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Google’s newest platonic ideal of Android Phoneness is here, and it is maybe the most powerful smartphone you’ve ever held. The software is terrific — the newest, more refined Android ever. But why the hell, in pretty much November 2012, does it not have LTE?
Holding It and Looking At It
- - There’s nothing special about the feel of the Nexus 4. It’s of average weight, of no remarkable thinness, and has a 4.7-inch screen, which I suppose is the new normal. It’s about as comfortable as a phone of this size can be.
- - The 1280 × 768 IPS display is beautiful, crisp, and accurate. Pixels aren’t perceptible. What else do you want? That’s all you should want.
- - Every square centimetre of the 4 is glossy. I can imagine slippage being a problem, particularly with a phone of this… girth.
- - The back is handsome with a plain Nexus logo and a dazzling sparkle finish that makes the whole thing look like a disco ceiling when held at certain angles. It’s alternately fun and super tacky. I like it.
- - The new clock app is beautiful. So beautiful. Beautiful without looking like anything else, and a snap to set an alarm or record a new lap time.
- - The side bezels are decently thin. Nothing spectacular.
Using It
- - The Nexus 4 — presented as Google’s vision of the best of all possible Android phone worlds — doesn’t have LTE. And it will never have LTE. I asked Google if they expect anyone to buy this phone when virtually all of the competition (even the laggard iPhone 5) now packs the speediest connection. Google didn’t offer much of an answer beyond pointing to how much of a pain it was to make international LTE versions of the Galaxy Nexus, claiming that LTE wasn’t a big deal to most people outside of “us techies,” and pointing to other purportedly cool features of the 4 like wireless charging. Right. This is a giant letdown, and a baffling oversight. Unless you live in a rural area or just don’t care about mobile data (who are you?), I can’t imagine spending money on a brand new phone that doesn’t have LTE. There’s no good technical reason why this couldn’t have happened, and it’s really enough to disqualify the Nexus 4 from recommendation — or at least give you major pause.
- - Jelly Bean 4.2 is identical to the last version of Jelly Bean in almost every single way — simply, if you’re acquainted with the last Nexus, you’ll have no trouble scooping up the 4.
- - Not that the Galaxy Nexus was any slouch, but LG’s Nexus is probably the snappiest Android handset I’ve ever used. And with a quad-core processor and 2 GB of memory inside, it has no excuse not to be. That said nothing you use is probably going to make much use of this.
- - The touchscreen is perfectly responsive — zero lag. This is probably the single most important quality in a screen
- - Camera image quality seems decent — indoor photos offered more noise than you’d find with an iPhone, but the camera interface on 4.2 is absolutely super.
- - Apps load near-instantly — with the exception of some books stuttering when I tried rifling through their pages as fast as possible. But that’s not something you’re actually ever going to do, so who cares, really.
- - Google Gestures, Google’s Swype clone, is fantastic. Even short words are picked up with zero error, and a preview of the currently predicted floats along with your fingertip. This is as good as every ripped-off feature should be — better than the original.
- - Photo Sphere, Google’s Photosynth clone, works splendidly. In short: move your phone all around your — up, down, side to side — and create a Street View-style, zoom-able, scroll-able image dome. You can share it with a friend who’s also on 4.2, or actually add it to Google Maps.
- - Google’s Siri Clone (that’s much better than Siri) now answers your voice questions with answers culled from website consensus. Example: “How old is Buzz Aldrin?” The answer (82!) will come up, perhaps with extra contextual info (a la Wikipedia bio), and like a diligent student, Jelly Bean 4.2 cites its sources, telling you which websites it scanned to give you that answer.
- - Wireless charging is very neat! The orb’s surface has a grippy quality to it, which means you can slap down your phone and it won’t slide off. Charging begins within a second of contact between the two surfaces.
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You know why there isn’t LTE, Google even said why there isn’t LTE yesterday.
Yep, but fained lack of understanding allows him to find something to criticise. Still its nice to know he considers a 4.7-inch screen the new normal. Hopefully he will mark down any iPhone that falls short of this mark.
I thought Sam’s quick hands-on assessment was positive. It can’t be the perfect phone, it’s not priced to be.
By perfect I meant having the latest tech across the board. It’s pretty much perfect for the price though, especially when compared with the latest phones for the same money like the HTC 8S.
I personally think that LTE is overblown. It’s a known battery hog, it’s difficult to implement multiple bands (hello Apple), and it’s also going to be cripplingly expensive. Add that to freely-available WiFi pretty much everywhere you go (in areas where LTE is limited to, oddly enough), and it’s really not that interesting to me.
