New Nexus 5 owner

[Raistonic]

After many months of being on the fence about replacing my Note 2 with a nexus I finally pulled the trigger. From the moment I completed loading it I am awestruck at how well it performs. My major concern like most have posted was battery life. My first full day with lots of use went the entire day and only got down to 31%!

The only question I have is do you need to unlock the boot loader sooner rather than later? I want to enjoy the phone a bit before I take a dive into the modification pool.

 

[frenziedfemale]

Re: New Nexus owner

The only downfall to waiting and unlocking the boot loader after some use is that the process wipes your data. If you are OK with that go ahead and wait. Also, it is not necessary to unlock the boot loader at all to enjoy the phone.

 

[LeoRex]

Re: New Nexus owner

The only question I have is do you need to unlock the boot loader sooner rather than later? I want to enjoy the phone a bit before I take a dive into the modification pool.

Well, I'd say unlock your bootloader so you can get around to loading a custom recovery. Making for easy backups, and easy access for when you want to root or flash a ROM. Normally, unlocking is something you want to do quick since it does a factory reset.

BUT...

There is a toolkit that works wonders.... It's called the Wugfresh Toolkit for Nexus devices (Nexus Root Toolkit v1.8.2 | WugFresh). It has an intuitive UI (it's a windows app) that steps you through the process, downloads the files it needs..... One of the best functions it has is that it will unlock the bootloader, but it also does a full backup of your phone in the process... so it can back up, unlock, then restore your data.

Now, there are some that don't like these toolkits, preferring that people learn things the 'hard' way (it's not all that hard with a Nexus... these are developer-friendly). But a good toolkit like this one helps take away the worry, especially if someone is playing around with a device for the first time. It steps you through everything, explaining things as it goes... so even though it does it for you, it tried to at least educate you about the process. I manually unlocked and flashed both my and my wife's Nexus 5s..... but when it came time to do some overhauls on my Nexus 7 (which is modified pretty much the exact same way), I used the toolkit and saved myself time and effort.

 

[Tom Westrick]

Re: New Nexus owner

I was going to start a new topic on this, but I'll just piggy back. I want to give apps root access. Do I need to do anything beyond unlocking the bootloader?

 

[srkmagnus]

Re: New Nexus owner

After many months of being on the fence about replacing my Note 2 with a nexus I finally pulled the trigger. From the moment I completed loading it I am awestruck at how well it performs. My major concern like most have posted was battery life. My first full day with lots of use went the entire day and only got down to 31%!

The only question I have is do you need to unlock the boot loader sooner rather than later? I want to enjoy the phone a bit before I take a dive into the modification pool.

Unlock the bootloader now. You can still stay stock and enjoy it, but doing so now will be more convenient. It'll factory reset the device so you won't have to worry about backing up files (at least not as many).

Good to see that you are enjoying the device. Let us know if you have any questions.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[gidgiddonihah]

Re: New Nexus owner

I was going to start a new topic on this, but I'll just piggy back. I want to give apps root access. Do I need to do anything beyond unlocking the bootloader?

Just for future reference please create a new thread . You'll need to push your preferred Superuser flavor and flash via custom recovery. Instructions are stickied in the Rooting section of the Nexus 5 thread. Good luck!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Raistonic]

Re: New Nexus owner

Thanks for the feedback and advice. I will work on unlocking it right away.

 

[Shilohcane]

Re: New Nexus owner

Thanks for the feedback and advice. I will work on unlocking it right away.

Don't forget to turn on ART a.k.a Android Run Time. How to enable ART on Android

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: New Nexus owner

Welcome to Android Central, and the Nexus 5 club!

 

[Raistonic]

Re: New Nexus owner

I haven't delved into unlocking the boot loader yet because I am enjoying this phone so much! I read every review and all the threads on here absorbing all data points to weigh my decision. I now feel like a fool as this is my favorite device of all my devices (Nexus 7, Galaxy S4 for work, 4 Ipads dont' ask). This truly is the best android experience if people are willing to take the plunge. I even took the wireless charging leap and so far the results are staggering. This community made it all possible by people taking time to answer questions from total strangers.

 

[cbarnhil]

Re: New Nexus owner

I haven't delved into unlocking the boot loader yet because I am enjoying this phone so much! I read every review and all the threads on here absorbing all data points to weigh my decision. I now feel like a fool as this is my favorite device of all my devices (Nexus 7, Galaxy S4 for work, 4 Ipads dont' ask). This truly is the best android experience if people are willing to take the plunge. I even took the wireless charging leap and so far the results are staggering. This community made it all possible by people taking time to answer questions from total strangers.

I agree. The Nexus 5 is an amazing device. (coming from Galaxy S's 2/3) But yeah, people on these forums are amazing. Good folk's here. I've gotten myself out of some bricked device situations a couple of times... Bricked my Nexus 7(2012 version) once, My wife's Nook Color a couple of years ago. If it weren't for the people here, I'd have a couple of expensive paper weights.

But in response to the OP, the first thing I do is unlock the device. I hate losing all my data when I decide to root. (now that I understand how unlocking/rooting is done) I love having root privileges. But it does come with a risk of bricking. So do lots of research and ask lots of questions first. That's just my 2 cents.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Closingracer]

Re: New Nexus owner

I haven't delved into unlocking the boot loader yet because I am enjoying this phone so much! I read every review and all the threads on here absorbing all data points to weigh my decision. I now feel like a fool as this is my favorite device of all my devices (Nexus 7, Galaxy S4 for work, 4 Ipads dont' ask). This truly is the best android experience if people are willing to take the plunge. I even took the wireless charging leap and so far the results are staggering. This community made it all possible by people taking time to answer questions from total strangers.

I feel quite the opposite... While I prefer stock android I like touch wiz and came from the s2,s3, and s4 and the only reason I got a nexus 5 was because I was planning on moving from AT&T( I miss em already ) to T-mobile simply because of price. I like the nexus 5 but the battery life is pretty bad for my taste and no wifi calling on the nexus 5 as well. The battery for me lucky to last 8-10 hours till it hits about 15% compared to my previous phone the s4 should would easily last me 15-17 hours till hitting 15% battery life.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mdandashly]

Re: New Nexus owner

Keep in mind that if you do run ART as a previous poster mentioned, if an app doesn't work or force closes on open, ART is likely the culprit. I only have 1 app that doesn't work on ART, TD Ameritrade stock trader app. I switched back to dalvik because I need the Trader app.

To be honest, I ran both ART and Dalvik for a while and barely noticed a difference.

 

[Bront]

Re: New Nexus owner

If you're agressive with your battery tweaks and your phone spends a reasonable time idle, ART will help you more. ART's biggest strength is passive battery life, as you don't have the extra compile battery hit in the background (it helps speed too, but I haven't noticed a huge difference).

 

[LeoRex]

Re: New Nexus owner

But in response to the OP, the first thing I do is unlock the device. I hate losing all my data when I decide to root.

Well.... with a tool like Wugfresh, you can back up your entire device, unlock it (which does wipe it clean), then load everything back and root it.

That tool makes everything easy....and the best part is that if you are a new user, it steps you through everything as it goes, explaining all the steps, why it's doing what it's doing... it's like an interactive master class on modifying your nexus device.