Gadgetory

earlier this week an article on Time Magazine's Techland blog made the case for the retirement of the Nexus brand name the piece was based on a rumor from noted leaker elder Merton and it ended by saying that the Nexus brand name itself is due for retirement because it communicates nothing about the product to those who don't already know its meaning well whether you agree with that assessment or not it is true that the Nexus line has been through quite a few changes over the years and since we at pocket now have every incarnation of Nexus smartphone in our inventory we thought we'd take advantage of this month's anniversary to take a look back at where the Nexus line has been and just how that meaning has changed over time I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow this is every Nexus smartphone from the last four years so let's see what's changed since 2010 most product lines that grew to greatness had humble beginnings and that's very true of the Nexus family the HTC built Nexus One launched in January 2010 almost didn't see the light of day from Apple lawsuits to US Patent Office refusal to a challenge from the estate of author philip k dick the Nexus One was plagued with hassles before during and after its release leaving some to question the worth of the entire endeavor but the ones specs including one of the first Snapdragon processors and then hefty 512 Meg's of RAM were meant to showcase Android at its best the device launched with android version 2.1 Eclair and would eventually top out at gingerbread officially anyway but the Nexus One with its unlockable bootloader was built with developers in mind some of whom used its powerful hardware to good effect when crafting custom roms the Nexus 1 certainly bears the hallmarks of 2010 era design witness the trackball rounded sweeping HTC curves and the 3.7 inch AMOLED display or LCD depending on when you bought it and despite Google's efforts to reinvent the mobile space on its back the one was destined to remain an artifact of 2010 there just wasn't enough here for most Americans to justify choosing this $529 unsubsidized phone over subsidized equally capable competitors like the Motorola Droid and Verizon or the Evo 4G from Sprint and Google shuttered the Nexus One webstore just five months after it debuted at the time a lot of us thought the Nexus story would end there so it was a big surprise to many when Google less than a year after kicking off its first pure Android experiment followed HTC's device with Samsung's Nexus S as the name implies the new phone shared a lot in common with Samsung's then new Galaxy S line on both the spec sheet and the casing design a slick black plastic chassis with a bulbous inverted chin and a very slight curve to the glass covering the display which was once again either AMOLED or LCD depending on market and though it's only the second generation of Nexus smartphones we already see the effects of the competition's rapidly inflating display size the Nexus S screen was four inches on the diagonal to its predecessors 3.7 but one-handed usability was just as easy due to the small size of the hardware on the software side Android 2.3 didn't behave a whole lot differently from prior versions but a slightly darkened and more reserved interface was the first indication of Google's new focus on the UI it wasn't until the next generation that we would see the company take a truly meaningful step toward aesthetic improvements the positive aspects of the Galaxy Nexus were almost all rooted in Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.1 / Hall of androids interface ever and almost all of its changes from the new color palette to the Roboto font family to the updated multitasking view to the added responsiveness were long overdue and quickly embraced by those tired of androids ugly duckling reputation it's thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich that I consider this generation launched in late 2011 to be the first truly modern Nexus smartphone unfortunately the Galaxy Nexus wasn't such a grand slam on the hardware side while its build shed the sly meanness of the Nexus S and up to the screen size once again to four point six five inches the pentile screen delivered washed out colors milky whites also the sack professors made by Google to accommodate a verizon branded LTE variant meant that that version did not receive timely Android updates long a promise of the Nexus brand in addition the phone's battery life was subpar and it's Texas Instruments chipset would later come back to haunt Galaxy Nexus owners who were prevented from updating to Android KitKat officially anyway before KitKat though there was jellybean and the device built to launch it in November 2012 was the Nexus 4 the all-glass smart phone from LG borrowed heavily from the design of the earlier Optimus G with an IPS display under curved glass only slightly larger but of a much better quality than that of the Galaxy Nexus its specs were typical of top-of-the-line smartphones from a year ago with a Snapdragon s4 pro under the hood and two gigs of ram pushing along the project butter enabled Android 4.2 at a good clip as long as you were on Wi-Fi or a capable 3G network because while the Nexus 4 1 points for including wireless charging it also lost a ton by not offering LTE but there's a good reason for that this smartphone was built not just to continue the pure Android legacy of the Nexus line but to help change what that line stood for continuing in the vein of the affordable Nexus 7 tablet the Nexus 4 was built to be an affordable high-end smartphone it launched starting at $2.99 off contract $100 cheaper than its predecessors initial price and more than $200 cheaper than the Nexus ones this aggressive pricing completely changed the messaging of the Nexus brand no longer was it a phone just for Android diehards and developers now Nexus meant lower than average pricing for a better-than-average phone even if this one did crack pretty easily the current model predictably named the Nexus 5 fixes the fragility problem with a polycarbonate back and continues Google's low-cost strategy it launched last October starting at $349 the added cost is well worth it if you live in a 4G area the Nexus 5 offers extensive LTE compatibility it also does its best to correct a persistent problem with the Nexus line poor photo performance the 8 megapixel camera in the Nexus 5 is optically stabilized and does a better job than its predecessors at capturing a solid picture which it displays on an IPS screen that's followed the rest of the industry into the 5 inch territory that's par for the course these days but putting it up next to the first generation Nexus makes it easy to see just how much has changed that change is even more meaningful in the new phone's software for the first time ever the Nexus 5 incorporates an exclusive launcher in its version of Android KitKat with features you can only find officially on the Nexus 5 and that launcher leads to an experience that's not quite as much pure Android as pure Google that's an important distinction because today's Nexus is a portal to a glut of services and features most of which weren't even around when the first Nexus phones rolled off the line ok but so what right ecosystems mature new features come along over time it's not unique to the Nexus line well that's absolutely right and that universal truth taken together with Google's strategy changes over the past 4 years say to me that the Nexus brand is just like any other one it used to be aligned for developers then it was for the pure Android experience and then it morphed into an option for the price conscious and the contract averse and today it's kind of a funky amalgam of all three like Google itself the Nexus line is dynamic it changes but the important thing is it's always aspirational whether its purity affordability or utility it's always showcasing the very best of what Android can do and that's why I hope it sticks around folks every Nexus device you saw in this video has been reviewed by pocket now all the way back to the HTC Nexus One check out those reviews at pocketnow.com forgive the occasional formatting error for the ones that didn't quite make it to the new format we can also see video reviews of all of them here on YouTube before you go anywhere though please drop us a like if you enjoyed the video leave a comment down below if you have some feedback or some fond memories of your Nexus device or devices and be sure to follow us on social media so you don't miss future stuff from pocket now this has been Michael Fisher once again thank you for watching and we'll see on the next one we thought we'd take advantage of this month's anniversary to take a look back at where the Nexus line has gone and just how that teleprompter can move faster we thought we'd take a look back and use the advantage of this horrible sentence to trap ourselves in a never ending intro that never gets filmed right this is every Nexus phone ever made and let's see what's changed in the