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

[NikolaeVarius]

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.

The site runs fine on my GS3 with Chrome. Scrolling is 100% smooth, but the Gif's have a low FPS, but that might be the gif's themselves and not the rendering engine

 

[Anubis]

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.

i said for what I want i could not care less about what everyone else wants. TBH i hope Moto makes a nexus based off the razor HD maxx, FFS that would be awesome

 

[Anubis]

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.

the website works fine, scrolls fine and smooth, the gifs are slightly choppy but work fine - stock browser

in opera the gifs play much smoother - only choppy before the page fully loads. after that they play fine

 

[Skurge]

Could that be poor QA from LG? So the phone basically overheats, is slower than the optimus G with the same specs and has inconsistent battery life between each review unit?

Should have had Samsung make this one, the Gnex might have battery life as bad, but it didn't overheat and performed as it should have.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

so we put too powerful of a SoC that overheats? lol

 

[Fire&Blood]

so we put too powerful of a SoC that overheats? lol

Considering how many device featuring this SOC are set to launch before the year is over, I would wait to determine whether it's just a bad batch of Nexus 4's, entire production line or if indeed the SoC isn't viable for use.

 

[Skurge]

so we put too powerful of a SoC that overheats? lol

Lol, yeah. You'd think a little bit of testing would have shown that. We'll see what the final units are like, but I doubt they will be much better.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Considering how many device featuring this SOC are set to launch before the year is over, I would wait to determine whether it's just a bad batch of Nexus 4's, entire production line or if indeed the SoC isn't viable for use.

Certainly, I'm open for that, but Anand has already stated his view on things. I work in the medical device field, so we go through a lot of verification and validation of our design and processes. You'd think something like this would've been caught.

 

[golem]

so we put too powerful of a SoC that overheats? lol

I don't think the Optimus G has been as inconsistant as the Nexus 4 has been in benchmarking. Maybe it's just the combo of pre finalized Hardware and software and not a problem with the SOC. Could it be the glass backing is keeping the heat locked in and leading to thermal throttling?

Hopefully the retail, shipping versions will have these issues cleared up, at that point it's the best phone you can get in this price range if you can live with it's limitations (actually if you can live with it's design choices/limitations, its a great phone period).

 

[Fire&Blood]

Yeah, I'll definitely wait to hear more on this. Hoping it's just a bad unit or they can do something before launch.

I'm definitely getting the Nexus10 asap though, hope it's accompanied by the 4 as well.
Nex4 warrants an upgrade over the GNex but the Nexus10 just seems to stomp over any other Android tablet. I think it will take quite a while for Android to get enough tablet specific app versions and to get more 1600p compliance elsewhere. Yet what it can do out of the box, in current state of Android tablet is enough for me. The lack of a true tablet environment is a cconcern but I'll be using it mostly for stuff where it won't matter as much as it does to someone used to ipad's selection. Hence why I wouldnt pay $499 it, at that range the iPad is still the better choice. They hit a good price point, I would have cooled off at $449 as I imagine many others would.

 

[bearxor]

The performance charts are making me feel a lot better about the i5 purchase. I was really thinking about getting the N4 and switching to tMobiles $30 plan, putting my wife on straight talk and eating the $300 ETF on the iPhone 5. That would save me about $65 a month. I think I'll give Apple another iOS version before making that decision.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Wow, I can understand why people wanted LTE so bad-

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6425/2012-10-31 15.21.40.png

That's just too much data. LTE could have slowed things down, made them easier to watch.

Wait a second, must have missed this before, glass back? That is an absolute deal breaker for me. Only the dead remnants of an inbred jackass could do something that stupid to a phone. Grrrrrr, that really pisses me off

 

[Anubis]

eh i get full bar 4g in my house and its slower than that down but faster up

normally tests like 12/12
ping kills it as its under 100ms

but honestly that speedtest is fine, 28 down is great and TBH the upload is fine

 

[zerocool84]

Certainly, I'm open for that, but Anand has already stated his view on things. I work in the medical device field, so we go through a lot of verification and validation of our design and processes. You'd think something like this would've been caught.

As we've seen with Antennagate, seemingly obvious issues sometimes slip through. I'm definitely waiting until the end of the month to see if this is a widespread issue or just early review units.

