LG Nexus 4

LG Nexus 4

Newest Smartphone directly from Google

The Google Nexus series is a line of smartphones running stock Android. This means no carrier or branded bloat. This is the purest form of Android. This is a phenomenal phone to own if you are a developer or someone who likes to hack and toy with your device. Size wise, the Nexus 4 is 133.9 x 68.7 x 9.1 mm – which means it is similar to its predecessor. But it is much more to look at and hold. The front is all glass in piano black and life-proof thanks to the Corning Gorilla Glass 2.
At 139g, the Nexus 4 isn't the lightest handset around but it gets away with carrying that extra weight and argues with those who say Android devices look like toys. The screen is also invisible when off. When it lights up, you're treated to 4.7-inches of True HD IPS Plus. That's 768 x 1280 pixels with a pixel density of 318. It is razor sharp but not as good as some of the devices coming out in the next few months. There's no removable back so that no removable battery and no expandable storage. The battery isn't so much of a problem since the 2,100mAh battery pack is great but the lack of memory card allowance is annoying and a deal-breaker for some. But, the addition of wireless charging is definitely a plus.The greatest thing about this phone is the price. For just a second lets think about the HTC One line. An HTC One X from HTC is still around $700. The price for a Nexus 4 device with extremely similar specifications? No its not $700. Its not even $500. One of these bad boys will cost you up to $300. Google is selling these devices for dirt cheap. This shows one of two things: either a)these devices are extremely marked up and we are fools to pay $600-$700 for them or b)Google is significantly subsidizing these phones at a loss to gain attention. Despite these measures there are still deployment problems. LG is having production issues and these devices have only recently come out of a backorder line.

The Nexus 4 runs Android 4.2 which includes some effective changes from 4.1.  Google's introduced a new keyboard which supports swipe functionality, repackaging the killer quality of Swype.
It's also added toggles to the notification bar which allow you to control things like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and brightness. Another new addition is something called Daydream. Your phone takes a simulated 'nap', playing a screensaver instead before it goes to sleep. You can no longer move the Android search bar. It is stuck at the top of each home screens. Having an immovable Google search bar seems a little extreme. Speaking of Google Now, that's all there. Google Now has been extremely slow and glitchy in the past. This doesn't appear to be the case with the Nexus 4 which gives really quick and speedy responses. Navigation is conducted with the three on screen soft keys that appear and disappear at the bottom of the display as and when needed.

As per the camera the Nexus 4 comes with two – an 8MP one around the back and a 1.3MP snapper on the front. 8MP seems to be the industry standard at the moment, but it's not about the megapixels but so much more. All of the pieces of this photo puzzle are important including the aperture, the compression and a whole lot of other things. Videos are shot in 1080p, but you can also switch to 720p or even 480p. Full HD files are large so its nice to be able to sacrifice quality for storage space, but HD is beautiful on that screen. Accessing the video camera is a little difficult, but Google has streamlined it so that you have to go in through the camera app and then change the input method which takes an extra second or two.