In a phone that costs as little as the Nexus 4, particularly considering what you get for that price – i.e. some excellent hardware and software – I don’t think LTE is necessary.
Totally agree with you. I think unless you have money to burn or a real need to stream movies while on the go, 3G is more than sufficient for the daily use of most people. And with Google offering so much phone for such a reasonable amount, it might help some of the less flush out there (like myself) get carrier free. I intend getting one of these when the end of my contract approaches and will then hop on giffgaff
Agree with you, except for battery hog. That was just early chipsets, theoretically it should hog no more than HSPA+.
Indeed, early chipsets. The iphone 5 review showed it lasted longer in battery tests when using LTE, than on 3G.
In the UK, there’s no widespread LTE coverage – only EE have started to roll out their LTE. Also it’s stupidly expensive compared to the numerous free-3G-bundles you can get. And also there are (or will be) several types of LTE (in terms of broadcast frequency) so unless the phone has a “universal” LTE chip-set, it is likely to be limited to work on the LTE of only one (or two) mobile network(s).
Yeah, that’s the main legitimate reason for not having a 4G phone. It won’t be available or cheap in the next 24 month contract, so you might as well get this on a 2-year deal, save yourself some money, then get something super expensive on 4G in 2 years.
I am of the same mind. 3g is plenty fast for pretty much any level of browsing. Short of streaming 1080p video it isn’t required. Short of downloading I don’t need a fast connection and who downloads on their phone anyway. I am about as much of a “techie” as it gets but I also don’t like paying for something I won’t use. And considering the price between this and comparable LTE phones its obviously the clear compromise.
Especially when you add in how rubbish the coverage is and how variable the availability internationally.
Does the build quality seem good? LG aren’t exactly well known for their rugged phones.
Given how picky Mr Biddle is elsewhere in the review I’m sure he would pick at the build quality if he could. The fact he doesn’t bodes well.
At the moment Google are correct, it’s really only going to be ‘techies’ that care about LTE.
I’m a real world user and whilst I’d like my mobile internet to be LTE I live on the outskirts of London which means my coverage will be patchy whilst the cost for a decent allowance is over the top at the moment.
Personally unless some ‘hideous’ flaw becomes apparent I’ll be buying one and in 2 years (my phone cycle)then I’ll consider LTE depending on coverage and cost.
Pretty much what I’m planning to do, with the exception of keeping my S3 for now!
Actually, as a techy and phone geek I don’t care about having a phone with LTE. The network and prices don’t make it a viable option right now – in 2 years time it’ll be worth it, but not yet.
My heart was inexplicably yearning to change to a windows phone, but after seeing the prices…
For the UK yes. In the states it is much more widespread
So now that the iPhone has 4G Gizmodo can claim that it’s a flaw for other phones to not?
Of course! Well, more accurately Biddle can.
And now Diaz can say that it is another reason why Apple is supposedly superior. iOS products have 4G, but Google’s Android flagships only have 3.5G. Tut tut
Being one of “us techies”, tbh I’m not fussed about paying extra for LTE data. Wifi at home, wifi at work and Vodafone does a pretty good job for everywhere else.
When it becomes the norm and replaces 3G I will use and enjoy it but the additional cost is not worth the benefit to me.
Whether a phone can access LTE data or not won’t influence my buying choice
An odd introductory paragraph where it mentions bezel size but not build quality. In fact, it seems to downplay everything.
“nothing special” “average” and “nothing spectacular” stick out for me and Biddle makes it clear he doesn’t like any phone larger than an iphone.
“Every square centimetre of the 4 is glossy. I can imagine slippage being a problem, particularly with a phone of this… girth.”
I suppose it must be a problem if one has teflon fingers.
Im not fussed about LTE barely use 3G or data on my phone. have wifi at home and wifi at work. The short time in between the only thing id care about is a map and have the whole of London offline on my Google maps. If i really cared hell tube has free wifi till the end of the year.
the lack of LTE does not concern me, i can’t see me needing that anytime soon
the quality looks fine, and i am very tempted by this phone, and at that price i can upgrade more often.
Frankly i think its only early adopters with plenty of cash,techies and reviewers that are interested in 4g at the moment, those of us living outside the heart of London can expect patchy connections to go with the overpriced package….i would rather them spend the money on getting a full 3g signal everywhere in the UK first.
At the price of that phone i cant see why the reviewer is sooo down on its lack of 4g…it looks good enough for most people ….and without the large pricetag of most of its competition.
Great thank you for the simplistic review. Can someone else who actually knows how to review a product write one for us. Brent Rose preferably but I will even settle for Diaz.
These are desperate times indeed…
At least Diaz would probably write a more detailed review. Can anyone even consider this a review?
