Both publications say the camera on the 4 is great.
Given the opinions of two well read publications that provide photographic evidence, and a blogger who provides his Instagram feed, it's hard to go with the latter
Not sure how to link to his comment in the post, so I'll copy below. Turns out he's not just any old 'blogger'.
"Note that my standards for camera phones are high. I'm a co-owner and co-founder of Imatest (http://www.imatest.com/), which is the standard software used by the industry to quantify the quality of digital imaging. I'm not actively involved in the company anymore, however, so haven't had the test to put the GNex and the N4 through rigorous side-by-side testing. I've developed a good eye for these things over the years, however, and can say with considerable assurance that the latter is subtly but definitively worse."
The camera uses 1.12-micron photocells, which are a significant downgrade from the 1.4 used in the iPhone and S3. I'm not sure how the camera can be "great". In fact, most reviews I've read back up the horrible low-light performance you'd expect.
Interesting post but one I completely disagree with:
1. Some don't like the LCD screen on the Nexus and prefer the OLED screen of the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Nexus. Personally I don't like the OLED screens because the colours just feel wrong to me (oversaturation on the greens especially). I absolutely love the screen on the Nexus 4
2. I haven't had any issue with Data connectivity. I've been testing alongside an iPhone 4 on the same network (o2 which some claim has the best coverage in the UK) and haven't had any issue with real time connectivity except a couple times when the train goes into a tunnel.
3. Battery life initially for my use was really poor but I then realised that it was because I was using my Nexus a lot more (discovering apps, playing games for long periods of time etc.). Once i'd settled with the device for a couple days, the battery usage was similar to that of the iPhone 4. This includes full data sync, 3G & WiFi enabled and everything and brightness set to auto. It really depends on usage in my opinion
I switched from an iPhone 4 to a Nexus 4 and couldn't be happier. I tried the Galaxy Nexus for a brief stint but the battery life was poor in standard usage and the screen always felt off. I was a major iPhone fanboy but my switch to the Nexus 4 has been nearly flawless (the ordering process was a bit of a faff)
It sounds to me like he's on AT&T and doesn't have it set up correctly. I heard you have to do some APN weirdness to get it working properly on that network. Could be wrong though.
His G+ says he lives in London so it's pretty unlikely he's using AT&T! Other than some slight differences in coverage, all of O2, Vodafone and EE (aka Orange + T-Mobile) should be roughly equivalent when it comes to not needing any tweaking to get your phone working properly.
this. I noticed a significant battery life increase after the first few days. The reason? I wasn't playing with it all the time and I had everything tweaked the way I want. A lot of apps by default assume you want everything on and always connected, which causes the battery life to be shorter.
I get that people like traffic and use linkbait, but I do think that this title looks like hyperbole. Is the Nexus 4 a perfect device? No. Is it even a great device -- maybe not. But it at the price point it may well the best device for some non-trivial subset of population.
Google and LG impressed me with this device at the price it's at. Is it the device in my pocket? No... I'm rocking the Lumia 920. But when I look at the short list of phones I'd recommend (depending on various factors of who I'm recommending to) the Nexus 4 is probably quite often on the list.
And so have I (put it to real world use). I'm getting 2-3 days of battery life (not much actual talking on the phone), love the display, love the OS and all the interconnected s/w features, and love the responsiveness, and find the data performance is adequate for my needs. I wish it had a better camera.
I'm surprised there isn't more negative backlash against the lack of a user-replaceable battery in the Nexus 4. I switched from an iPhone 4 to a Galaxy Nexus about a month before the Nexus 4 was released, and the ability to pull the battery for a quick reboot has been invaluable to me since I went kind of nuts with the rooting and playing with custom ROMs and kernels (being my first Android after living under Apple's iron fist for so long I just couldn't help myself--I've since calmed down a bit and am sticking with an unrooted stock ROM).
I would think that a replaceable battery also extends the life of the device in general for people who don't necessarily need the latest and greatest every year or two, since it's easy to just buy a new one and pop it in when the old one starts to lose its ability to hold a charge.
> I would think that a replaceable battery also extends the life of the device in general for people who don't necessarily need the latest and greatest every year or two, since it's easy to just buy a new one and pop it in when the old one starts to lose its ability to hold a charge.
This while logical turns out to not be true. Most (99.99%) people will never buy a new battery for a phone. Instead, they might sell the phone to a store which may refurbish it or give the phone to a friend or family member who dosen't need the latest phone. In the latter case the lack of battery life is typically irrelevant as the user is using the phone all the time anyways.
