Re: Using my new nexus5 right now
Ordered Black 32GB late on the 31st (after trick and treating with the kids) as I missed the initial launch earlier in the day, was told 2-4 weeks for shipping..shipped the following Sunday, Received today. Very happy/shocked with Shipping speed.
Moving over from a Gnex I purchased two summers ago, which was my first personal smart phone, having used a BB Curve, Bold and Curve through work. Bought the N4 for the GF for her birthday last year. On Fido Network in Canada, and was able to get a free LTE card.
Won't bother going through the packaging as it's pretty standard. Personally I really like the look of the phone, and although I prefer the N4's Glass back and gun metal trim more, the N5 looks a little more durable. Buttons feel nice, and yes, my power button rattles, but not like it's going to fall out; it's a minimal amount of play and really doesn't concern nor bother me in the least. Speaker placement on the N5 is better than on the back of N4, but unfortunately I'm finding that the way I'm used to holding my phone when I'm typing with two hands, my thumb covers the port. Landscape mode isn't a problem.
On the speaker. I'm personally not finding any issues with it, but also, despite the fact that I do listen to video's and music on it, I'm not a big audiofile; Most definitely louder and better quality than my Gnex, but I'll need to compare it more closely with the N4, which used to make us jump when a notification came because it was so loud; I don't believe it has the same strength as the N4 though. as a speaker phone, I can hear the other party no problems, but there is a slight tin sound...doesn't bother me personally as long as I can understand them. Besides, I Really don't care to talk on the phone and avoid it when I can; I really only have the phone for media consumption, and because my family does like trying to reach me once in a while
The Earpiece sound is clear and loud enough in a quiet room (will need to try it outside), and is very similar in quality to my Gnex, which I found to be pretty good to start. It is nowhere as loud as the N4, where I can hear both sides of the conversation from across the room when the GF is on the phone (very annoying actually).Voice being transmitted to the other end is clear from what I'm being told.
I've connected the device to my BlueTooth headset and the sound out to them seems a bit louder than what I was getting with my Gnex. This was later confirmed once I connected the device to my Car Stereo's BT. It really sounded great pumping music from Google Music through to the 9 speakers and Sub, and just seemed more powerful than both the Gnex and the N4..will have to take all three out with me and test over the weekend. BT calling worked without a hitch and sound came in very clear on both sides. I'm going to need to try calling with my headset as I did have problems with my Gnex being able to keep a connection with it (would drop the BT connection over the course of the call). One issue I did come across while watching a youtube video while connected to my headset, was that the wireless transfer button all of a sudden showed up as an overlay to the video?? I couldn't do anything with it because when I clicked on it, it would just pause/play the video. the only way I could get rid of it was cutting out BT. it's not a hardware issue, just don't know if it's a kitkat issue or youtube one.
Wireless connectivity; I have N connectivity at home, both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands.. the N5 automatically connected to the slower 2.4 band for some reason, despite sitting no further than 4 feet from the router.. switched it manually to the 5ghz band and it connected no problems and haven't had any issues all evening downloading all my crap to the phone.
Mobile connectivity..well, it looks like I'm in a crappy LTE zone as I was only able to get one bar...switched to HSPA+ and all was good. Went for a drive a little earlier and less than a KM down the road I got full bars for LTE..did a couple download tests; I'll probably stick with 3G as I'm only really seeing a dramatic increase in speed for uploads. 3g = 10mbps down, 1.12mbps up. LTE= 14mbps down, 10.5mbps up.... LTE, for me, is great if I'm trying to upload largish videos to facebook or or google drive or something, but because of my monthly limits, I usually only do that from home anyway. 10mbps down listening to music, browsing and the like is more than sufficient for me, so I'll save the battery hit, and stick with 3G/HSPA+ unless I all of a sudden really need faster upload speeds.
For the Screen; it really is a beautiful screen. Mine doesn't have any defects/dead pixels. most definitely better than the Gnex, which had started to develop faint lines the all through the screen. Personally, I find it bright enough. using a screen test, color reproduction looked good, but there was backlight bleed around some of the edges; Again, this doesn't bother me so much as it's minimal and is slightly expected from a "cheaper" phone using LCD instead of a LED or AMOLED display. But the screen is very none the less.
Last bit I'll touch on is the camera. Apart from the bump in storage space (I had the 16GB Gnex), I wanted a little bump for a snap and shoot camera. It's a pretty good camera, but obviously nothing like what you'd get if you had a dedicated Camera. For those instances, I'll whip out my DSLR. But for those times when I need a quick shot, or want to take videos and snap shots at the same time, which is something we've both liked on our devices. I've taken a couple of low light shots and they came out incredibly good, except if I try to manually focus. If I leave the autofocus to do its thing, the camera is able to lighten the area enough to get great detail. if I manually focus, more often than not, the scene darkens to the actual levels I'm trying to focus on. This was happening in both HDR+ and regular shooting, I'll be trying outdoor shots tomorrow as it was way too late/dark by the time I got home from work.
Not going to bother talking about the rest of the internals; It's fast; Freaky fast. I've also started using the Android RunTime, which makes it seem even more so (I guess I'm susceptible to the placebo effect). Battery life is too early to talk about, but with my usage, I'm expecting the same as with my Gnex at the very least. having a Sealed battery doesn't bother me as much as it did a couple years ago. for my Gnex, because it drained so fast at the start, I picked up two extra batteries and charger....I've used them maybe a total of 5-6 times over the last two years. I'm usually close enough to a usb cable and we plug in to the car if we're using our phones in it, built in batteries really don't phase me as much anymore. It would have been nice if they could have matched the battery in the G2, but ah well. I knew it when i bought it, so I must be ok with it,
Overall I'm really happy with the N5. Next year we'll probably pick up the next Nexus for Shawnna as you really can't beat the off contract price versus the hardware..
Cheers!
Steph S
Edit - regarding battery life..so far, much better than my Gnex, and even the wife's N4, although she texts and uses it for phone calls way more than I do. from a full charge, I've been able to chat away on Facebook, download apps as I restore what I had, browse in Chrome, watch a little netflix(not long at all, just enough to look at the video quality...maybe 30 minutes or so), take some HDR+ pictures and listen to music pumped to my BT headset while I slept...it showed just over 10hrs of use, almost 4hrs of screen time and still about 25% when I woke up this morning, and that's with all three wireless radio's on, which I usually never do...personally, I think that's pretty good. but real test will be over the course of today while I play with it as normally would.. *shrug*
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram