Official Avail. Nov 13th - Android 4.2 - LG Nexus 4 - Asus Nexus 7 - Samsung Nexus 10

[ChronoReverse]

What's worse is that I thought everyone ALREADY knew a glass backplate is fragile from the iPhone 4 and 4S. But they had to go that route =(

 

[vi edit]

I kinda liked that rubber back on the Galaxy Nexus. If you prefer the naked phone style it made it easier to hold and it wouldn't slide around on slanted surfaces.

 

[Eug]

Gizmodo says it's because of some sort of bug in the camera app that drains the battery like crazy. I guess this isn't a final production model (thank god)

Hopefully that's true. Google really needs to reign in these apps with regards to battery life. Plus, they need to reign in things with 3rd party apps as well.

For example, for Dice Player if you put pause video playback, it will stay paused... but also will keep my Nexus 7's screen active until the battery runs out. I know these are app issues, but Google should be enforcing stuff like this to a certain extent even with 3rd party apps.

However, that still doesn't explain the poor CPU performance. Or does it? Is the camera app stealing too many CPU cycles?

BTW, this does indicate to me that Google's QA still needs work. How could something as basic as this be allowed to make it into a preview device sent out to all the reviewers. Surely they should have tested performance first, and should have realized there was something seriously wrong.

 

[you2]

Well the engadget review of the nexus 4 basically sez the battery sucks rotten egg. I hope this is an error but it seems to do 25% worse than the Opt G; go figure.

 

[Eug]

Gizmodo says it's because of some sort of bug in the camera app that drains the battery like crazy. I guess this isn't a final production model (thank god)

Hopefully that's true. Google really needs to reign in these apps with regards to battery life. Plus, they need to reign in things with 3rd party apps as well.

Nope. Judging by the Gizmodo preview, it seems the battery life is bad all around. It's just much, much worse when running the camera app.

http://updates.gizmodo.com/post/34831233868/google-nexus-4-review-yes-you-want-this-phone-by

battery life has not been what we’d hoped it would be. It appears that using the camera (especially to make Photo Sphere) really sucks that juice. When I was camera testing the phone had dropped off from 100 percent to 13 percent by 1:30pm. On more normal days it made it well into the evening with moderate use. YMMV, but we’re hoping this gets better.

On paper, the 2100 mAh should power it through the day no problem. As it is right now, this is not a phone I could take on a long trip where outlet access is spotty. That honor still goes to the Motorola RAZR MAXX HD, which is still very fast and will get you almost two days of real use on a single charge (and it’s only 0.2mm thicker than this phone). We’re hoping that’s something that will be fixed in the upcoming software update (which will hit before the phone ships)

 

[Capt Caveman]

Strange how Engadget and Anandtech recorded poor battery life while The Verge didn't.

 

[Eug]

Strange how Engadget and Anandtech recorded poor battery life while The Verge didn't.

Yes, which makes me still hopeful it and the CPU speed problems are software issues.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/2/3589280/google-nexus-4-review

Battery life was also top notch. I'm used to getting just about a day of use on my Galaxy Nexus (that's taking it off of the charger around 8AM or 9AM, and putting it back on around 2AM). Some days it doesn't quite make it that long, depending on my workload. The Nexus 4 fared much better. At the time of this writing, I've had it off of its charger for 10 hours and 30 minutes and it's still got 45 percent battery life. Yesterday before I plugged it in, I'd had it off the charger for 16 hours, with 18 percent of its juice left. To say it's holding up for full work days would be an understatement; even with heavy use, this battery more than pulls its weight.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Strange how Engadget and Anandtech recorded poor battery life while The Verge didn't.

Anandtech results worry me the most because it's controlled testing. Every Nexus phone so far has had horrendous battery. The Nexus S and Nexus One were bad too.

 

[dlock13]

Anandtech results worry me the most because it's controlled testing. Every Nexus phone so far has had horrendous battery. The Nexus S and Nexus One were bad too.

If this holds to be true, it might just hold me off on getting it and force me to get... another Samsung device with the Note 2.

 

[Red Storm]

Anandtech results worry me the most because it's controlled testing. Every Nexus phone so far has had horrendous battery. The Nexus S and Nexus One were bad too.

Anandtech's results honestly don't worry me because their new method of testing does not seem to correlate to what I experience in real life.

The one nice thing about T-Mobile offering it on contract is that I can walk into a store and see the phone for myself.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Anandtech's results honestly don't worry me because their new method of testing does not seem to correlate to what I experience in real life.

The one nice thing about T-Mobile offering it on contract is that I can walk into a store and see the phone for myself.

Well I tend to not understand why the previous test results had 3G surf times above 4G surf times. That certainly is something to investigate. When I posted a topic about it, not many people questioned the methodology and as to why the results are now flipped with 4G surf times standing out.

But whether or not you agree with the new testing method or not, the phone's battery performance is still relative. With the Nexus 4 scoring below the HTC One X (which isn't everyone's battery champion to begin with) and the SGS3, it obviously doesn't look good for this phone. So this phone stands at the bottom of the battery charts, meaning it's not going to be that great.

On a separate note, anyone look at the CPU benchmarks? For having a QUAD core Krait which should be more A15 than A9 performance like, the Tegra 3 One X spanks it, AND not to mention the dual core Krait phones seem to win out. Is anyone disappointed just a bit? On paper a quad core Krait should seem very strong, and I almost thought the iPhone 5 would be steamrolled. But that's CLEARLY not the case at all.

