HTC One and Galaxy S4 Google play edition came out today...

[saratoga172]

This is the one thing that pisses me off about this. People complaining about the prices while they are pretty much exactly the same as their Sense/Touchwiz counterparts.

Why do people expect a huge discount? There is no 'extra $$$' involved. That's exactly the price the same hardware are being sold! It's the OS inside that's switched out. That's it.

You realize there is money involved with developing all that software right? So in essence a stripped down phone should be cheaper.

 

[WelshBloke]

You realize there is money involved with developing all that software right? So in essence a stripped down phone should be cheaper.

Touchwiz is designed around getting people to use the various Samsung hubs to buy content. So, no, Samsung aren't going to give you the phone cheaper.

 

[cronos]

Those people are probably spoiled by Nexus 4 pricing.

Which was the first (and potentially the only) of its kind. Never before a Nexus device priced that low. Plus, these aren't even true Nexus devices.

You realize there is money involved with developing all that software right? So in essence a stripped down phone should be cheaper.

So these people are thinking that this is like buying a Dell computer with Windows installed vs. a Dell with no OS? I doubt it 🙂

 

[Viper GTS]

Which was the first (and potentially the only) of its kind. Never before a Nexus device priced that low. Plus, these aren't even true Nexus devices.



So these people are thinking that this is like buying a Dell computer with Windows installed vs. a Dell with no OS? I doubt it 🙂

The Galaxy Nexus was selling for $349 last summer. It was $399 at launch. So the 16 GB Nexus 4 launched at the same price as the 16 GB Galaxy Nexus, while the 8 GB was $50 cheaper.

I ordered a Nexus 4 on launch day and ordered the GS4 GPe today. I have the wireless charging back + 64 GB micro SDXC sitting here ready for it.

I wish it didn't have the hardware buttons, but it's enough of an upgrade to hold me over until the next true Nexus device this fall.

Viper GTS

 

[lothar]

I would have pulled the trigger today, but a few things that stops me from doing so:
a.) Hardware buttons.
b.) Expecting more in the next 5-6 months...(AKA I'm expecting the "Nexus 5" to use SnapDragon 800, and maybe other features)
c.) Price/Value. I can't help but keep comparing all future phones(yes, including the Google experience ones) to Nexus 4 pricing. If Google came out and said "From now on all Nexus phones will be $600" or "From now on we no longer will be building Nexus devices...Only Google Experience phones", that will be fine and will completely remove the price/value issue from the equation be cause I won't have a choice. However, given they haven't stated such and given that they sold the Galaxy Nexus for $349, and now the Nexus 4 for $299-350, I have little doubt that the "Nexus 5" will be <$400.

 

[Ravynmagi]

The Galaxy Nexus was selling for $349 last summer. It was $399 at launch. So the 16 GB Nexus 4 launched at the same price as the 16 GB Galaxy Nexus, while the 8 GB was $50 cheaper.

Galaxy Nexus was $650 at launch. It came down to $400 some months later when it was introduced to the Google Play Store for the first time.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I would have pulled the trigger today, but a few things that stops me from doing so:
a.) Hardware buttons.
b.) Expecting more in the next 5-6 months...(AKA I'm expecting the "Nexus 5" to use SnapDragon 800, and maybe other features)
c.) Price/Value. I can't help but keep comparing all future phones(yes, including the Google experience ones) to Nexus 4 pricing. If Google came out and said "From now on all Nexus phones will be $600" or "From now on we no longer will be building Nexus devices...Only Google Experience phones", that will be fine and will completely remove the price/value issue from the equation be cause I won't have a choice. However, given they haven't stated such and given that they sold the Galaxy Nexus for $349, and now the Nexus 4 for $299-350, I have little doubt that the "Nexus 5" will be <$400.

The question is whether the Nexus 5 will beat the GS4/HTC One that well... Sure you can say there's a faster CPU. Camera? Doubt it. Screen? Possibly, but nah. Battery? Heh, maybe? And even at $349 or whatever, how do you want it to compete with flagship phones? Google's going to limit the space again or gimp the phone somehow.

The other possibility is a more expensive Nexus 5, while the Nexus 4 sells for cheap still a la Apple's strategy?

