Advice Google Nexus 5

[old.user4556]

It'll say the 8th until they send it, like mine did.

Shipped now! I reckon Tuesday, can't track it yet.

 

[old.user4556]

Car phone warehouse had stock, I took the plunge, now need to ebay the HTC!
Love love love Nexus 5

Sweeeeeet! How you liking it so far?

 

[Tilda]

Literally brilliant. Blazingly fast. Screen is beautiful. "Ok Google" is damn cool. Icons are larger than normal but I like them, and I'm sure the launchers will make things smaller if I wanted them to.
Low power monitoring (steps, motion, gyro, altitude) will make things like Moves much better. Everything is so damn slick.

HTC One on ebay now http://r.ebay.com/E012vJ

Big G - what case will/are you thinking about?

 

[Deebs]

Split Nexus 5 discussion to own thread.

 

[old.user4556]

Literally brilliant. Blazingly fast. Screen is beautiful. "Ok Google" is damn cool. Icons are larger than normal but I like them, and I'm sure the launchers will make things smaller if I wanted them to.
Low power monitoring (steps, motion, gyro, altitude) will make things like Moves much better. Everything is so damn slick.

HTC One on ebay now http://r.ebay.com/E012vJ

Big G - what case will/are you thinking about?

Probably the official Google one. I know it's overpriced but I want the properly branded one.

Split Nexus 5 discussion to own thread.

Cheers deebs, was going to suggest it.

 

[old.user4556]

IT'S HERE

 

[MYstIC G]

Urgghh... so close to pressing buy, had to force myself not too!

iFailed. It's on order.

I'm probably in a different place to a lot of you chaps, my current handset is my iPhone 3GS which has done a solid 3+ years without issue. It's run our family businesses without a hitch for that length of time and whilst the battery isn't what it used to be, I'm never far enough away that if I need a charge it is an issue. Never had a major issue, never had a major failure. It was built to run and it has done just that.

I'll admit that I would have happily stayed with the Apple ecosystem but every now and then there's something really simple that you just cannot do with an iOS device, e.g. put files straight on it without iTunes. Android has come leaps and bounds and I'm now at the point where the inflated hardware costs that Apple charge cannot be justified any longer, you get more phone for less elsewhere because you're not funding those (admittedly impressive) Apple Stores. This is mostly because I picked up a Nexus 7 on Honeymoon and it's a great little tablet for couch surfing and start/stop games, e.g. Plants -v- Zombies 2.

Having chewed over the upgrade path for some time, I feel the Nexus 5 is the phone that will now last a similar distance to my 3GS. It hasn't hurt that I prefer the build quality of LG products to HTC in general either. LG kit seems better thought out and whilst it looks like HTC is onto something with the HTC One (you can't argue with those front facing speakers) they've not moved far enough away from their history of duff kit yet. As a side I'm not sure why HTC don't just do the Hardware+OS as a choice, they must be smart enough that you could put whatever you want on their handsets.

Rambling now but I've come to the conclusion that iOS stuff is for people that need to know what they're getting and Android stuff is for people that know how they want things set up.

 

[Embattle]

IT'S HERE

Still waiting for mine, it is out for delivery but as per normal I must be on the end of the round

iFailed. It's on order.

I'm probably in a different place to a lot of you chaps, my current handset is my iPhone 3GS which has done a solid 3+ years without issue. It's run our family businesses without a hitch for that length of time and whilst the battery isn't what it used to be, I'm never far enough away that if I need a charge it is an issue. Never had a major issue, never had a major failure. It was built to run and it has done just that.

I'll admit that I would have happily stayed with the Apple ecosystem but every now and then there's something really simple that you just cannot do with an iOS device, e.g. put files straight on it without iTunes. Android has come leaps and bounds and I'm now at the point where the inflated hardware costs that Apple charge cannot be justified any longer, you get more phone for less elsewhere because you're not funding those (admittedly impressive) Apple Stores. This is mostly because I picked up a Nexus 7 on Honeymoon and it's a great little tablet for couch surfing and start/stop games, e.g. Plants -v- Zombies 2.

Having chewed over the upgrade path for some time, I feel the Nexus 5 is the phone that will now last a similar distance to my 3GS. It hasn't hurt that I prefer the build quality of LG products to HTC in general either. LG kit seems better thought out and whilst it looks like HTC is onto something with the HTC One (you can't argue with those front facing speakers) they've not moved far enough away from their history of duff kit yet. As a side I'm not sure why HTC don't just do the Hardware+OS as a choice, they must be smart enough that you could put whatever you want on their handsets.

Rambling now but I've come to the conclusion that iOS stuff is for people that need to know what they're getting and Android stuff is for people that know how they want things set up.

