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Nexus 5 vs Nexus 4

2013-11-15
now that the newest Nexus smartphone is finally here let's see how it stacks up to the previous one hey Strasbourg our firm manager or authority of what's going on everybody and this is the Nexus 5 vs. then Nexus 4 when it comes to the design we are essentially looking at glass versus plastic the Nexus 5 uses a soft touch plastic in its black version and when you look at the back the Nexus logo is in landscape mode next to a lens unit that is quite large but houses optical image stabilization contrast this to the Nexus 4 which has more of a dual glass sided design and on the back you do have the Nexus logo there with the smaller camera unit but also inside of the glass is the crystal reflection design that LG utilize not only in it but also in the original lg optimus G when it comes to the feel in your hands the Nexus 4 with its 4.7 inch screen does have a slightly better screen to use in one hand plus its rounded look also made at rest pretty comfortably in the hand contrast that to the Nexus 5 which has a closer to 5 inch screen but it's still quite easy to use with one hand all things considered however its profile is much more decisive especially in its lines and in its corners it has a much more rigid look to it compared to the very rounded look of the floor while it can be argued that the Nexus 4 has an overall more unique design than the Nexus 5 I think that the 5s minimalistic design choices are more of a strong point rather than a detraction the Nexus 4 given the time that it was released came with a 1280 by 768 resolution screen that was capable of 318 PPI for the time it was definitely one of the better performing screens however the 1080p craze followed just behind it so with that in mind the Nexus 4 screen might be considered more mid-range today and then we look to the Nexus 5 which is the logical next step in the evolution for the Nexus line yes it does have the 5-inch screen at 1080p resolution this time with 445 PPI that is in line with today's top tier standards perhaps what is great about LG's display experience is that with the Nexus 4 despite being a much older phone it does still hold up so it's really up to you whether or not the resolute is something you need as well as the pixel density but sharpness on the Nexus 5 despite being great does not necessarily blow the Nexus 4 out of the water so it's just a matter of what size screen you really need it is a battle of old and versus new when it comes to the performance aspect the Nexus 4 did come with the Snapdragon s4 pro and the audrina 320 which for its time was a pretty big deal because quad core processing was not as common back then as it was today however today this processing package is definitely starting to age when compared to the top-tier market that we have when we move on to the Nexus 5 we see the evolution that we were pretty much all expecting the Nexus 5 got the Snapdragon 800 clocked in at 2.3 gigahertz and the updated Adreno 330 now there's no doubt that especially with the performance optimizations put into Android 4.4 Kit Kats that the Nexus 5 is one hell of a fast phone not only is multitasking as seamless as it has ever been but also doing intensive tasks should be easy for all users so with that in mind the Nexus 5 might be worth the entrance fee already just due to its performance aspect it is in the hardware department that we find both of these phones more neck-and-neck than probably anywhere else and that is because the Nexus 4 features have actually returned in the Nexus 5 well most of them for example the 16 or 32 gigabytes of expandable memory are available in either device however as we've come to expect from the Nexus line they are not expandable some features that return include qi wireless charging and even an LED notification light down right below the screen when it comes to connections there is one very stark difference while the usual bevy of connections like GPS Wi-Fi Bluetooth and NFC do return there is an important addition of full LTE support found on the Nexus 5 those of you who are using the Nexus 4 and got sick of the HSPA+ connectivity can look to the Nexus 5 for a much faster mobile internet experience despite the Nexus 5 having a 2300 million baauer unit compared to the 2100 milliamp hour unit found in the Nexus 4 we all hope too that the power saving optimizations an Android KitKat would do their job unfortunately that wasn't completely the case whereas the battery life on the Nexus 4 was actually pretty decent this is also considering its lower specifications with the sheer power that the Nexus 5 is capable of underneath having only a slightly larger battery made the battery life on this newer smartphone aggressively average if you don't do too much on your Nexus 5 you'll probably see some decent longevity however it is when you ramp up your usage that you start to see very easily diminishing returns unfortunately when it comes to the Nexus 5 battery life is probably