Google Nexus 4 Review ~ Hadi Ibrahim

For the Android purist, only an unlocked Nexus phone will do – since network-subsidised Android phones are somewhat compromised, thanks to their skins, carrier modifications, and infrequent OS updates. Enter the Google Nexus 4 (£239 sim-free for the 8GB model), a totally streamlined smartphone running the new Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS in its stock form.

The phone is manufactured by LG now, rather than Samsung which made last year’s Galaxy Nexus, and the price is very tempting. Indeed, the Nexus 4 represents a great deal for what amounts to the cleanest – and in our opinion, best – Android experience you can get, despite a few significant flaws.

Design and display

From a short distance, the Nexus 4 looks almost identical to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. But that’s an illusion; instead of the hard plastic sides and back of the Samsung version, the LG model is nicely finished in clear glass on the back, with a lovely sparkling pattern that seems to move as you tilt the handset.

The sides are finished with a grippy soft touch rubber, and there’s a smoked chrome accent ring around the front. The phone measures 69 x 9 x 134mm (WxDxH), and weighs 139 grams. It's a beautiful design that befits a Nexus: Understated, classy, and without frills.

There's not much in the way of hardware controls. The right side features a lone power button, while the left panel houses a chrome volume rocker and a micro-SIM card slot; if you want to switch SIM cards, you open it using a tiny metal key LG provides in the package. A standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack is found up top, while the microUSB port for charging and syncing the phone is on the bottom of the phone.

The 4.7in IPS LCD packs a 1,280 x 768 resolution, and is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 2. There's less of a gap between the glass and display than before, which is noticeable when you tilt it on its side. The screen is responsive and feels great to the touch. Whites are significantly brighter than the dim, yellowish ones on the Galaxy Nexus. Web pages on the iPhone 5 still look better, thanks to better viewing angles and a still brighter screen, and the iPhone 5's fonts are also kerned more closely and easier to read. But the Nexus 4 display is a tremendous improvement, and it's considerably larger than the iPhone 5's 4in screen. In my tests, typing on the on-screen keyboard was comfortable and responsive in both portrait and landscape modes.

Performance and hardware

The phone’s voice quality was generally good, even excellent in the earpiece, with plenty of gain, and a crisp, natural tone. Transmissions through the mic were a little thin and robotic sounding, though, and the noise cancelling algorithm seemed to struggle with some moderate construction noise in the background. Reception was solid, and a huge improvement over the spotty reception I experienced with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset, though it was a little unreliable; I had trouble getting calls to stay in the headset, and while I could trigger voice dialling over Bluetooth, Android's built-in voice recognition never understood the number I was trying to dial. The speakerphone gets quite loud, but it has a piercing tone at maximum volume that's uncomfortable to listen to.

We're still testing the Nexus 4's 2100mAh battery and will update this review as soon as we have a result. It's worth noting that the Nexus 4 also supports wireless charging with compatible charging pads (although it doesn't come with one of these). Wireless charging is useful, but not as perfect as it sounds; you still have to plug the wireless charging mat into the wall. But at least you don't have to plug and unplug the actual phone each time.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core 1.5GHz processor (with built-in Adreno 320 GPU) and 2GB RAM pack a real performance punch. The phone became quite warm during benchmark tests, even hot towards the top of the back panel – but it never overheated. The results were about what I had expected – roughly equivalent to the Optimus G, with excellent gaming performance, though the Chrome browser wasn't quite as fast as it is on the Galaxy S III.

In terms of connectivity, there’s no LTE on board the Nexus 4, but you do get HSPA+ 42 support which can still provide some pretty nippy surfing (besides, not everyone can get on EE’s 4G LTE network yet, by any means). You get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and the phone had no problem connecting to our WPA2-encrypted 5GHz office network.

As for the fresh version of Android the Nexus carries, Jelly Bean 4.2 is an evolutionary but nonetheless welcome upgrade over 4.1, thanks to its new Photo Sphere and Miracast features (more on those in a moment). You can also swipe over the keyboard when typing, similar to the venerable Swype keyboard, but with improved predictive text capability. The Nexus 4 fits five icons across the app tray instead of four, and there are five home screens you can swipe between and customise.

Specifications

Manufacturer and Device	(LG/Google) Nexus 4
Screen Details	1,280 x 768-pixel IPS capacitive touchscreen
Bands	850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100, 1700
Physical Keyboard	No
Operating System	Android 4.2
Network	GSM, UMTS
High-Speed Data	EDGE, HSPA+ 42
Form Factor	Candy Bar
Megapixels	8 MP
Bluetooth	Yes
Camera	Yes
Camera Flash	Yes
microSD Slot	No
802.11x	Yes
Processor Speed	1.5 GHz
Screen Size	4.7in
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4
Storage Capacity	8GB/16GB
GPS	Yes

Hadi Ibrahim

Selasa, 20 November 2012