Tag: Nexus5

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End User phones

Comparison of Samsung Galaxy S4 with Google Nexus5 phones – speed

nexus5 & galaxys4It’s handy working at Timico because people are always buying new gadgets to have a play with.  Jared from IT has just got himself a Google Nexus5 and we thought it would be a good idea to make some comparisons with my Samsung Galaxy S4.

The first thing I noticed about the Nexus5 was that it has a much nicer feel to it in the hand than the S4. S4 is shiny and slippery. The Nexus5 is more matt and doesn’t feel like it will drop out of your hand too easily which is a good thing when you take a look at the battered nature of my not so old S4.

We did a couple of experiments. This first video shows both Nexus5 and Galaxy S4 being switched on simultaneously. The S4 looks as if it is booting up faster but the Nexus5 comes up with the lock screen several seconds ahead of the Samsung. Not scientific but a good peformance indicator I think. In defence of the S4 it will also have a lot more applications loaded but I’m not sure how much affect that will have on the startup time.

The second vid shows a photo being transferred from the Nexus5 to the Galaxy S4. Android to Android but from different models/manufacturers. It is impressive. The file is 3.5MB.

For those of you who are interested here is a side by side picture taken with each camera:

galaxys4shoes nexus5shoes
And finally a video out take – click here (fwi really is w).

Categories
End User phones

Google Nexus5 lead times stretching out

Thought it worth mentioning that one of our IT guys, Jared,  has just ordered a Google Nexus5 handset. He’s been given a 4 week lead time. Should just about get it in time for Christmas, by which time, at the rate of new product introductions in this game, it will no longer be the latest and greatest.

I think we need to figure out a crowd sourced way of rating new handsets – as opposed to reading the boring reviews of professional journos who really just compare specs. It’s got to be about personal experience. Why one phone is easier to use than another.

I’ll give it some thought but comments welcome. In the meantime Jared must exercise patience – he currently has a BlackBerry.

Categories
End User phones

Initial review of Google Nexus5

Hugo Pickering has been good enough to let us have his thoughts on the Google Nexus5. He did so in a comment on my unreview of the device but it is very much worth a post of its own so here it is. Thanks for the feedback Hugo:)

Hugo writes:

The N5 finally arrived after the Parcelforce driver failed to read the note on the garden gate telling him to walk through to my office, entailing a trip yesterday to pick it up from the post office in Chipping Norton. Setup and transfer of all apps and data was very easy, once I had taken advice from Adrian Wooster and used the excellent app SMS Backup+, which does exactly as it says on the tin.

The familiar Android interface hasn’t changed dramatically in KitKat, but I might have preferred more icons on screen at once with a bigger screen, rather than bigger icons than before. The screen itself is fantastic, with greater colour depth and clarity – photos look sharper and the detail is stunning. The camera is a huge improvement, with much better low light shooting capability. Auto Awesome looks good, enhancing photos as you go, and then backing them up to Google+.

I’m still not sure about Hangouts hijacking SMS so that all texts have to go through it, which seems a bit draconian, but understandable as it makes everything easier to backup for future migrations. I may experiment with some SMS apps to see if anything else works better, as I guess developers will want to cash in on this.

A few apps seem to struggle with KitKat, notably Movember (yes I am going hirsute for the month –http://mobro.co/hugopickering), which seems to be an issue accessing the camera or gallery – maybe the app needs updating. Those apps that have been updated and optimised for KitKat work really well, such as Ookla’s Speedtest – a hugely improved interface and UX.

Speed is another big overall improvement, with apps loading faster and swapping between them with no lag. Hardware-wise, the phone is taller than the previous model, but the same width and thickness. The change to a rubberised back is very welcome and will help to reduce breakages of the old N4 Gorilla Glass back. The phone quality is excellent and the internal speaker seems louder than most phones which is great.

So overall I’m pretty pleased. Now to sell the old N4 on eBay – anyone?

Categories
End User phones

The Google Nexus5 unreview

social network sharing on the trefor.net blogThe Google Nexus5 took me a bit by surprise. I don’t anally watch the space and nobody mentioned it when I visited Google in London on Wednesday. Maybe it caught them by surprise too.

It’s getting to the point where the devices are coming too thick and fast to review them all, notwithstanding the fact that unless you are a favoured globally read media star who gets a freebie (coming clean here, I’m not) it gets to be an expensive thing to do, changing your phone every few months.

Anyway I don’t need to have a physical Nexus5 device to do a review. I can tell without even looking. It will have a few software and hardware improvements on its predecessor. I happen to know it’s a bit cheaper as well, which is good and a sign of the way forward – the point is coming where it’s difficult to add any new sexy features because they have already all been implemented (the “beam me up Scotty”  teleporter app being the exception here. That one is still at the artist impression stage although it is the ultimate app.

Having said that if anyone has a Nexus5 and wants to  do a review then feel free to drop me a line. Also I just took a look and this month amazingly trefor.net has readers from 147 countries though the majority are in blighty. Check out the whole list here > Readership distribution of blog.

PS the pic is a random image selected from my library of uploads. I’m clearly feeling bullish 🙂

Ciao baby.