 

[Ravynmagi]

My fear of the Nexus 5 is that Google continues to limit storage options and there is nothing larger than 16GB available. Don't think I'll ever buy another 16GB phone again and that has me kinda thinking about abandoning my Nexus 4 and upgrading now.

 

[Ravynmagi]

The other possibility is a more expensive Nexus 5, while the Nexus 4 sells for cheap still a la Apple's strategy?

Unlike Apple though, Google already sells the Nexus 4 very cheaply and probably doesn't have much room to lower the price much more. And LG may not want to keep manufacturing it either.

 

[lothar]

The question is whether the Nexus 5 will beat the GS4/HTC One that well... Sure you can say there's a faster CPU. Camera? Doubt it. Screen? Possibly, but nah. Battery? Heh, maybe? And even at $349 or whatever, how do you want it to compete with flagship phones? Google's going to limit the space again or gimp the phone somehow.

The other possibility is a more expensive Nexus 5, while the Nexus 4 sells for cheap still a la Apple's strategy?

That's the question nobody knows the answer to.
SnapDragon 800 sounds like an upgrade in the GPU department. Not so much for the CPU though besides it being overclocked higher.
Since LG is doing an event in New York in August, and Samsung just released the Galaxy LTE-Advanced with SnapDragon 800, we'll watch as the benchmarks drip, drip for the next 2 months.

If the upgrade from Krait to S4 Pro is any indication, then I expect more than just a minor improvement going from SnapDragon 600 to SnapDragon 800.

Camera: I don't care much about.

Screen: people in another thread are claiming that LG makes the best LCD screens now which is news to me.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327372

Battery: SnapDragon 800 is advertised as providing the same battery performance as today's SnapDragon 600 in the Galaxy S4 and HTC One while increasing the performance.

If the only gimping that Google is going to do to get the $350 price again is by shipping with only 16GB and poor screen calibration(which can be completely fixed by rooting and running a custom kernel BTW), I'm okay with it. Shipping with good screen calibration and 32GB(or a MicroSD slot) isn't worth the extra $250-300 in cost to make it a $650 phone.
LTE is integrated with SnapDragon 800 and does not come as a separate chip so I won't have to worry about Google gimping or fumbling with LTE like they did with the Nexus 4.

The last possibility you stated won't happen. That, I know for sure. They may announce a more expensive Nexus 5, but they won't keep selling Nexus 4 as a cheaper alternative option side by side except to deplete it's current stock inventory.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tabl...dragon-800-benchmarked-4k-video-from-a-tablet

If you're buying a smartphone this year, there's a good chance it will be powered by a Qualcomm processor. Samsung's Galaxy S4 (at least the UK variant anyway), the HTC One and the Sony Xperia Z all use the Snapdragon 600, and now the more powerful Snapdragon 800 is making its way into tablets and phablet devices like the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. We got the chance to try out a Snapdragon 800 development unit at Qualcomm's London event yesterday, putting it through its paces with a thorough set of benchmarks, as well as exploring the chip's new multimedia features.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Despite only taking up 15% of a Snapdragon 800 chip, the central processing unit (CPU) is a seriously powerful bit of silicon. Manufactured on a 28nm process, the developer tablets we tested were running at 2.3GHz, making them the highest clock speed of any handheld we've seen.

Paired with 2GB of RAM, the tablet was able to produce a thumping score of 20138 in the Quadrant benchmark, making it more than five times faster than the Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU powering HTC's One X. It also outpaced Google's Nexus 10 and more than doubled Apple's iPad 4 in the Geekbench multi-platform benchmark, with a score of 4,098.

As the above diagram shows, the other 85% of the chip is dedicated to multimedia, imaging, GPS and connectivity, with support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi, USB3, Bluetooth4.0, Miracast and 4G LTE built into the specification. Whether all these features get used is dependent on the manufacturer, but integrated LTE support will hopefully lead to more 4G-ready devices in the coming months.

GRAPHIC CONTENT
Qualcomm has updated the Adreno 320 graphics processing unit (GPU) with support for OpenGL 3.0, DirectX and OpenCL for the Snapdragon 800, along with compatibility with Epic's Unreal engine and the Unity game engine. The GPU runs at 450MHz and proved more than capable of rendering the Epic Citadel tech demo smoothly at 1080p resolution.

