40C, you will definitely start observing a little bit of choppiness and drops in frame rates. So for serious gamers, this might a be deal breaker.
-The phone gets a little hot as well but not to the point that it becomes unconformable...at least not in my case.
Audio Quality:
-External Speakers sound a bit tinny. But I don't care as I use headphones most of the time and they sound fine.
-Call quality is fine and I believe this depends on the carrier signal quality as well. I have no complaints or comments in this regard. It does what it does!
WIFI/Bluetooth/HSPA+/NFC:
-Everything works fine.
-My Wifi signal is better compared to my previous phone. I experience less buffering issues when watching youtube in HD mode now.
-Bluetooth, I used it with my headphones and did not experience any issues (no crackling,skipping,signal issues etc.) I am yet to try it out in my car.
-I was easily able to initialize my Google Wallet the very first time and all my previous account settings was successfully ported over. It was very easy! But am yet to try NFC on this phone.
Overall Impressions:
From a price stand-point this phone is a real steal! ..With Nexus, you are always running the latest and greatest from Google (which was the main reason why I started using Nexus Phones).
If you are looking for a lot of features, bells and whistles there are better options available but a higher price point.
Hope this helps!
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