Gadgetory

it's one of the most anticipated phones of the year and also the follow-up to a phone that made us all reevaluate the prices and value that we give our smart phones especially when we consider the contracts they sometimes come with and of course it is the gateway to a quintessential Android experience a charge of agar from Android thority what's going on everybody and this is the full review of the Google Nexus 5 how about we just jump right into the review and talk about the design the Nexus 5 comes with a very minimalistic profile which is definitely the best way to describe the overall design aspect on the front we have the black slate design with the 4.9 five-inch screen and below it is the notification LED light which is reminiscent of the Galaxy Nexus from before up top we do have the 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera right next to a phone speaker grille that is actually perforated now this is a bit of a unique design choice that I personally like even if it's not really recognizable right off the bat on the right side there is the power button on top of the SIM tray now this power button might be a little bit higher up on the device than I would have liked because yet to sort of reach for it and adjust your hand just to find it however that's a really nitpicky thing opposite the power button however are the volume rockers now all of these buttons have a real meaty feel to them and they are quite rigid so if you are looking for the buttons without having to look at your phone you should have no problem feeling for them we make it around the back and find all of the nice feeling soft touch plastic and a couple design choices that were originally found in the Nexus 7 we do have the Nexus logo in landscape which is something I really like and then the large camera lens unit that houses the optical image stabilization that this camera boasts one thing that did surprise me about the Nexus 5 however is how light it is I expected there to be at least a little bit of weight for a phone that had a nearly 5 inch screen however once I picked it up it seemed as light as a feather this is definitely one of the Nimbus phones that I have ever used and despite having that 5 inch screen it is still easy to get around all of the elements on the screen with its lightness and also its understated design which i think is more of a strong suit than a weak point the Nexus 5 definitely feels like a small box of lightning in my hand especially when you consider everything that it's capable of power on the phone and you get to enjoy that near 5 inch screen capable of 1080p resolution at 445 PPI LG is no stranger when it comes to great displays and the Nexus 5 is no exception this IPS screen brings some pretty beautiful quality and I'm actually inclined to keep the default stock Android wallpaper set because it shows just how vivid the colors can be through this screen on top of all of that however you do get crisp and sharp text along with some really nice contrast due to some deeper blacks aside from that the handling of the screen is also quite nice as the bezels around it are very respectable but the top and bottom bezels make it easy to use this phone in landscape mode all in all we're looking at a pretty stellar screen that is capable of a lot and deserves to be on a device like the Nexus 5 especially considering its price point the performance aspect of this phone is a welcomed case of low compromises as the Nexus 5 comes with the Snapdragon 800 clocked in at 2.3 gigahertz the audrina 330 and 2 gigabytes of ram coupled with the optimizations that were put into KitKat it is no surprise that the Nexus 5 absolutely flies through all of its elements when I'm really trying to get a lot of things done at once using the newly enhanced recent apps screen along with all of these optimizations and smooth transitions really make my experience seem very seamless this may truly be one of the smoothest and best experiences of android available on any smartphone today so it is undoubtedly a big point in the plus category for the Nexus 5 as we have come to expect from Nexus devices don't learn too many extra bells and whistles the Nexus 5 comes in two flavors black or white but also in 16 or 32 gigabytes of on-board storage that are not expandable any user of the next four that really missed their 4G connectivity can look to the Nexus 5 for full LTE support I used it on the AT&T network and I have to say having LTE on a phone like this is definitely definitely a big plus another feature that returns from the Nexus 4 is Qi wireless charging now that you can use a plethora different mats for it you might have one lying around so go ahead and bust that out and start charging your phone wirelessly by laying your phone right on it one of the more disappointing parts of the hardware aspect is in the speakers and the sound quality that they make yes the speakers have been relocated to the bottom of the phone which is kind of a nice change actually however the sound itself still lacks some dimension and to be honest it still doesn't get as loud as we would really want and then we come to the battery which is a twenty three hundred million power unit however despite it being kind of small we all did put our faith into the Nexus and the fact that android kitkat was going to come with a lot of power setting optimizations unfortunately when it comes to this execution on the Nexus 5 this is only kind of the case you should still get about a decent day's work out of this phone however despite all of that it is when you ramp up your usage that you start to see very easily diminishing returns while one day I was able to go from waking up to sleeping without the Nexus 5 getting below 20% of battery life I will admit that almost half of that day was spent with the Nexus 5 just sitting in my pocket and then the next day I did go for about eight hours ramping my usage up to about moderately heavy doing everything from low