Review: Nexus 5, A Must-Buy Budget Smartphone From LG, Google

By ONE Liners Agency
December 13, 2013

The Nexus 5 is the latest flagship from Google. Manufactured by LG, this "pure Android Experience" smartphone is all about high-end specs, excellent performance, an amazing screen, a brand new Android OS at a cheap price tag.

The Physical Factor

The first thing that strikes you about the Nexus 5 when you lay your eyes on it, is how well designed it is. The screen size is 4.95 inches - but the phone has been designed in such a way that it never feels too big to hold in one hand. Indeed, other smartphones of the same screen size feels somewhat clumsy when you hold them in your hand, but not the Nexus 5 - it simply feels fantastic and you hand even grow tired with prolonged use. The Nexus 5 is beautiful without being extravagant, in fact the design approach is to keep the phone minimalistic yet look aesthetic to the user's eyes. With its straighter edges and sharper curves it looks better than its competitors.

The volume rocker is situated on the left, the power/lock button and the SIM card slot is situated on the right side. The 3.5mm headphone jack is situated on the top and the Micro-USB port is placed at the bottom edge, flanked by two audio speakers. In all respects, the design is simply fantastic, however we do have one complain: the speaker placement could have been better - indeed the speaker placement almost feels like an after-thought. The sound gets blocked when you are holding the device in your hands and the audio quality while not too poor isn't too great either. Music buffs won’t be pleased!!

The screen on the Nexus 5 is simply gorgeous! The Nexus 5 sports a 4.95-inch Corning Gorilla Glass 3 Display, with 1920x1080 pixel resolution and 445 pixels per inch (ppi) density, which makes the Nexus 5 screen look absolutely great, both on paper as well as in use. The Nexus 5 has got one of the best screens available on any device in the market - infact the Nexus 5 scores only behind the HTC One in pixel density (which is 468 ppi) and that too, only because the HTC One has got a smaller screen (4.7 inches) - which makes the Nexus 5 stand far ahead of competitors like Galaxy S4 and the iPhone 5s.

Now, while there have been mixed reports about the Nexus 5's screen performance in day-to-day use, I personally found that there really isn't anything to complain about: the colors are all sharp and well-defined and the contrast is near perfect. The reports about the clors on the Nexus 5 looking a bit washed out is simply not true - the Nexus 5 balances the screen colors well and instead of the graphics being too sharp it is actualy quite well equalized which makes the screen a delight for the eyes.

Under the Hood

The Nexus 5 is powered with the latest quad-core 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, and a 450 MHz Adrenno 330 core GPU graphics processor. With this kind of specs, it is an absolute powerhouse and that is evident while using the many features that come built-in with the device. Also, apps and games donot stutter or lag in the least measure - a problem that has historically been a major worry with graphics intensive games and movies, especially on hi-res screens. 

There is also a 2300 mAh battery, 2 GB RAM, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz and 5GHz) Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC and built-in wireless charging but like other Nexus phones before, it doesn't have a micro-SD slot. 

The Nexus 5 also features LTE, major improvement over the previous Nexus devices that didn’t incorporate LTE features.

The All New KitKat – Too Yummy!!

This new Nexus flagship is all about the new Android KitKat OS – the next generation of mobile operating systems. It incorporates features that are more evolutionary rather than revolutionary – be it the all new Dialer or the SMS/Hangout integrated app or the “Google Now” feature that has literally become a talking point, most of these features are improvements over their predecessors.

The “Google Now” feature, for instance, has been around since JellyBean but in the KitKat it got a huge makeover – now the Google Now feature is more capable – from making basic web searches to calling or sending an SMS – everything can be done with voice commands (except unlocking the device).

The Dialer feature is the best example of what the manufacturers mean by deeper integration with Google Services. The dialer in the Nexus 5 is capable of searching any number not only from your contacts but from around the web - if a number is registered the dialer will automatically search and display it for all calls regardless whether it is on your contact list or not.

Camera and Video

The 8-megapixel rear camera is capable of taking as good, if not better pictures as its rivals. There is a momentary lag between the clicking the shutter button and the picture being taken – but that’s more of a software problem rather than hardware problem, which Google can easily fix with an update.

The camera features optical image stabilization and is also good at low-light shots. Google has introduced a HDR+ mode that takes a burst of pictures and some of the best results from the Nexus 5 camera were taken using this feature.

Video quality is also good, if not mind-blowing. The front facing camera is 1.3 megapixels which can also make decent video calls.

Verdict

The Nexus 5 would have been a winner in any price category with the kind of features that it sports, but the fact that it is priced at an extremely low price tag of $350 (without contract) makes it an absolute winner. Generally this price range is reserved for mid-range devices at best and entry-range devices at worst, and it is here that Nexus 5 delivers its ace in the hole – prospective buyers will be hard pressed to choose another device when the Nexus 5 comes with such a huge array of features which makes totally comparable if not better than other high-end devices with price tags of more than $600. Nexus 5 is truly a device that deserves the Nexus name tag.

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