It also produced some of the highest scores in the latest version of 3DMark we've seen from a mobile device, posting 13651 in the Ice Storm Extreme test. To put this in perspective, the fastest smartphones are scoring around half that on Snapdragon 600 processors.

IT'S ALL YOUR VOLT
Although it's incredibly powerful, Snapdragon 800 should also be fairly frugal when it comes to battery life. Qualcomm says that the new manufacturing process should put it roughly on par with existing Snapdragon 600 devices, despite the boost in performance.

Each of the four cores can scale its clock speed independently of the others too, which should help keep battery consumption to a minimum when running less demanding tasks.

Qualcomm's QuickCharge 2.0 ports should mean compatible devices charge 65% faster than they would without the technology, so even when you do run out of power you won't have to wait around to get juiced up again.

4K HERE TO STAY
Beyond raw performance, the Snapdragon 800 also includes a set of multimedia codecs that add support for 4K video capture and decoding. During the event, a developer smartphone unit was shown recording 4K video at 20mbit/s, which was then beamed to a tablet using a Toshiba TransferJet dongle - it's currently one of the fastest ways to transfer large files directly between devices, with a 560Mbps throughput. The results were then played at their native resolution on a Sony 4K TV. It might not have been the most professional Ultra HD footage we've seen, but there was no question that the level of detail was impressive from a smartphone.

The multimedia chip is also able to decode 7.1 surround sound audio streams for playback through an external speaker system. We were shown 4k clips from Star Trek: Into Darkness and the upcoming Pacific Rim, with both filling Qualcomm's demo room with accurate surround sound. It's certainly impressive stuff from a tablet.

Although all Snapdragon 800 handsets are technically capable of 4K playback, it depends on what hardware the manufacturer pairs the chip with. MHL, the current standard for transmitting video from the micro-USB charging port to an HDMI-equipped display, doesn't support 4K resolutions, so you would either need a full-size HDMI port built into the device or an HDMI-equipped docking station in order to play Ultra HD content at its native resolution.

SNAPDRAGON GETS SERIOUS
With some of the fastest benchmark scores seen in a mobile device, support for home cinema standards like 4K video and 7.1 surround sound, it looks like high-end smartphones and tablets have a new performance target to aspire to. With Nvidia's Tegra 4 chips also arriving in the coming months, it's going to be interesting to see which comes out on top overall, but Qualcomm's support for Ultra HD should please home cinema fans as well as anyone looking for a powerful handheld.

 

[lothar]

My fear of the Nexus 5 is that Google continues to limit storage options and there is nothing larger than 16GB available. Don't think I'll ever buy another 16GB phone again and that has me kinda thinking about abandoning my Nexus 4 and upgrading now.

I hate the 16GB limit almost as much as you do, but if that extra 16GB is only what differentiates a "Nexus 5" from a top end phone with a price difference of $300, screw that.
There's no way in hell I'm going to pay an extra $300 for just an extra 16GB and "minor" camera improvements like people are doing today in picking an Optimus G over a Nexus 4(besides the AT&T LTE compatibility issue of course) just to pay almost double the cost.

If Google chooses to sell the Nexus 5 for $600 with 16GB, I can already see it being a failure.

 

[thecapsaicinkid]

A Snapdragon 800 is not going to do anything for stock Android right now.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

That's the question nobody knows the answer to.
SnapDragon 800 sounds like an upgrade in the GPU department. Not so much for the CPU though besides it being overclocked higher.
Since LG is doing an event in New York in August, and Samsung just released the Galaxy LTE-Advanced with SnapDragon 800, we'll watch as the benchmarks drip, drip for the next 2 months.

If the upgrade from Krait to S4 Pro is any indication, then I expect more than just a minor improvement going from SnapDragon 600 to SnapDragon 800.

Camera: I don't care much about.

Screen: people in another thread are claiming that LG makes the best LCD screens now which is news to me.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327372

Battery: SnapDragon 800 is advertised as providing the same battery performance as today's SnapDragon 600 in the Galaxy S4 and HTC One while increasing the performance.

If the only gimping that Google is going to do to get the $350 price again is by shipping with only 16GB and poor screen calibration(which can be completely fixed by rooting and running a custom kernel BTW), I'm okay with it. Shipping with good screen calibration and 32GB(or a MicroSD slot) isn't worth the extra $250-300 in cost to make it a $650 phone.
LTE is integrated with SnapDragon 800 and does not come as a separate chip so I won't have to worry about Google gimping or fumbling with LTE like they did with the Nexus 4.