its biggest setback and that's considering one of the aspects of the Nexus 5 that held a lot of hope was its camera anybody who used the Nexus 4 probably looked to the Nexus 5 for a much better improvement and for the most part it does fulfill that hope in the Nexus 4 we do have an 8 megapixel shooter that was capable of the photosphere inside of its app its app also got a little bit slimmed down and was more simplistic however its interface turned out to be a little bit cumbersome and the weren't that many features inside of it other than perhaps HDR but nonetheless the picture quiet I came out of the Nexus 4 was really just lackluster at best not only was color reproduction pretty lacking it also produced pretty grainy shots no matter what kind of lighting you're in obviously low-light shots would suffer quite a lot the Nexus 5 was given 8 megapixels as well but this time that large lens unit housed optical image stabilisation which is a pretty big deal because it should help stabilize the camera during low-light shots therefore flooding in more light and creating much better shots and for the most part especially when you compare it to the Nexus 4 it performs pretty decently I wouldn't say that it's the best feature of the Nexus 5 nor is it the best camera that is available today however I also wouldn't say that it is the worst it does provide some decent photos and in very good lighting it does provide a nice picture for you to use however keeping hdr+ on is probably more ideal because it processes the colors a lot better when it comes to the software aspect it is another evolution this time from jellybean - delicious KitKat now when we're talking about jellybean we see a much better perfection of the holo design along with more optimizations however jellybean was essentially the coming up party for Google now which was a wonderful new way of using search on your smartphone that became immensely popular and at the time was to me one of the best new enhancements available on Android but of course when you get a new Nexus smartphone you get another iteration of Android and this time we call it 4.4 KitKat when it comes to the enhancements here there are a lot of performance enhancements and the recent apps screen has been made even faster however when it comes to the general look the holo design was almost completely reworked and now has a much flatter look that utilizes black and white with colored accents but the main enhancements are you guessed it in Google now mostly in its integration with the operating system Google now is now a home screen a second home screen available all the way on the left and you can still access it using the swipe up method from the home button in an attempt to create an even more integrated experience when you're on the home screens you could just say ok Google and they will bring up Google now immediately for you for voice command search now it is worthy of mention that the Nexus 4 will be getting the Android 4.4 KitKat update pretty soon and that will put it more on par with the Nexus 5 in terms of that pure Android experience but keep in mind that the Nexus 5 with its processing power will probably do KitKat a little bit more justice than the dated hardware found in the Nexus 4 now that the Nexus 5 is out in the wild you will not be seeing the Nexus 4 in the Play Store anymore especially for that wonderful price of $199 unlocked for the base model you can't find it at third-party vendors but you probably won't find it at that low price on the other hand the Nexus 5 does come with a hefty price tag of 349 dollars however for an unlocked phone capable of everything the Nexus 5 is capable of that is considered a bit of a steal if you have the Nexus 4 perhaps everything the Nexus 5 does give you over your original phone would be worth the price of admission and that question is a little bit harder to answer considering the Nexus 4 will be getting the software updates that allow it to be a little bit more on par with the Nexus 5 however when it comes to the upgrade it is up to you whether the Nexus 5's slightly better battery slightly better camera but it's huge speed increase our worth the price of admission for you there's one thing for certain however the Nexus 4 introduced us to a new model of buying and valuing our smartphones and the Nexus 5 was the next evolution of that and we wanted to see where that would go all things considered the Nexus 5 is the next logical step and does the Nexus line a lot of justice if this is the kind of evolution we'll see in each and every smartphone then I think we can be very positive about the future of our Nexus smartphone line as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this comparison to the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 5 stay tuned to Android thoria for all of the best coverage check out our full review of the Nexus 5 right over on the side over there and don't forget to follow us on social media all of our g+ 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