Nexus 5 Reviews

[s44]

I wish Google would get more serious about cameras on their nexus devices, maybe if they partner with someone other than LG for the next Nexus it might work out better (Sony maybe?).

Sensor is perfectly fine, as it would be with Sony. It's software. Google needs to hire better image processing folks... or buy some well-processed camera app.

 

[WelshBloke]

Did anyone ever say the camera on the N4 was good? The only thing I ever heard when it came out was that it was better than the GNEX camera (which everyone knew was awful). I wish Google would get more serious about cameras on their nexus devices, maybe if they partner with someone other than LG for the next Nexus it might work out better (Sony maybe?).

Thats nothing to do with it. Sony make nice sensors but crappy camera software. What sensor does the N5 use anyway? I wouldn't be at all surprised if it uses a Sony sensor.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Thats nothing to do with it. Sony make nice sensors but crappy camera software. What sensor does the N5 use anyway? I wouldn't be at all surprised if it uses a Sony sensor.

The iPhone users Sony sensors too. Google just needs to get its act together when implementing the camera. The GS4 uses a Sony sensor too and look how lightning fast the image capture is and its got a great burst mode.

 

[WelshBloke]

The iPhone users Sony sensors too. Google just needs to get its act together when implementing the camera. The GS4 uses a Sony sensor too and look how lightning fast the image capture is and its got a great burst mode.

I agree. The crappy Nexus camera is all to do with Google. They are working with the same hardware as everyone else, theres no reason they cant get it right as well.

 

[lopri]

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/05/nexus-5-review/
BGR: http://bgr.com/2013/11/06/google-nexus-5-review/

 

[WelshBloke]

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/05/nexus-5-review/
BGR: http://bgr.com/2013/11/06/google-nexus-5-review/

Yeah those are just reinforcing the fact that the camera and battery life are Meh! at best.

It really annoying. I've come to terms with the fact that Google are against removable storage but theres no possible reason to have a crappy camera and bad battery life on a phone.

 

[lopri]

Well, to be fair stand-by battery performance has been among the best of any Android phone that I have touched, which is a pleasant surprise after the initial disappointment. For me it is as important as battery performance under active use and perhaps for many others.

 

[WelshBloke]

Well, to be fair stand-by battery performance has been among the best of any Android phone that I have touched, which is a pleasant surprise after the initial disappointment. For me it is as important as battery performance under active use and perhaps for many others.

Stand by battery use is very, very dependent on what you've got installed and what you background sync. My phone already lasts more than a day if I don't use it hard, I'm not thinking that standby drain is much of a problem now. Yes as a technical issue it could be improved but as long as I can take it off the charger at the start of the day and it lasts to the end of the day when it goes back on the charger I dont have a problem.

Active battery use can definitely drain phones in less than a day and that still is a problem, thats what I want Google to address.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Stand by battery use is very, very dependent on what you've got installed and what you background sync. My phone already lasts more than a day if I don't use it hard, I'm not thinking that standby drain is much of a problem now. Yes as a technical issue it could be improved but as long as I can take it off the charger at the start of the day and it lasts to the end of the day when it goes back on the charger I dont have a problem.

Active battery use can definitely drain phones in less than a day and that still is a problem, thats what I want Google to address.

Standby battery was a huge issue on the Nexus 4 due to the msm_hsic wakelocks.

 

[swilli89]

Yeah those are just reinforcing the fact that the camera and battery life are Meh! at best.

It really annoying. I've come to terms with the fact that Google are against removable storage but theres no possible reason to have a crappy camera and bad battery life on a phone.

Phonearena review - "Regardless, we have to admit that we’re somewhat surprised by the camera's quality! It’s not just good, but really good in fact – enough to rival even some of the top shooters out there. "

From my actual experience the camera is better than my Optimus G. Easily qualifies as being a good camera to me. Low light performance is a surprise in that its quite good in dark rooms in HDR mode.

Right now my nexus is sitting at 40% with 4 hours of screen on time at about 60% brightness. Total time off the charger is about 15 hours. I have been using it as much as I can just to try to drain it before the day's end and I am having trouble doing that. Battery life so far seems good.

I'm not sure what you are reading to come up with your conclusions.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Phonearena review - "Regardless, we have to admit that we’re somewhat surprised by the camera's quality! It’s not just good, but really good in fact – enough to rival even some of the top shooters out there. "

From my actual experience the camera is better than my Optimus G. Easily qualifies as being a good camera to me. Low light performance is a surprise in that its quite good in dark rooms in HDR mode.

Right now my nexus is sitting at 40% with 4 hours of screen on time at about 60% brightness. Total time off the charger is about 15 hours. I have been using it as much as I can just to try to drain it before the day's end and I am having trouble doing that. Battery life so far seems good.

I'm not sure what you are reading to come up with your conclusions.

There's your problem. The Optimus G had a terrible camera too, and pretty much every smartphone of that era outshot it.