The last possibility you stated won't happen. That, I know for sure. They may announce a more expensive Nexus 5, but they won't keep selling Nexus 4 as a cheaper alternative option side by side except to deplete it's current stock inventory.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tabl...dragon-800-benchmarked-4k-video-from-a-tablet

CPU: While the S4 Pro or S600 can still be upgraded, they're mighty fast. It's not like anyone's complaining about speed. There are complaints of lag, but that has more to do with the OEM skins than anything else and probably some unoptimized parts of Android. I see this as just a never ending spec war. Sure I'd love an S800, but is there a dire need? Probably not.

Camera: You might not care but many people have had enough of lowly cameras. When the GS2 outperforms the Nexus 4 in photos, that's pretty shameful. My point was that even if Google puts a lot of effort in the camera department, how do they hope to leapfrog Samsung? Maybe they get lucky and find one hell of a sensor and somehow leapfrog the S4. Then what? The terrible AOSP software will somehow do it justice? I think at best the Nexus will match the S3 or so.

Battery Life: The S800 may bring battery life improvements, but Nexus phones have traditionally been bad. I'm not sure if its because Google doesn't work well enough with the handset manufacturer to optimize the phone, but the Nexus 4, GNex, Nexus S, have always been behind their OEM counterparts. From what I see from preliminary benchmarks, the GS4 and HTC One GPe are significantly better than the N4 in battery, and match if not exceed their skinned versions (if we can trust TheVerge anyway). This seems to address the fact that it's not just AOSP but Google that's not doing a good enough job.

To me, the Nexus 5 needs to be convincingly better on all fronts IMO. Sure they can release another $350 phone that has a CPU that throttles all the time, a bad camera, and bad battery life, and gimped LTE and limited storage, but no way in hell am I doing that again.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

On another note:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...play-edition-one-or-s4-oems-will-handle-otas/

This sounds like there will never be drivers, blobs, etc released for these phones. I highly doubt Samsung and HTC will release them if they've never done it for their phones. So really it wont be an AOSP phone, but just vanilla Android controlled by the OEMs. So don't expect CM 10.1 to be like a Nexus 4 or anything. We can just hope that the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is relatively easy to develop for and that enough people own S4s and HTC Ones that there will be a large development community.

It's certainly disappointing. Google's definitely backed away from any "Nexus" terminology. Whatever language they used at I/O seems to have generated some misconceptions of how these phones would be.

 

[ponyo]

On another note:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...play-edition-one-or-s4-oems-will-handle-otas/

This sounds like there will never be drivers, blobs, etc released for these phones. I highly doubt Samsung and HTC will release them if they've never done it for their phones. So really it wont be an AOSP phone, but just vanilla Android controlled by the OEMs. So don't expect CM 10.1 to be like a Nexus 4 or anything. We can just hope that the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is relatively easy to develop for and that enough people own S4s and HTC Ones that there will be a large development community.

It's certainly disappointing. Google's definitely backed away from any "Nexus" terminology. Whatever language they used at I/O seems to have generated some misconceptions of how these phones would be.

I was about to order GS4 GE til I read this. It's extremely disappointing and definite deal killer. I'm not paying $700 for a phone controlled by Samsung.

 

[poofyhairguy]

On another note:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...play-edition-one-or-s4-oems-will-handle-otas/

This sounds like there will never be drivers, blobs, etc released for these phones. I highly doubt Samsung and HTC will release them if they've never done it for their phones. So really it wont be an AOSP phone, but just vanilla Android controlled by the OEMs. So don't expect CM 10.1 to be like a Nexus 4 or anything. We can just hope that the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is relatively easy to develop for and that enough people own S4s and HTC Ones that there will be a large development community.

It's certainly disappointing. Google's definitely backed away from any "Nexus" terminology. Whatever language they used at I/O seems to have generated some misconceptions of how these phones would be.

There was a release of the GooS4's kernel. Already CM and other source ROMs have begun merging in this code. Its a huge upgrade from the old CM base.

Unless I am missing something.