Yeah, this and the move towards MTP for storage (rather than an SD card) has turned me off the Nexus line. My biggest complaint about the Galaxy Nexus has been MTP - it only works half the time, requires the phone to be unlocked sometimes, can freeze up the file browser (happens in both Linux and Windows), isn't compatible with many other pieces of software (like if I want to FTP a file from a server, through my laptop, to my phone via USB using FileZilla), and transfers files extremely slowly.
Since I can't get a new phone on contract again (don't want to lose unlimited data on Verizon), I'll probably buy a used Galaxy S3 some time next summer - by then it'll hopefully be $100-200 for one that's in good shape. The Galaxy S3 has a strong modding community around it, so I can just install a stock Android ROM and things will be fine.
> I would think that a replaceable battery also extends the life of the device in general for people who don't necessarily need the latest and greatest every year or two, since it's easy to just buy a new one and pop it in when the old one starts to lose its ability to hold a charge.
Don't forget about the option of getting a bigger battery when it can be removed, for those who need their phone to last longer.
The move to MTP was because Android now uses a virtual file system that unifies the SD card and internal storage, making it unsafe to allow a foreign OS to munge the content of the filesystem at the block level.
No more USB mass storage? Darn, that was one of the main reasons I ordered a Nexus after trying another phone OS. Well, it's Linux so I suppose I can port Samba or NFS to it or something :-)
I actually looked into this once I found out the same about my Nexus 7. The workarounds all seem annoying at best. I just ended up installing a Windows 7 VM in order to make it less painful.
There is mtpfs, which mounts the storage over MTP using FUSE, but it's finicky. Since I have problems in Windows as well, I've been using FTP over Wi-Fi as much as possible, but it's quite slow compared to wired file transfer. So for large files, I'm still stuck hoping that it'll somehow work.
I use "Folder Sync". It runs on the phone, can be configured to start when on charger and on home wifi. will keep your phone synced with designated network shares.
That sounds like a good idea. The only issue would be that I'd have to get/set up Tasker/Locale with a wifi geofence, since I rarely bother connecting to my home wifi (instead of using 4G).
Are there any displays for computers/phones/etc. which "capture the full gamut of human visual perception", or even close to it? It basically goes sRGB < Adobe RGB < NTSC, and there are plenty in CMYK which aren't in NTSC.
IIRC the iPhone 5 (and probably others) are sRGB. I'm sure the N4 is an upgrade to the Galaxy Nexus though which cannot display any color without awful pentile distortions.
This guy is the 1st person I've seen who praises the Galaxy Nexus camera, when it's been almost universally panned. My bro has a Nexus 4 and it seems like a fantastic device overall. Yes, the colors are more toned down than AMOLED but it does not look horrible like the OP implies.
OK. There are pros and cons to every device. The Nexus 4 isn't the greatest android phone ever built. But I'd wager to say it is the greatest android phone that launched at less than $300 off contract. Remember the S3 costs twice as much. Is it twice as good?
Perhaps Google shouldn't have switched from using the nexus brand for flagship models to cheap and cheerful.
The whole twice as much twice as good thing is a straw man argument — would you rather pay twice as much for two phones or one phone with 50% better battery life, for example?
Google's expertise has always been cheap and cheerful.
It is good they stopped trying to compete with iPhone and failed claims of build quality and real world hardware performance.
Google differentiates on their "free and cheap stuff paid by ads" model, which is nice for billions of people, and highly cost effective. But it isn't premium.
In shops, the Nexus 4 is selling for £400. The Galaxy S3 for £450. It's absolutely worth the £50 premium. But more to the point, the latest-model Nexus shouldn't be worse than the year-old Nexus. It is. That's the real problem.
This article is just full of shit - It's just a rant about a guy unhappy with his phone, as with any other phone. Gone are the 5 precious minutes of my life.
If he is so unhappy he should sell it on ebay, they go more than double the asking price at the moment.
I am absolutely happy with mine, simply blown away not just by the quality of the phone (its outstanding) but by how nice the stock android really is. No more bloatware and "enhanced" UI for me
I would say the data connectivity issues are more a symptom of the 4.2 OS, as my Galaxy Nexus has gone way downhill from 4.1... connectivity included. 4.2 has turned my very good phone into a slightly poor one.
I've noticed Google voice search is taking much longer now than I remember it taking on 2.3. Not always, but like 1 out of 3 times it will hang for up to 60 seconds on simple commands like "call Mom".
OK that's a terrible linkbait title. This is a personal opinion of one person. Every review I've read says the Nexus 4 is much improved in every respect over the Galaxy Nexus. Just because of one person's opinion, that does not make it a dud. Please change your title.