 

[ponyo]

The performance charts are making me feel a lot better about the i5 purchase. I was really thinking about getting the N4 and switching to tMobiles $30 plan, putting my wife on straight talk and eating the $300 ETF on the iPhone 5. That would save me about $65 a month. I think I'll give Apple another iOS version before making that decision.

I never had performance issue with the GNex. It's the best smartphone I've used and totally worth the ~$700 I spent. N4 will only get faster as Google updates the phone with improved drivers and kernels. I don't really look at this as N4 vs iP5. Both are fast so it comes down to which OS you prefer. I prefer Android, you prefer iOS. I don't see how some initial benchmarks can change that preference when it's clear both phones are blazing fast. I don't think it's worthy upgrade in my case to go from GNex to N4 but I know I'll probably end up doing it because I'm a sucker for new gadgets, especially the Nexus line. Just like I'll probably buy the Nexus 10 even though we already have 7 tablets. Nexus 10 and iPad 4 will make it 9 tablets.

 

[bearxor]

It wasn't so much that I was worried about it being slow, just another thing to take in to consideration when I was considering switching.

Going from an i4 to a GNex was meh. Going from the GNex to a i5 was night and day. Buy the N4. You should notice a pretty big difference.

 

[Eug]

I never had performance issue with the GNex. It's the best smartphone I've used and totally worth the ~$700 I spent. N4 will only get faster as Google updates the phone with improved drivers and kernels. I don't really look at this as N4 vs iP5. Both are fast so it comes down to which OS you prefer. I prefer Android, you prefer iOS. I don't see how some initial benchmarks can change that preference when it's clear both phones are blazing fast. I don't think it's worthy upgrade in my case to go from GNex to N4 but I know I'll probably end up doing it because I'm a sucker for new gadgets, especially the Nexus line. Just like I'll probably buy the Nexus 10 even though we already have 7 tablets. Nexus 10 and iPad 4 will make it 9 tablets.

For me, that is exactly the choice, N4 vs iP5. Nothing else is in the running.

The question is whether or not battery life will make the decision easy for me.

 

[magomago]

Certainly, I'm open for that, but Anand has already stated his view on things. I work in the medical device field, so we go through a lot of verification and validation of our design and processes. You'd think something like this would've been caught.

Actually I'd probably argue that in the world of pricey high volume high tech consumer goods (ie: not something meant to be sold for 10 bucks) , their V&V processes, in general, are much more robust than in our industry

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

As we've seen with Antennagate, seemingly obvious issues sometimes slip through. I'm definitely waiting until the end of the month to see if this is a widespread issue or just early review units.

Yeah, but I think antennagate requires carrying the device to notice these issues. I think so does maps. I do think that antennagate should've been something test-able in a lab, but I see something as CPU testing to see if it's capable of operating in a phone as more basic testing. I'm almost certain that post antennagate, attenuation issues are more looked at in design testing. I do think the scuff issue would be a bigger flop than antennagate though. I suppose no product launch can be perfect right?

I feel like both are flops, but to have your phone overheat is a bigger flop. I'm definitely hoping that this issue gets cleared up or Google has a way to fix this.

Wow, I can understand why people wanted LTE so bad-

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6425/2012-10-31 15.21.40.png

That's just too much data. LTE could have slowed things down, made them easier to watch.

Wait a second, must have missed this before, glass back? That is an absolute deal breaker for me. Only the dead remnants of an inbred jackass could do something that stupid to a phone. Grrrrrr, that really pisses me off

trollolololol. actually not even funny. but ok.

 

[BenSkywalker]

trollolololol. actually not even funny. but ok.

What do you think is trolling? The 22Mbps download speed that you say is too slow? I have, for years now, been pointing out that the difference between H+ and LTE isn't close to what people seem to think, that just shows what I've been talking about.

In terms of the glass back. The device removed itself completely as a viable consumer product as far as I'm concerned. Let's make a highly breakable device that you put in and take out of your pocket constantly for *no* good reason? Profound idiocy. For Apple it makes sense, their customers *hate* usability with a passion, only form matters, for anyone outside of that demographic it is an utterly moronic design choice.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

What do you think is trolling? The 22Mbps download speed that you say is too slow? I have, for years now, been pointing out that the difference between H+ and LTE isn't close to what people seem to think, that just shows what I've been talking about.