I've personally never had an Apple product and I don't intend to, the reason I'm not a fan of them is my experience of using them via other members of my family. My sister had a 3GS and it is an utter nightmare to transfer music from my NAS to it, eventually my sister realised it was a wasn't an ideal phone which was eventually replaced with a Samsung G2. This side of it really hasn't improved since my dad is required to have a company iPhone 5 and still this can't deal with music easily, iTunes only and no automatic adding of music to the iTunes library.....a complete fucking pain in the arse.

 

[MYstIC G]

iTunes only and no automatic adding of music to the iTunes library.....a complete fucking pain in the arse.

Agreed with all bar this. iTunes has an "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder inside its library folder, anything dumped into that iTunes will automatically sort out. In my experience though don't have iTunes open when you dump stuff in as it works much better processing the whole folder than it does as stuff arrives.

 

[Embattle]

The music is dropped into a folder on the NAS, which things like WMP automatically scan and non apple phones can use without issue whereas to get iTunes to even see the music folder requires me to setup network shares on the relevant laptop and then I have to manually point it at each new album folder.

It is just generally annoying, in essence trying to make it as difficult as possible to stay out of the Apple eco system.

 

[GReaper]

Hmmm, tasty KitKat!

Taken with my Galaxy Nexus, which will be retired soon!

 

[Deebs]

Hmmm, tasty KitKat!

Taken with my Galaxy Nexus, which will be retired soon!

Could have cleaned the phone before taking a picture of it, looks disgusting!

 

[DaGaffer]

Agreed with all bar this. iTunes has an "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder inside its library folder, anything dumped into that iTunes will automatically sort out. In my experience though don't have iTunes open when you dump stuff in as it works much better processing the whole folder than it does as stuff arrives.

Pretty much why I don't bother with my iTunes library at all anymore and just use Spotify. It annoys the hell out me that iTunes occupies this little parallel universe that none of my other stuff talks to. I don't mind my iPhone 5 as a standalone device, but there are just an awful lot of compromises. I've been using one of these as a test device for some App developments we're doing, now I have to work out how they let me keep it for good:

 

[Embattle]

Fucking Parcelforce, no delivery.

 

[Bigmac]

How much free storage memory do you get when its powered up with the operating system on the 16gb version?

 

[soze]

Still waiting for mine, it is out for delivery but as per normal I must be on the end of the round I've personally never had an Apple product and I don't intend to, the reason I'm not a fan of them is my experience of using them via other members of my family. My sister had a 3GS and it is an utter nightmare to transfer music from my NAS to it, eventually my sister realised it was a wasn't an ideal phone which was eventually replaced with a Samsung G2. This side of it really hasn't improved since my dad is required to have a company iPhone 5 and still this can't deal with music easily, iTunes only and no automatic adding of music to the iTunes library.....a complete fucking pain in the arse.

I am not trying to convert you but with the right App this is not true. Synology NAS boxes have an app that let's you copy from the NAS to the phone and play both music and supported video. Local Cloud is a similar 3rd party App. But with iTunes Match at £40 a year you don't need either. Add your music to that and download it onto any device you own. My 5s still has not touched a PC.

 

[Embattle]

You don't get it, it just isn't very easy for the average person (mum/dad) compared to our android phones and every one knows why.

 

[Lamp]

The thing about manufacturers bloatware is that you can remove it all if you root. You only need to flash a kernal. You can leave your ROM stock if you want.

 

[soze]

Yes I do get that. But with a very simple one time set up it is not really an issue. People who will not use Apple because of iTunes may not realise how little you need to use the software.

 

[MYstIC G]

You don't get it, it just isn't very easy for the average person (mum/dad) compared to our android phones and every one knows why.

Yeah but that almost proves his point, Mum & Dad + Credit Card = iTunes everything. It's only where us offspring are technically minded they get confused because we say things like "iTunes is expensive" or "there's a better way of doing that" etc, etc.

 

[soze]

I have my Mum set up on it too. She can buy from Amazon or iTunes and it will appear on her phone. If it is Amamzon the MP3 Downloaded saves it to the right folder and tells iTunes it is there. iTunes Match then syncs it and her phone automatically downloads it. No cables involved and she has to do nothing in iTunes. It can be very very easy.

I am not trying to tell anyone to buy an iPhone btw just pointing out that not all the the little horror stories are true.

 

[old.user4556]

First day with the nexus 5, full opinion to be posted later.

 

[GReaper]

So far, it's been a nice and fast phone.

My only problems with it so far:

- Can't seem to pick 2G as an option for network mode. 3G connectivity isn't great at home, and I can use wifi - but I can't easily change it to 2G only (unless I dial a debug menu).
- The shortcut to the Play Store from the app list in the top right hand corner in Jelly Bean has gone, so now I either need a shortcut/widget on a screen, or go through the app list to get to the store.