 

[WelshBloke]

Phonearena review - "Regardless, we have to admit that we’re somewhat surprised by the camera's quality! It’s not just good, but really good in fact – enough to rival even some of the top shooters out there. "

From my actual experience the camera is better than my Optimus G. Easily qualifies as being a good camera to me. Low light performance is a surprise in that its quite good in dark rooms in HDR mode.

Right now my nexus is sitting at 40% with 4 hours of screen on time at about 60% brightness. Total time off the charger is about 15 hours. I have been using it as much as I can just to try to drain it before the day's end and I am having trouble doing that. Battery life so far seems good.

I'm not sure what you are reading to come up with your conclusions.

I was commenting on those two reviews actually.

One of the main things that bothers me about the camera is the massive reported shutter lag. It doesnt matter how fantastic the camera is (and I've not seen anyone call it fantastic yet) if all your subjects have moved on before you get to take the picture.

Its nice that the battery is working for you but most of the reviews have it at adequate at best.

 

[swilli89]

I was commenting on those two reviews actually.

One of the main things that bothers me about the camera is the massive reported shutter lag. It doesnt matter how fantastic the camera is (and I've not seen anyone call it fantastic yet) if all your subjects have moved on before you get to take the picture.

Its nice that the battery is working for you but most of the reviews have it at adequate at best.

There are some hard numbers reported as far as shutter speed is concerned in this review

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Google-Nexus-5-Review_id3479/page/4

Those numbers show that its about on par with a Galaxy S4 in both normal and HDR modes. I haven't read any complains about the GS4's shutter speed.

You are citing "reported" camera speed but I read a post by you that made me think you had a N5. Have you tried the camera personally? I took some pictures with it side by side with an iPhone 4s and in HDR mode the Nexus wins by a good margin.

 

[openwheel]

Standby battery was a huge issue on the Nexus 4 due to the msm_hsic wakelocks.

Why are you always "slamming Google"?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I was commenting on those two reviews actually.

One of the main things that bothers me about the camera is the massive reported shutter lag. It doesnt matter how fantastic the camera is (and I've not seen anyone call it fantastic yet) if all your subjects have moved on before you get to take the picture.

Its nice that the battery is working for you but most of the reviews have it at adequate at best.

To address the battery thing, I think we have two issues here. Standby and active battery use. I'll go out on a limb with some speculation here, and feel free to shoot me down.

In idle:

• LTE also helps with the 3G band overloading at least in big cities
• No more msm_hsic wakelock which reduces the wake of this phone. This to me was the biggest culprit of bad battery in the Nexus 4. The more your phone stays awake, the more sync operations tend to run. I used to see Google+ at 3-4 minutes of sync in a morning easily even when I get 0 notifications through the day.
• Either the new Google Play Services or Location Services is better because it seems like turning off location reporting and location history actually reduces the wakelock for nlpcollectorwakelock. I still got a huge wakelock on the N4, but this may also be because of the msm_hsic wakelock contributing.

In active use:

• 5" and 1080p drains more than the N4
• Screen appears to be on the bright side compared to my N4 on stock auto brightness curve.
• The N5 adds LTE over the N4, which promotes the race to idle idea.
• No GRAM.

So as a result, I think what we're seeing is good idle, but meh active use. In active use, you're going against phones with similar specs, and so the 2300mah battery will be a disadvantage. The increased brightness might be a handicap too. This might be why we see the ArsTechnica and PhoneArena benchmarks show the N5 and N4 roughly equal in the battery rundown test for web browsing.

The issue is that with these battery rundown tests, you only get a 1 dimensional look at things, and that's under active use. Real world use is a combination of idle and active use. That's why most users are reporting better battery on the N5 over the N4, whereas synthetic benchmarks are not showing that large improvement.

This is why I've been a huge proponent of GSM Arena's endurance rating. It's not perfect, but it's the only benchmark out there that allows us to compare phones at this moment that accounts for idle time. No other site seems to have ANY data on standby time. And based on what I've gathered from GSM Arena's numbers they somewhat make sense....

Galaxy Nexus (GSM): 31h <== this is likely worse on Verizon LTE
Nexus 4: 32h
Galaxy S2: 42h
iPhone 5: 51h
Galaxy S4: 64h

I own the 3 phones in the middle there and I can tell you these numbers roughly make sense with what I'm seeing in daily use. The Nexus 4 I have to fight for to make it last the day, whereas the iPhone 5 I consistently forget to charge and do a quick 30 minute charge in my car in the morning before heading into the office. Even then it'll start the morning at like 40%, which is more than enough.

I'm curious to see where the N5 stands, but so far the idle battery life looks excellent (remember, my standard is the Nexus 4, so it's a low bar), but the active battery use looks meh (using other benchmarks). I'd like to see GSM Arena and Anandtech's numbers before having a more definitive opinion of the N5's battery.

 

[lopri]

I've added Phone Arena review in the first post. Thank you, WelshBloke.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Why are you always "slamming Google"?