Can't believe the linked article describes the Galaxy Nexus strength as the camera. It's arguably the weakest part of the device. It was an under-performing camera compared to others when the phone was announced, now it is left in the dust.
OK, so he hates the new phone's screen, battery life and camera but likes its case. He hated the old phone's case and UI "improvements" by Samsung, but he liked its battery life. He compares these to the iPhone, which he says is better than both of them.
So basically, this article is saying he thinks the iPhone is the best. The only strange part is where he doesn't get the iPhone he craves at the end, but gets instead a model that he is unhappy with.
This post is the epitome of first world problems. Think about it. It's a phone that runs Android 4.2, one of the most advanced mobile operating systems out there. It's got access to the Google Play store where you can get apps that can do almost anything and it offers the kind of computing prowess people were used to in high end desktops 10 years ago, if not sooner.
I'm not saying that OP is wrong to highlight his problems with the Nexus 4, but I think a little perspective may be in order. Heck, the fact that a phone exists that doesn't suck like nearly every smart/feature phone from 2000-2005 is proof enough for me that we're genuinely living in the future, flying cars be damned!
I call bullshit. Your car is probably far safer than the ones produced during the muscle car phase, prior to airbags and good crumple zones. Does this mean anyone who complains that car X kills 50% more people in crashes than car Y is simply wrong, and should suck it up and be glad it doesn't kill three times as many?
I already saw the camera and i liked it, less shiny, closer to the matte look i like, so article dismissed. Btw linkbait alert, really not enough substantial material in the article to consider it.
I agree about his point that one year Nexus is Samsung, another is HTC, and another is LG. Every experience is different, you are not guaranteed that the experiences will improve from one manufacturer to another. In my opinion the Samsung S3 looks better than the Nexus 4.
Anyways, I was a 4 year old Android user, but this year I bought a Nokia Lumia 920, and I absolutely love it. I even got reception for the very first time in the elevator! And the user experience blown me away. Some apps needs improvement, but the core apps keep me addicted.
Glad I didn't wait and sprang for the Note II. Fantastic display and most importantly, for me, the battery life is incredible. This week I went over 40 hours on a single charge. That includes 4G use, as well as streaming a full length show on Netflix on maximum brightness. To top it off, when the battery stops holding a charge, I can simply pull it out and replace it with a new one for a few bucks.
Well, before the Note II, I used an iPhone 3GS for 3.5 years. I was trying my hardest to make it last as long as possible, because I like making things last as long as possible -- it's a win win because technology gets better every month and your cost of ownership declines. But the battery was giving out and it wasn't worth it to spend $80 replacing the iphone battery.
When I surveyed the field I basically narrowed it down to the Note II and the Nexus 4. I didn't want to wait any longer since I needed a phone now, so I got the Note. At $199 for a 2yr contract upgrade on Amazon, you're getting a lot of value for the money. There's a video out there of a guy hooking up the Note II to a TV and easily using it as a desktop computer. It's quite powerful. And LTE is great ... I speed tested it at 48 mbps the other day, and this was 12 miles from downtown.
The delayed updates are indeed a downside. Samsung's keyboard and predictive text are crap compared to the iPhone's (yes, you get Swype, but I don't always want to do the swiping).
If you're a heavy mobile user, lots of apps and media consumption, get the Note II. If you're a moderate user, mostly phone and email, I'd say do nothing, wait a year. The longer you wait, the better the products get, and you experience more "wow factor" when you finally do make the switch from your old dinosaur to the newest offering.
Want to send it to me? No, seriously. I ordered one the day they came out, it still hasn't arrived. Spent about an hour total on the phone over the past couple days, was escalated twice. Still nothing. If this guy wants to ship me his phone, he can have my $350 and I can be done with Google.
I can't trust the review of anyone who thinks the Galaxy Nexus has a good camera. I have the GNex and it's objectively one of the worst cameras on a high end phone in a long time. Most reviews of the GNex agree. I think this person just felt like hating.
Why do manufacturers (vs. carriers) customize Android? I know carriers get paid to put crappy bloatware on handsets (often a lot of money), but I don't think manufacturers do.
Absolutely not. I had a Galaxy Nexus (which I gave to my dad) so I can compare the two directly.
Screen: The Gnex has more saturated colours but the Nexus 4 screen is also gorgeous with accurate colour representation and insane viewing angles. Whites are brilliant and everything looks like it's printed on paper.
Connectivity: I really have no idea what he is talking about here. I am on a shitty cheapo unlimited everything carrier in Canada and at the ground floor of my house I would get 0-1 bars of reception on the Gnex while now on the N4 I get a consistent 2 bars. Just one example but this might vary user to user.