 

[stormkroe]

On a separate note, anyone look at the CPU benchmarks? For having a QUAD core Krait which should be more A15 than A9 performance like, the Tegra 3 One X spanks it, AND not to mention the dual core Krait phones seem to win out. Is anyone disappointed just a bit? On paper a quad core Krait should seem very strong, and I almost thought the iPhone 5 would be steamrolled. But that's CLEARLY not the case at all.

This %99 percent has to be a flaw in the benchmarks not utilizing the extra cores. Hopefully JB itself doesn't have this problem though we probably won't see the true benefits of 2 more cores until the next OS and support for 'windows on the desktop' style multitasking.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

This %99 percent has to be a flaw in the benchmarks not utilizing the extra cores. Hopefully JB itself doesn't have this problem though we probably won't see the true benefits of 2 more cores until the next OS and support for 'windows on the desktop' style multitasking.

well it's scoring below the dual core krait devices. you would expect it to be even. there has to be more going on. software or not it's disappointing.

 

[TuxDave]

If this holds to be true, it might just hold me off on getting it and force me to get... another Samsung device with the Note 2.

I wish I could rent a Note 2. Something intrigues me about having a ginormous screen but I don't want to risk it driving me mad with how awkwardly big it is.

 

[Anubis]

IMO CPU benchmarks on the phones at this point are pretty pointless, they are all powerfull enough to do everything i want,

battery life is the only important factor to me, and this phone seemingly fails at it. it also fails at being on VZW but thats not its fault

hopefully next year when the GS4 and nexus 5 are out they will have improved in the battery department

 

[preslove]

Yeah, the performance doesn't scare me, the battery life does. Hopefully they can get it fixed.

 

[ponyo]

Well, I'm skipping the Nexus 4 for now until I get some user reviews from XDA. I have no complaint with my GSM Galaxy Nexus battery life right now with the 2000 mAh extended battery. Nexus 4 has 2100 mAh. That's only 100 mAh difference. But I was hoping S4Pro would be more power efficient than OMAP but it doesn't really look to be the case. With the 1750 mAh stock battery and 2000 mAh extended battery, I have 3750 mAh of total battery power for my GNex. That's more than Razr Maxx HD or any phone on the market. By upgrading to Nexus 4, I'm downgrading in battery life by losing the flexibility of removable battery. :thumbsdown: to Google for sacrificing function for form.

 

[Crow550]

The T-Mobile Walmart plan does not work on tablets.

It should also be added this is not just a special Wal-Mart plan you can sign up for it at the T-Mobile site too.

 

[bucwylde23]

So I'm out of contract and on month-to-month on VZW. If i wanted to buy the nexus 4, are there any providers (AT&T maybe?) that let me get a plan without a contract if I bring my own phone? Not necessarily worried about cost savings rather than freedom to do whatever I want.
Has to have good coverage pretty much across the US as I do some travelling.

 

[Eug]

IMO CPU benchmarks on the phones at this point are pretty pointless, they are all powerfull enough to do everything i want

Check out www.senorgif.com as I'm curious how well that page works on your phone.

It lags horribly on my iPhone 4, my iPad 2, and my Nexus 7. And on my iBook G4 too. Out of all of them though, it's best on the quad-core Tegra 3-endowed Nexus 7.

 

[Red Storm]

Check out www.senorgif.com as I'm curious how well that page works on your phone.

It lags horribly on my iPhone 4, my iPad 2, and my Nexus 7. And on my iBook G4 too. Out of all of them though, it's best on the quad-core Tegra 3-endowed Nexus 7.

Just tried it on my Nexus 7 and it loaded up fine, smooth scrolling and all... Maybe it's more network speed related (I'm on a very fast wifi connection at the moment)?

 

[abaez]

I really think the discrepancy in battery life from AT and Engadget versus The Verge means something was up with their testing units.

 

[bonkers325]

Loads fine on my gsm nexus. Smooth and all, but the images load slow due to crappy Internet.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

IMO CPU benchmarks on the phones at this point are pretty pointless, they are all powerfull enough to do everything i want,

battery life is the only important factor to me, and this phone seemingly fails at it. it also fails at being on VZW but thats not its fault

hopefully next year when the GS4 and nexus 5 are out they will have improved in the battery department

But if I told you that I would've been more happy if the Nexus 4 went to a dual core SoC and instead had removeable storage and/or LTE, I bet 80% of the Android camp here would be like "FVCK NO. THOSE SPECS ARE AWESOME." If CPU speed wasn't that important people here wouldn't be creaming their pants and jumping up and down for the latest and greatest SoC.

For devices that are truly "fast enough" like the iPad 2, 3, 4, I feel like ehh it's cool that Apple put an amazing SoC in all those, but none of it is necessary. The iPad 4 is a good example. The 3 was fast enough and there wasn't anyone really pushing for a huge need to go even faster, but I can't deny the 4 isn't nice.

Anyway, what I'm saying is for Android devices CPU speed matters, and if a quad core CPU is performing well below a dual core counterpart, it DOES bother me.

 

[Eug]

Just tried it on my Nexus 7 and it loaded up fine, smooth scrolling and all... Maybe it's more network speed related (I'm on a very fast wifi connection at the moment)?

Nah, it depends more on the content. On ARM, some days it's OK, and some days it's horrible. It's always OK on a recent desktop (eg. Core 2 Duo).