intensive tasks to extended gaming and after the end of those eight hours I had the battery life down to about thirty to twenty five percent now for the real power user that is definitely a bit of a disappointment while there will be plenty of times when the longevity works perfectly for you there might be just as many other times that it'll be a big disappointment and you won't like the power or lack thereof that you're getting from the Nexus 5 and then we move forward to the camera which is an 8 megapixel shooter on the back packed with optical image stabilization which pretty much explains why the lens unit is so large as far as the app goes it is the stock Android app that is very minimalistic I will say however that these touch and swipe menus are a little bit cumbersome you definitely have to get used to them and it's only then that you will have a real comfortable time navigating all of your settings of course it always comes down to the picture quality when it comes to the Nexus 5 we were hoping it would blow the Nexus floor out of the water and in this respect it definitely does however when it comes to picture quality in general the Nexus 5 is only average again at best when you have a really great lighting like let's say in broad daylight you get a generally good picture we do see that the HDR plus does a much better job of processing all of the colors and provides you a much better picture with that in mind you may want to keep hdr+ on well pretty much all the time as light diminishes so does the quality of the photo at least in most cases I will say however though that the OIS built into the camera does do its job and floods more light in its just the quality of that picture that comes out of the shot that is a little bit lackluster one great feature about the OIS is that the videos get stabilized as well as you are recording videos if you're trying to be steady already the OIS will help you out even more and provide you with a pretty damn smooth video and if you're not trying that hard OS will definitely compensate for the jerking is that you might have and when you're holding your phone all in all the Nexus 5 camera is far from its biggest disappointment but it also doesn't necessarily amaze us that being said it's still not a bad tool to have in your pocket when you need to take a quick shot wherever you are and finally we make it over to software in which we find the newest version of Android 4.4 KitKat which was probably just as anticipated as the Nexus 5 smartphone itself when you first power on Android and get right in there you'll find some pretty obvious changes right off the bat the main one being that Google now is now a second home screen all the way on the left and you can also access it by just saying OK Google and the way the transitions are with the optimizations put into kicad make this a very smooth process and it just feels very fast and very nice you'll also notice more transparency in the notification bar up top and in the bar that houses the soft keys at the bottom all of these bars also move away when you're using particular functions like reading a book or playing a game also when you're in those functions you can swipe down from the top that way the notification bar will appear for you to check if you have any new messages or notifications easily as far as general design is concerned there's definitely a flatter profile to everything inside of Android 4.4 kitkat and there's a bit of a bubbliness that has been added in there as well as you can see in the bottom more than where the app drawer icon is I have some slight concerns about that because I didn't want my stock android to become cartoonish however after some time with the phone I really don't find that to be the case anymore and the phone dialer app has been given the ability of search as well if you have a number that you have to find for a business or if you just want to figure out if there's something nearby for you you can use the dialer app and just add in a couple words and it will search nearby for those things however I think by far my favorite addition to KitKat has to be in the lockscreen when you're listening to music you get fullscreen album art it's a great contextual way of changing your phone based on what you're listening to and it just is really cool and really nice Android has come a long way and KitKat is a beautiful beautiful example of that not only is it a simplistically elegant interface it's transitions and downright speed just make it feel like everything you're doing takes up no time at all and finally we come to the price which is probably one of the most attractive parts of the Nexus 5 for $349 unlocked you get the base 16 gigabyte model and a gateway into one of the best experiences on a smartphone that you might have this year and so there you have it the Nexus 5 like I said before it just feels like lightning in a box the concessions made on the smartphone might bum you out a little bit but you have to keep in mind that price point in a lot of different respects the Nexus 5 absolutely excels and it almost feels like the price should be a lot higher for a phone that performs just as well as this all in all you have to look at the Nexus 5 as a total package and as a package it is very attractive the reason being because for that price point for an unlocked phone it gives you the essentials it gives you everything that you need without much fuss at all as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this review of the Nexus 5 don't forget to drop us a like down below and to subscribe to our channel if you haven't already also you should follow us on social media the link are up there and if you want to see what I'm up to every now and then you can follow me on social media down below usually under the username Josh salutes stay tuned to Android Authority for all of the best coverage from reviews to comparisons to even our continuing 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