 

[Chilly]

I've been really unhappy with my nexus4, tbh. Stuff like google search just being slow/breaking from the desktop and the handling of poor quality connections do my head in. I hope they're resolved for the 5. The button quality on the 4 is terrible, too. Anyone with a 4 and a 5 care to let me know if the buttons are the same? If so, I aint touching the 5 with a barge pole.

 

[Chilly]

Also, be careful with rooting as you have to unlock your bootloader. This means you cant encrypt your phone and anyone who finds it can trivially get all the information from it. For me, that's a huge security problem as I routintely handle shitloads of money via my phone and I have to run it in a very locked down manner.

 

[Embattle]

Yeah but that almost proves his point, Mum & Dad + Credit Card = iTunes everything. It's only where us offspring are technically minded they get confused because we say things like "iTunes is expensive" or "there's a better way of doing that" etc, etc.

Yeah so it isn't expensive unless you take in to account that you are paying extra service to get it to work easier off external sources because iTunes fails to do it well in the first place unlike WMP, in essence it is a solution to a problem that never should of existed if Apple weren't trying to protect their revenue streams so much. My sister steered away from the iPhone 2 generations ago since she found it annoying and my dad only has one because his company forces him to have it and I get the pleasure of getting another album on it tonight via my mums laptop since I won't have iTunes on my computer.

Got my Nexus 5 finally this morning via Parcelforce, been setting it up and have a little fiddle and certainly better than my HTC One S already.

 

[Embattle]

I should point out that Apple products do suit some people just not me nor most my family.

 

[Embattle]

Nice, small little update to the HP service plug in and printing works fine from the various compatible apps.

 

[GReaper]

Another couple of annoying things:

- The always on "Okay Google" doesn't work unless you change settings to English (US).
- Skype login doesn't work.

 

[old.user4556]

Ok, here's the lowdown on the Nexus 5 coming from an iPhone 5 owner and a diehard Apple Fag. This phone is awesome. I love it, but it's not without flaws.

The good:

- Project Butter has made Android mega slick, the Nexus 5 feels fast everywhere, all the time, no lag.
- I love the build of the phone. Simplicity without being boring or average, and dare I say "sexy".
- I had previously downloaded a load of apps for my Nexus 7, so when I logged into my Google account all those apps synced to the Nexus 5 (very Apple esque).
- stock Android is excellent, minimalistic yet classy.
- the integration of Google Now and all my Google stuff is tremendous.
- it automagically picked up my wireless HP printer and worked first time. Impressive.
- notifications are awesome, much prefer Android's way than Apple's afterthought.
- auto backup of images taken with the camera (as I'm used to with iCloud) is so much better than iCloud with the notifications of which images have been successfully synced.
- voice recognition actually works, I use it a lot and it's fast. Really fast. Makes Siri look like a lame third party add on.
- image quality from the camera is very good and the image stabilisation is a hugely underrated addition. Props to Google.
- the screen size is perfect, any bigger and it would have been too big. Also, I've seen haters saying "the screen looks washed out compared to other handsets" - listen to me here, looking at my photographs which have been processed on a £800+ 27" NEC panel, they're pretty damn accurate. In other words, the screen is colour accurate instead of a crowd-pleasing-super-saturated affair like the super amoled on Samsung models.
- the phone weighs about the same as my iPhone 5.
- "swipe from left" Google Now has everything I need in a day. My commute with an option to nav it, stocks / shares, weather, up and coming events in my Google calendar, latest ice hockey scores, upcoming hockey games. Everything on one page.
- I'M NOT FORCED TO OPEN THINGS IN SAFARI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- I'M FREE TO CHOOSE OTHER APPS TO PERFORM FUNCTIONS!!!!!!!!
- I'VE GOT SO MANY OTHER OPTIONS OF SAVINGS ITEMS TO CLOUDS DRIVES! OR SENDING IMAGES TO PEOPLE VIA DIFFERENT METHODS!!!

The bad:

- the jury is still out on battery life. It could be "new toy syndrome" and that I've been playing with it a lot, but I was down to ~40% when I would expect ~60% on my iPhone 5. Mind you, this was with everything turned on (WiFi, Bluetooth, all the location services).
- the delay between pressing the "take a picture" button and the actual picture being taken is annoying, but I read over on The Verge that this is a known issue and there is a fix in the pipeline.
- developers need to give as much attention to Android as they do Apple, particularly when it comes to tablet optimised versions of apps (more an Android gripe than Nexus 5 gripe)
- they really need a separate volume control for notifications. My ringer is so fucking loud, yet my notifications are too quiet - they need to change this. Any thoughts of a work around?
- I'm not sure about lumping everything into Hangouts, maybe i'll get used to that.

That's it for now, I'll keep playing.