Battery Life: this is a huuuge huge win for the Nexus 4. My Gnex would last until about 6pm with about 1.5 hours of screen time while with the Nexus 4 I go until midnight on over 2 hours of screen time (I say over because I've never put it back on the charger with less than 14% so far - also I play Ingress). I think anecdotally there are phones with even better battery life (razr maxx, iphone5, htc one x) but to say that Nexus 4 is a step down from the Gnex is absolutely false.
Here are a couple of things that I do like better on the Gnex:
It is more comfortable to hold. While the Nexus 4 looks a little sexier with the straight edges and flat black glass surfaces.. the Gnex was a little thinner and a little curvier in just the right places to ensure that my hand is not straining at all in order to hold it comfortably.
Buttons were more solidly built on the Gnex. The volume and power button on the N4 seem cheaper and squeakier than the Gnex. I imagine HTC and iPhones are even better in this regard.
I say accept your new phone and use. Then if you don't like it don't send it back but instead sell it back on Ebay. In the first few weeks of the N4 being available (or rather unavailable) people were making $50-$100 of profit on extra phones they bought by mistake from the Play store.
> I think anecdotally there are phones with even better battery life (razr maxx, iphone5, htc one x) but to say that Nexus 4 is a step down from the Gnex is absolutely false.
It's no anecdote, most high-end smartphones crush that statistic even in objective tests. If 2 hours of usage is "good battery life" for you, then your standards are way too low. Just checked my iPhone 5, with LTE, Location Services, WiFi, and Bluetooth enabled. On a Canadian carrier that doesn't support LTE connections for calls (meaning the 3G radio is running all the time too).
3 hours and a minute of usage according to my phone, as well as 8 hours of standby. It's still at 60%. 2 hours is like a bad netbook. I don't know how you even stand a phone like that. I've had Bluetooth earbuds with better battery life. However it does explain why every time I've wanted to try out someone's Android device they had to enable data for me.
No wonder. I would disable data too if my phone didn't even outlast my commute. I think we have also discovered another reason it doesn't have LTE. Only two hours of usage with 3G is beyond ridiculous.
I say anectodally because I've heard both good and bad about every phone out there. A friend at work with an iPhone 4s can't get through a full day without also charging his phone at work. Then I hear about the 5 having similar battery life to the 4s. Same for the Galaxy S3, I've heard both praises and horror stories. A lot of it depends on the network you're on too. Anand does good objective tests and the Razr and the iPhone blow everyone away in those but again they do not take real life use into consideration. I also have an old Nokia phone that I could play snake on for days on end but now I have slightly higher demands out of my phone. My comparison was limited to the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 4 (all other things being equal including the carrier) and saying that the OPs battery claims are false in my opinion. I just came back home at noon with 12% of battery life after having taken my phone off the charger yesterday at 6:30am. But I only had the screen on for an hour and 40 minutes... that doesn't mean I have 1:45 hours of battery life. But thanks for adding your experiences to the mix. What is usage time by the way? Is that like screen time?
His old Nexus completely failed after 1 year, (as do so many Nexus phones) but his complaint is that the new one is shoddy?
He thought his old camera was good?
Seems like he forgot what his old phone did, and he is wishfully comparing Nexus to iPhone.
Previously, Nexus was oversaturated to make UI more bright, but ruining photo colors. Glad they finally stopped faking it. Tebold way was again to using loudness hyper boosting on a CD at expense of dynamic rangem
That's what I love about the new Nexus release. We get to hear all the things that sucked about the previous Nexus that Android fanboys refused to admit while it was the flagship device.
Of course THIS Nexus, this is the one to turn it all around. Not like that Nexus One, or Nexus S, or Galaxy Nexus. They were cut-rate devices with cut-rate build quality and features to match a low un-subsidized price point.
When will people learn that Google has no choice but to cut corners if they insist on competing primarily on price? You're not going to get an unlocked iPhone for 300, you're going to get a phone Google can sell for 300 unlocked without going bankrupt. That means, parts of it are going to be bad.
Whether it's digitizer of the Nexus One, the underpowered chipset of the Nexus S, the low-quality screen & camera of the Galaxy Nexus, or the lack of LTE in the Nexus 4. There will always be something. It's worth letting others buy first, if only to determine what "thing" it will be this time.
According to verge, the screen is a "big upgrade" though it concedes that the colors look washed out in comparison to other phones http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/2/3589280/google-nexus-4-rev...
Ars says the display emits "bright, pure colors" http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/nexus-4-two-thirds-of...
Both publications say the camera on the 4 is great.
Given the opinions of two well read publications that provide photographic evidence, and a blogger who provides his Instagram feed, it's hard to go with the latter