How is that slamming Google? It's a legitimate issue with the phone. I didn't say Google sucks because if it. I'm just saying the device had battery issues and that was one of the reasons for the battery issues.

Have you provided ANY insights in any meaningful discussions? Other than saying the fingerprint scanner is a gimmick and that iMessage sucks?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

There are some hard numbers reported as far as shutter speed is concerned in this review

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Google-Nexus-5-Review_id3479/page/4

Those numbers show that its about on par with a Galaxy S4 in both normal and HDR modes. I haven't read any complains about the GS4's shutter speed.

You are citing "reported" camera speed but I read a post by you that made me think you had a N5. Have you tried the camera personally? I took some pictures with it side by side with an iPhone 4s and in HDR mode the Nexus wins by a good margin.

I'm going to attack their test method here. This includes opening the camera app up. While opening the camera app has some delay, this isn't the delay most people are complaining about.

I only have 2 hands, and if I had a GoPro right now, I could show you my iPhone 5 and Nexus 5 side by side. When you press the shutter button (I'm using volume down on both), the Nexus 5 takes TWICE as long to take the photo. This is the lag people are talking about.

As for HDR, the iPhone is far faster as well. GSM Arena doesn't have a true shutter lag measure, and its 3.7 seconds is probably including launching the camera app on the iPhone. The iPhone takes the 3 photos almost immediately because it seems I really have to be moving for the photos to come out blurry. The N5 has to sit really still to take the photos. You can compare burst speeds on either phone and the iPhone 5 will shoot as fast as you click while the N5 seems to take 1-2 photos per second tops. This should tell you how slow HDR is on either phone.

 

[swilli89]

I've added Phone Arena review in the first post. Thank you, WelshBloke.

I posted the phonearena review.

 

[lopri]

I posted the phonearena review.

Oops, sorry. Thank you swilli89. ^^

Edit: Phone Arena review documents the physical dimensions of competing phones. I wonder how much more battery can be squeezed in by 1mm increase in phone's thickness? (and how much would it weigh?)

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Google-Nexus-5-Review_id3479

 

[swilli89]

Oops, sorry. Thank you swilli89. ^^

Edit: Phone Arena review documents the physical dimensions of competing phones. I wonder how much more battery can be squeezed in by 1mm increase in phone's thickness? (and how much would it weigh?)

^^This!!! Nexus 5 is actually slightly thinner than Nexus 4 which was already plenty thin. I would even accept a 2mm increase in thickness for a larger battery.

I have noticed a pretty negative aspect of the phone though. Earbud volume is pretty abysmal. The iphone 4s I have to compare it to can crank out enough volume to where I need to put it down a notch even when I really want a loud volume (especially when exercising). I was walking today and even turned powerAMPs preamp setting all the way up and it was nowhere near loud enough. I have now had this issue on all three of the android phones I have owned. External speaker volume is ok but headphone volume is way too low.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

^^This!!! Nexus 5 is actually slightly thinner than Nexus 4 which was already plenty thin. I would even accept a 2mm increase in thickness for a larger battery.

I have noticed a pretty negative aspect of the phone though. Earbud volume is pretty abysmal. The iphone 4s I have to compare it to can crank out enough volume to where I need to put it down a notch even when I really want a loud volume (especially when exercising). I was walking today and even turned powerAMPs preamp setting all the way up and it was nowhere near loud enough. I have now had this issue on all three of the android phones I have owned. External speaker volume is ok but headphone volume is way too low.

The N4 is not thin.

N4: 9.1mm
HTC One X: 8.9mm
Galaxy S3: 8.6mm
iPhone 5: 7.6mm
Galaxy Nexus: 8.94mm

 

[Red Storm]

The N4 is not thin.

N4: 9.1mm
HTC One X: 8.9mm
Galaxy S3: 8.6mm
iPhone 5: 7.6mm
Galaxy Nexus: 8.94mm

Well it's not thick.

 

[openwheel]

......
I have noticed a pretty negative aspect of the phone though. Earbud volume is pretty abysmal. The iphone 4s I have to compare it to can crank out enough volume to where I need to put it down a notch even when I really want a loud volume (especially when exercising). ...

Nexus phones have been mediocre for audiophiles. GNex was decent, but Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 both don't work well with high impedance headphones. They are perfectly fine for earbuds though, even my Etymotics work well with Nexus 4 with plenty of headroom. iPhones have historically been better as portable media player. Back in Galaxy S days, Android was quite good, but not anymore.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well it's not thick.

Well then what is it then? It's thicker than all the other phones in its generation.

Nexus phones have been mediocre for audiophiles. GNex was decent, but Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 both don't work well with high impedance headphones. They are perfectly fine for earbuds though, even my Etymotics work well with Nexus 4 with plenty of headroom. iPhones have historically been better as portable media player. Back in Galaxy S days, Android was quite good, but not anymore.

Why is Android not good anymore? The S4 and HTC One do well in audio quality. Google just doesn't give a damn to use higher quality components for its Nexus phones.