EDIT:

http://opensource.samsung.com/reception/receptionSub.do?method=search&searchValue=GT-I9505G

 

[sourceninja]

I was pretty excited about these phones, but I'm going to wait and see how updates are handled. I bought my nexus 4 because google controls it and I trust google to support my phone for the lifetime of the device (3 years or so). I don't trust samsung and htc to do that.

 

[Oyeve]

Samsung has consistently delivered the fastest android updates of all of the Android manufacturers, the US carriers just hold them up and don't bother pushing out half of the updates international Samsung models get.

Which they didnt always do. I remember waiting forever for the froyo update for the tmo GS1, which never went OTA and had to be installed via kies. But since then sammy has been great at updating.

 

[gmaster456]

Think I'll just wait for the Nexus 5. My wishlist

3000maH battery (Minimum)
4.7-5inch screen
Better Camera
Snapdragon 800

I'm fine with the storage options currently. So that's not an issue for me. As long as it's not made by Samsung, the design is good and has at least 3 of the 4 things I listed above for $400 chances are I'll get it.

 

[dawheat]

Think I'll just wait for the Nexus 5. My wishlist

3000maH battery (Minimum)
4.7-5inch screen
Better Camera
Snapdragon 800

I'm fine with the storage options currently. So that's not an issue for me. As long as it's not made by Samsung, the design is good and has at least 3 of the 4 things I listed above for $400 chances are I'll get it.

If a Nexus 5 even comes out, I'd expect:
2400-2600mAh battery (you're not going to be wowed here in a Nexus phone)
4.7-5.0 inch screen
Better camera, same meh software
Snapdragon 600

 

[Red Storm]

I will be waiting to see how they handle not only the next major update, but more importantly the update that comes after that. Long term support is a key part of Nexus devices.

 

[MD90]

http://phandroid.com/2013/06/26/google-play-edition-htc-one-samsung-galaxy-s4-no-google-updates

Hmm... These phones won't get updates directly from Google after all. So we'll still be at the mercy of HTC and Samsung for the mostly stock updates.

This might change my mind a bit. I've been burned by Samsung more than once and I see HTC shipping the One with Android 4.1. So I dunno if I totally trust them to keep the Google Edition phones up to date if it's left in their hands.

Considering Google themselves heavily botched the 4.2 update for the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus, I'm not that worried about Samsung or HTC being dramatically worse.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

There was a release of the GooS4's kernel. Already CM and other source ROMs have begun merging in this code. Its a huge upgrade from the old CM base.

Unless I am missing something.

EDIT:

http://opensource.samsung.com/reception/receptionSub.do?method=search&searchValue=GT-I9505G

Isn't kernel GPL anyway? And releasing kernel isn't the big issue most of the time, its all the proprietary drivers. Kernel source won't help you when the front camera won't work or when there's BT issues, etc. I see a huge bucketlist of issues on practically every non-Nexus phone, and it doesn't seem like what we get out of the GPE phones will really help much.

 

[ChronoReverse]

No it does help.

The problem is usually that driver blobs are built for specific kernels and touchwiz/sense kernels are VERY different from AOSP kernels. So projects like CyanogenMod do a lot of clever tricks to hack in support. But there are limits to what the hacking can do (both due to technical and man-hour reasons).


But for the GE's, the work to make the binary blobs work in AOSP is already done and done properly (i.e., the binaries are compiled specifically for an AOSP kernel).

This is a HUGE boon to all the AOSP ROMs like AOKP and CM.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I hate the 16GB limit almost as much as you do, but if that extra 16GB is only what differentiates a "Nexus 5" from a top end phone with a price difference of $300, screw that.
There's no way in hell I'm going to pay an extra $300 for just an extra 16GB and "minor" camera improvements like people are doing today in picking an Optimus G over a Nexus 4(besides the AT&T LTE compatibility issue of course) just to pay almost double the cost.

If Google chooses to sell the Nexus 5 for $600 with 16GB, I can already see it being a failure.

I knew the 16GB limit was going to be a problem when I got my Nexus 4. But like you, I had trouble justifying $300 more for another high end phone with otherwise similar specs. So I got my Nexus 4 and decided to just manage my storage.

But my problem is that the Nexus only comes out once a year and I become weak to new shiny toys with more storage in the months between. The Nexus don't release until around Christmas time and that is still a long way away.