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Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

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Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#31

Post by sciwiz »

mgkimsal wrote: post #22
jusben1369 wrote: post #14

It hasn't caught much attention or focus but could this be the first phone that makes any sort of headway in the US against the two year plan/subsidy model? If yes, that has ramifications for the overall industry much greater than any one phone. Anyone in the US know how much you'd save on a realistic smart phone plan if you bought your own vs doing the two year subsidized model?

Not sure what you'd 'save' - any major carrier you want to use with a data plan doesn't offer any (at all?) savings on monthly service plans. Prepaid pricing sucks for data. Do you want to pay $199 plus $90 month for airtime and data? Or $299 for an unlocked phone and... $90/month for airtime and data?

There are prepaid options for data from StraightTalk and T Mobile, below $50 for "unlimited", which seems like at least 2GB.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/10/31/thinking-of-leaving-...

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#33

Post by EnderMB »

hayksaakian wrote: post #19
davidw wrote: post #7

> The other complaint I've heard is that this phone has a glass back, and it will break if you drop it. This is true, but guess what? Every phone will break if you drop it. Electronics aren't made to be dropped. Say what you will about their recent problems, but Nokia made phones that were solid. I dropped them on numerous occasions without problems. I've been pretty happy with the Samsung phone that replaced my Noki…

I've dropped my galaxy nexus plenty, and its still getting by without a kink in the screen or the body, albeit scratches on the corners.

When I first bought my Galaxy Nexus I was petrified that it'd end up with scratches galore. I've dropped it a number of times and it's still great.

The first few Galaxy phones by Samsung were terrible and turned a lot of people away from Android, but they've more than made up for it with the Nexus and recent releases.

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#34

Post by yalogin »

This is the biggest announcement this year IMO. Google is finally playing to its strength here (really Amazon showed the way). They make money on services and so they want to cut the hardware margins as much as they can. This hits Apple exactly where it matters since Apple only thinks about making money on hardware. This is a significant change in strategy and could be the most important one this year. Will be interesting to see if Apple sees this and how it counters.

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#35

Post by shardling »

Nursie wrote: post #6
AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Galaxy Nexus, and I find I don't miss the SD card at all - if I want the data off of it I use a cable, and photos automatically sync over Dropbox. If you _need_ more space than it comes with, then you'll want something with an SD card, but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it. Frankly, at this point I wouldn't have any Android phone that wasn't a Nexus. So when I replace my Galaxy Nexus (another year or so) t…

The only reason I like to have a huge capacity is to carry a whole bunch of music (~40GB) and/or some movies to watch on the plane. Spotify is replacing the former use case for me (Google Music is currently not available where I am), but the second stands. --edit-- Also I'm loving the phablet form factor, which is keeping me on non-nexus at the moment.

If you fly often enough that the second is an issue, couldn't you just get a small tablet for that purpose?

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#36

Post by silverlake »

mgkimsal wrote: post #22
jusben1369 wrote: post #14

It hasn't caught much attention or focus but could this be the first phone that makes any sort of headway in the US against the two year plan/subsidy model? If yes, that has ramifications for the overall industry much greater than any one phone. Anyone in the US know how much you'd save on a realistic smart phone plan if you bought your own vs doing the two year subsidized model?

Not sure what you'd 'save' - any major carrier you want to use with a data plan doesn't offer any (at all?) savings on monthly service plans. Prepaid pricing sucks for data. Do you want to pay $199 plus $90 month for airtime and data? Or $299 for an unlocked phone and... $90/month for airtime and data?

T-mobile offers $30/month plan: 5GB data, 100 minutes ($.1/minute overage). Straight Talk is $45 for 2GB, unlimited minutes. $300 for phone, 24 months at $30 is $1020. Most phone plans are $200 for phone, $80/month = $2120. That's a huge savings.

Since the Nexus 4 doesn't support LTE, there's no reason to pay full price for ATT or Verizon.

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#37

Post by dnissley »

mgkimsal wrote: post #22
jusben1369 wrote: post #14

It hasn't caught much attention or focus but could this be the first phone that makes any sort of headway in the US against the two year plan/subsidy model? If yes, that has ramifications for the overall industry much greater than any one phone. Anyone in the US know how much you'd save on a realistic smart phone plan if you bought your own vs doing the two year subsidized model?

Not sure what you'd 'save' - any major carrier you want to use with a data plan doesn't offer any (at all?) savings on monthly service plans. Prepaid pricing sucks for data. Do you want to pay $199 plus $90 month for airtime and data? Or $299 for an unlocked phone and... $90/month for airtime and data?

T-Mobile does [1]. You can get 500 minutes, unlimited texts, and 2gb data (capped after that) for $50/month.

1 - http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/Packages/ValuePackages.aspx?pkg...

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#39

Post by bencpeters »

The only "serviceable" camera and lack of LTE are deal breakers for me on what otherwise sounds like a pretty awesome phone. I really wish more android phones (especially high end ones) would realize that, after basic phone functionality and maps, taking pictures is one of the things that people do most with their phones these days and there's a pretty huge difference between a good and bad phone camera. After owning a HTC with a pretty terrible camera for the past few years and comparing its pictures to those taken by friends with iPhones, I can confidentially say that a good camera is going to be one of the first things I look at in my next phone...

Re: Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

#40

Post by lmm »

shardling wrote: post #35
Nursie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I like to have a huge capacity is to carry a whole bunch of music (~40GB) and/or some movies to watch on the plane. Spotify is replacing the former use case for me (Google Music is currently not available where I am), but the second stands. --edit-- Also I'm loving the phablet form factor, which is keeping me on non-nexus at the moment.

If you fly often enough that the second is an issue, couldn't you just get a small tablet for that purpose?

Once you're carrying a small tablet that can make phone calls, why bother with a separate phone?
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