You know the old saying “While the Kat’s away, the shit will spray”
Though oddly enough his review of the nexus 10 is more positive
LTE’s a mess in America and an overpriced, unavailable joke over here. HSPA+ is far more than fast enough to serve a phone with all the streaming media it could require while out and about. It’s still even faster than most people’s broadband connections over here, for crying out loud.
Google is wise to not deal with the networks at all (as they would have to in America to use LTE) or waste time on a useless overpriced product over here. The biggest win for the Nexus (line) is the low price, and wasting that edge on something that can’t even be fully justified as an actual -advantage- for most users would be stupid.
well said, totally agree
Google were spot on not to include LTE.
(Note, I’m in the business, so writing from a technical, business and user experience angle.)
1. As others have pointed out, and my own experience sitting here with an iPhone 4 and Galaxy S2 both on HSDPA+ (3.5G or whatever you like to call it) and they are blazingly fast at everything online, downloading, streaming music/video etc. Yup, they may not ‘ping’ (respond) as quickly as on 4G, but that is not that important and once everyone is on 4G, believe me, when you hit your favourite YouTube video or download, it will stall for the same reasons it will on a slower network – the server providing the content does not care that you’re on 4G or 1G! If it’s overloaded, it will grind to a halt! (No different than when you on your 50GB connection at home and what you want is also stalled!)
2. The frequencies used by the different carriers mean (for example), you cannot use an EE iPhone 5 on a different network if you decide to jump ship later on. (IE, simple sim swappage is a big no no.) This is going to upset a lot of people who are not in the loop on such matters (and may therefore return their phones) and Google are no doubt trying to avoid such a mess. For example, Vodafone & O2 UK’s 4G is (as Vodafone state on their latest advertising) based on 800 MHz (and 2.6 GHz). Yes, dear frustrated consumer, those in charge have weaved a tangled web, all for your inconvenience. Bummer, huh?
3. By the time 4G has sorted itself out and is widespread across Europe and Asia, Google will not doubt (perhaps with Motorola) launch another NEXUS device with full global LTE goodness – so you can roam too, not just worry about switching local carriers.
Just as today’s release of excellent Google Voice Search for iOS is designed to entice iOS users towards pure Jelly Bean on an actual Android device, Google are a VERY crafty company and whilst sometimes making mistakes, know exactly what they are doing.
Mine’s a NEXUS 4 mid Nov.
Exactly. My phone contract conveniently expires in November. I would have loved to get 4g if it had been at no extra cost but a slightly faster internet for when I am not in wifi is not worth that much money. Hell, just on the edge of the centre of Lancaster with 15meg internet I quite often struggle to stream YouTube videos at 480p, the issue is not the connection speed to the devices.
I seem to remember Biddle telling us that 4G will always have a great ping regardless of how many people are using the network. Not sure why, think it’s got something to do with different widgets or gromits or some such stuff.
I’ve told my younger brother not to bother with 4G this year, and I’m with you too. While everyone expected 4G in the iPhone, understandable considering the price and media perception, in reality the Nexus 4 is pretty much on the money when it comes to what consumers are really going to use.
I don’t see why everyone thinks its just ‘tech geeks’ that want 4G.
I want every new thing that comes out, it’s a serious issue but 4G isn’t one of these things.
It’s over priced, not wide spread and won’t be fully useable until 2014 I think.
So for a phone at this price you can’t get this now and not worry about it getting updated/outdated in a year because it’ll be little cost to get the next Nexus.
It’s almost laughably predictable that whenever Sam “reviews” any product that has an Apple counterpart he will find some way of making it inferior to the iProduct. Even Diaz slated him for his Windows tablet “review” (pot, kettle, black) and that’s saying something.
IMHO (sorry awful phrase, i’m not at all humble) you should disregard everything Sam says; for this price it seems like a pretty good deal. Although it is an LG phone so buyer beware.
I intend to wait until Giz does a proper review.
For the record I have an original HTC Desire (Cynogen mod with Swipe, Winamp and Handcent) and get my app fix using my N7. When my phone dies the true death I will replace it with an HTC One-S and pop cynogen on.
I guess i’m just weird and think a phone should just, you know, be a phone.
Hope I made sense I have a flu and i’m high off of lemsip and lack of sleep.
No LTE? What a shame! That means I won’t be able to pay EE’s extortionate prices and live with their ridiculous data caps. Oh and the battery will last longer.
This is my next.
I’m stuck on contract with my S2 for another 14 months – have been avoiding buying a sim-free S3 due to cost, but now I can pick one of these up for £280 and trade in my S2 for £150 from Mazuma. Result.