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Nexus 4 Review: Beautifully Crafted, Premium Android Phone

androidpolice.com

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

#41

Post by digitalclubb »

thomseddon wrote: post #5

After my blackberry died around 4 months ago I've been grappling with the issue of what to replace it with. I really enjoy my Transformer Prime tablet and am 100% sold on Android, but the major issue for me is phone size. Why on earth is every decent phone so bloody big? Now, I've never had a "large screen" phone before so my concerns may be unfounded but I feel that as I don't carry a handbag/manbag and my phone res…

The 4" Galaxy S3 Mini might be the phone for you. With the smaller size and packing the same punch as the main S3, it's a clever move by Samsung to cater for individuals such as yourself, at the other end of the market.

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

#42

Post by CrazedGeek »

Achshar wrote: post #30
fudged71 wrote: post #25

I've never been so conflicted between the choice of two phones before: Nexus 4 or Galaxy Note II. Although, I tend to trust AndroidPolice more than most other outlets in terms of Android expertise, and I'm comforted more by their assessment of the Nexus 4's battery.

For me at least, the nexus brand's long OS support time is more than enough to pull me in. The fact that nexus S got Jelly Bean sounds a very good reason to go for Nexus.

And for me, the expandable storage on (most of) the Galaxy series is infinitely more important than official OS updates (which Samsung is pretty good at on their major phones).

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

#43

Post by n-gauge »

EwanToo wrote: post #3
csmatt wrote: post #2

I'm considering getting this to replace my Nexus One. However, the lack of an sd slot and LTE really has me hung up. I'd be using it on T-mobile, though, so the LTE probably won't matter for a little while. I love the community support for Nexus devices and the only disappointment about the Nexus One for me was that I didn't get until it was already out for 6 months. Thoughts?

I've no idea what the bandwidth caps are like on t-mobile, but the google music streaming service is pretty nice on android, so it's not like you have to fill up the phone SD card with every song you've ever owned. If you love watching films on your phone (something i never do), I can see the 16GB limit getting annoying though.

Speaking as a Nexus 7 user (16GB version): I would say that this is the absolute minimum I would have on any device for that matter. 32GB would be some breathing space - for storing films and larger games for example - and would be what I'd go for in any future purchase.

I also have a 50GB Box account on the Nexus 7 which I use (mainly) for pdf storage which helps out a bit.

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

#44

Post by teddyknox »

Of course androidpolice.com downplays the phone's biggest problem: No 4G LTE.

Sure the phone has better build quality. Sure it has more RAM and processing power. Both of those are important, but I don't think they're the biggest limiting factor in android's smartphone sales.

Right now I'm using a Verizon Galaxy Nexus with a custom stock ROM and kernel and I've had zero problems with speed. Sure the build quality could be better, but I don't think anyone ever bought an android for its build quality. It's the 4G speeds that made this phone better than the iphone 4S for a whole year before the 5 was released. I'm really disappointed in Google for not getting this right.

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

#46

Post by gmac »

roadnottaken wrote: post #32

Not a single mention of how it compares to an iPhone. I know it's androidpolice.com, but it's weird to have such a long review without making ANY comparisons to the most-popular phone in the world....

Agreed, the iPhone is a bit of an elephant in the room here. Particularly when the author waxes lyrical about how nice it is to have front and back made of Gorilla Glass (exactly like the recently-superseded iPhone 4/4S).

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

#47

Post by mikeevans »

itp wrote: post #12
EwanToo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've no idea what the bandwidth caps are like on t-mobile, but the google music streaming service is pretty nice on android, so it's not like you have to fill up the phone SD card with every song you've ever owned. If you love watching films on your phone (something i never do), I can see the 16GB limit getting annoying though.

Bandwidth caps on T-Mobile vary from plan to plan. The $30/month prepaid option that many people are going with for the N4 offers 100 minutes of voice coverage each month, unlimited text messages, and unlimited data, but only the first 5GB of data is available at HSPA+ 42Mbps speeds. After you exceed 5GB your bandwidth is throttled down to "3G" speeds (but you're not actually cut off).

I think you actually get throttled down to EDGE/2G speeds. I've had this plan for a while and never hit the limit, but I'm pretty sure the limited speeds are slower than 3G.

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

#48

Post by timeshifter »

eggbrain wrote: post #38

Am I the only one that finds it somewhat funny that a phone with no LTE, non-removable battery, no SD card slot and glass front and back is the most talked about Android phone to date?

Why funny? Android is finally getting some hardware design love, and as a happy Droid 2 owner, I think it's about time.

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

#49

Post by lbotos »

timeshifter wrote: post #48
eggbrain wrote: post #38

Am I the only one that finds it somewhat funny that a phone with no LTE, non-removable battery, no SD card slot and glass front and back is the most talked about Android phone to date?

Why funny? Android is finally getting some hardware design love, and as a happy Droid 2 owner, I think it's about time.

He's drawing a parallel to an iPhone 4s and the negative hype Android users gave it at the time.

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

#50

Post by juliano_q »

digitalclubb wrote: post #41
thomseddon wrote: post #5

After my blackberry died around 4 months ago I've been grappling with the issue of what to replace it with. I really enjoy my Transformer Prime tablet and am 100% sold on Android, but the major issue for me is phone size. Why on earth is every decent phone so bloody big? Now, I've never had a "large screen" phone before so my concerns may be unfounded but I feel that as I don't carry a handbag/manbag and my phone res…

The 4" Galaxy S3 Mini might be the phone for you. With the smaller size and packing the same punch as the main S3, it's a clever move by Samsung to cater for individuals such as yourself, at the other end of the market.

That's incorrect. The S3 Mini has not the same punch as the S3, actually it is much weaker.

"First off the Samsung Galaxy S3 has an Exynos 1.4GHz quad-core processor (1.51GHz Snapdragon dual-core for US variants), 4.8-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with resolution of 1280 x 720 and 306ppi, LTE (regional), 1GB of RAM and16, 32 or 64GB internal memory expandable via microSD to 64GB. It also has a very decent 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, autofocus,1080p HD video recording and the ability to simultaneously record video and images, along with a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.

(...)

The Galaxy S3 Mini on the other hand has a 1GHz NovaThor dual-core processor, 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with resolution of 800 x 480 and 233ppi, no LTE connectivity, 1GB of RAM, and 8 or 16GB of internal storage expandable via microSD to 32GB. There’s also a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, autofocus and 720p video capture plus a VGA front-facing camera, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, WiFi Direct, WiFi Hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, microUSB 2.0 and a 1500mAh battery."

http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/10/13/samsung-galaxy-s3-v...

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