Gadgetory

mmm hey this is Josh from the verge and we're taking a look at the Nexus 4 the new flagship Android phone made by LG for Google which is being sold unlocked in the Google Play Store there's an 8 gigabyte version for $2.99 and a 16 gigabyte version for 349 and it's also being sold by t-mobile on contract a 16 gig version goes for $1.99 the new device replaces the Galaxy Nexus which was made by Samsung I have to say from a hardware standpoint it seems like a much nicer phone the device looks very similar to the Galaxy Nexus but when you get a little bit closer you can see the differences the Nexus 4 is not curved the way the Galaxy Nexus is and it also is made from just nicer materials it's got a glass front and a glass back both Gorilla Glass and it's wrapped in a soft touch slightly chamfered band and at a glance it does seem like a nicer phone it feels good in your hand it's very sturdy it doesn't feel like a piece of plastic the screen is a little bit wider it's got a 4.7 inch display that is a 1280 by 768 resolution it's an IPS LCD display and it looks a lot nicer than the Galaxy Nexus display did it's crisp and clear the only negative is that colors seem a little bit washed out on it not just compared to a Super AMOLED but even compared to something like the display of the One X which uses a basically the same technology it's got two cameras there's an 8 megapixel shooter on the back and a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front the camera on the phone is a lot better than the Galaxy Nexus it takes nicer photos and it takes better photos in low light which is really important it's not the best camera on a phone that's for sure but it definitely gets the job done much better than the previous version inside it's got a Snapdragon CPU the s4 pro which is clocked a 1.5 gigahertz Google reps that I spoke with said that it's the fastest phone on the planet whatever that means there's 2 gigs of RAM inside and it also has NFC and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interestingly it has wireless charging built into it there's a accessory that Google is selling called the wireless charging orb and the Nexus 4 can just be placed on it and charge the battery inside is a 2100 milliamp lithium battery it can't be removed but I have to say battery life was definitely better on this device than on the Galaxy Nexus as I said the back of the phone is glass and of course glass does tend to break and I accidentally knocked the review device that I was using off of my kitchen table onto the floor beneath it and it did crack the back of the phone there's a small hairline crack from the camera out to the edge of the device you can't really feel it but it's there and I think when I was at Google Andy Rubin had a phone which had a cracked back as well so that's definitely maybe something we're hearing about with this device and is kind of a negative it's a nice looking phone the design is not a big departure from the last Nexus device but it definitely seems like a more expensive product there's some nice attention to detail here as well for instance on the back of the phone there's an almost holographic stipple pattern that you can't see in most light but once in a while it gets picked up and it's kind of cool looking from a specs standpoint however I think the most notable thing about this device is that there is no LTE version now that's not a very big deal if you live outside of America but if you're in the US where LTE is quite widespread now it's kind of shocking now in some areas HSPA+ is actually quite fast there are some t-mobile spots where you can get very fast download speeds almost equivalent to LTE but for me during most of my testing I was actually testing on AT&T the fastest I saw was about 5m bits down on AT&T HSPA Network whereas on a galaxy s3 on their LTE network I was getting 25 or 30 down which is quite staggering and quite a staggering difference the lack of LTE is a huge disappointment making this not really competitive with the iPhone 5 or the latest crop of Windows Phone devices as far as software is concerned this phone is running the newest version of Android which is jelly bean 4.2 it said dot upgrade from the last version but there are a handful of really interesting new features for starters they've added quick settings to the notification menu which means you can access your most-used settings pretty quickly you can also get to this menu by using a two finger gesture swipe down on the window which is pretty handy Google is also introducing gesture typing which is basically their version of swipe but it works in conjunction with regular tap typing on the keyboard and in my testing was pretty good I don't think the prediction is quite as good to swipe but it's about 95 percent as good which is basically good enough for me the camera software has been updated significantly Google it has employed a really ingenious gesture-based interface for the camera it's meant to work with just thumb input and it allows you to get to pretty much all of the settings for the camera with just a gesture of a single finger in practice it works really well I was able to switch between settings quickly and it just makes sense it's actually surprising that it's taken someone this long to come up with an interface like this there's some other camera updates it now has HDR mode and most interestingly google has introduced photosphere which basically lets you take Street View photos anywhere that you are so you can do a 360-degree shot of anything and it is pretty fascinating Google says the files are standard JPEGs with some additional metadata and that at some point you'll be able to tag Google Maps with your photos and include those photos in Google Maps so coming soon to Google Maps Street View of your bedroom Google's updated Gmail as well after four versions of the software they finally given it pinch to zoom or shrink to fit functionality for emails the iPhones been doing this for obviously years and Windows Phone does it and now Gmail has the functionality they've also added a swipe to delete or swipe to archive function which is quite handy the company's updated Google now significantly in this version of Android there are new cards that can find beacons in your email for hotel reservations or flight details and they'll show you those cards when the time is right there's also a few other new additions movie information photo cards and a handful of enhancements to the service Google's also improved its search here and given it a little bit of a different look kind of falling in line with the card style and search is just excellent voice search in particular stands out here it was unflinchingly good and fast when I was using it all in all this is a really nice upgrade from the galaxy excess but it's got some pretty big negatives working against it at least for me the lack of LTE is obviously a problem and will be a problem for a lot of users in the US and the fact that it's got a glass back doesn't fill me with a great sense of excitement mine is already broken and I assume a lot of users are gonna be complaining about their backs breaking and I don't know what kind of plan LG or Google has in place for getting those backs fixed I was really excited about this device and I was anticipating the next Nexus as the phone that I would be using for the foreseeable future but the fact that doesn't have LTE has kind of thrown a monkey wrench into my plans if you live in the US and you're happy with HSPA+ on t-mobile or AT&T then this is a great phone and if you want the best version of Android you can get this is the phone you should get if you live in Europe your situation may be similar and again it's an excellent phone to buy but if you're looking for an LTE device here in America you're gonna have to look elsewhere