In terms of the glass back. The device removed itself completely as a viable consumer product as far as I'm concerned. Let's make a highly breakable device that you put in and take out of your pocket constantly for *no* good reason? Profound idiocy. For Apple it makes sense, their customers *hate* usability with a passion, only form matters, for anyone outside of that demographic it is an utterly moronic design choice.

HSPA+ is everywhere on AT&T where I am. I can show you download speeds of 10mbps but those are best. There's two entries on my pages long of speedtest with 9mbps and 10mbps. The rest are like 3-4. Hell I'll do one for oyu right now. 2300kbps down, 700kbps up. If you look at data speed averages, LTE is significantly ahead. See how many screenshots people have here of LTE speeds above their home internet speeds. Way too many. It's just TOO easy. I've never seen an LTE benchmark below 10mbps. Heck at EDC Las Vegas, where 200,000 people were at the speedway, I was getting 15mbps.

And it's not just raw download speeds. I'm fine with HSPA download speeds if I can get 3-4mbps consistently. It's congestion. In times of congestion HSPA stalls and it can take like 20 seconds before data starts. Not only that the connection gets choppy where it will connect and transmit data for 5 seconds, wait another 10 seconds, transmit data a bit, I can see the arrows on my connection turn on and off, and finally complete transmission. It's not clean. On LTE speeds are so fast even in congestion that I don't have to worry. And even if we get everyone onto LTE, at least on AT&T you have the option to fall back to 3G HSPA+, HSDPA, UMTS, and even 2G EDGE.

If we're talking raw download speeds, LTE wins. If we're talking capacity, LTE wins. There's plenty of benefits of LTE.

With that said I realize that there's technical limitations to offer LTE on a phone to everyone, but it's not an impossibility to add a chip onto a phone.

I wasn't sure if you were serious about the glass back, but you're trolling about Apple users hating usability with a passion. Form matters to them, but Apple's able to balance form and function. I see the glass back as ok, but with the iPhone 4 it was beautiful. With the LG Nexus I'm not as wowed, but then what do you tell all the Android fanbois who laughed at Apple's stupid design now that LG's going that route? It's kinda hypocritical. I don't think something like this causes the device to no longer be a viable consumer product. You're stretching it.

There's enough iPhone users who put cases on or don't drop their phones or whatever. It's not really as big of an issue as people make it seem like. I'm sure the LG Nexus will be just fine. Why they couldn't come up with a better design? Who knows? Maybe it's why Android handset designs have been mostly uninspiring. Only a few designs have been home runs.

 

[BenSkywalker]

And it's not just raw download speeds. I'm fine with HSPA download speeds if I can get 3-4mbps consistently. It's congestion. In times of congestion HSPA stalls and it can take like 20 seconds before data starts.

Congestion is going to be moving from H+ to LTE, the LTE networks may be more robust, but in any realistic sense we are going to be moving away from H+ congestion. As far as LTE download speeds, just look at the charts posted earlier in this thread, sub 8Mbps is the average for most of the carriers on LTE. I'm not saying LTE doesn't have an edge, it's just a fairly small one as far as I'm concerned.

With the LG Nexus I'm not as wowed, but then what do you tell all the Android fanbois who laughed at Apple's stupid design now that LG's going that route?

Stupid is stupid. I don't care who does it, bad design is bad design. Glass back on a phone is a bad design. It is *always* bad, I don't care who offers it. Apple users place vanity miles ahead of any other concern. They own that market. Offering a disgustingly bad design to anyone *but* them makes no sense.

 

[bearxor]

Eh, I really like the look of the Nexus 4. Just because you think it's bad design, doesn't make it an absolute fact for everyone. The only other Android phone I've really like design-wise was the HTC OneX, and I think the N4 tops it.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Eh, I really like the look of the Nexus 4. Just because you think it's bad design, doesn't make it an absolute fact for everyone.

A pretty design doesn't make it a good design. Actually, a pretty design normally indicates a poor design when talking about a utilitarian device.

 

[red12355]

A pretty design doesn't make it a good design. Actually, a pretty design normally indicates a poor design when talking about a utilitarian device.

It's a tradeoff. Gorilla glass doesn't scratch as easily as plastic or polycarbonate used in the SGS3 or One X, but it shatters more easily.

"Poor design" is a matter of opinion.