Nexus 5 Reviews

[zerogear]

Nexus 5 definitely adjusts brightness way too aggressively -- and way too bright.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I think standard brightness is good, but it would be interesting to record a set of data that simulates a series of standard lighting conditions someone would go through and put a phone through that.

Well something like standard office lighting would make sense to me. That's indoors lighting to most people. I know it won't favor someone who uses their phone outside 100% of the time, but 50% or 200 nits doesn't suit everyone either.

I think my point of using auto brightness was to capture the different brightness curves. If the N5 is indeed too bright, that will be a strike against it for battery life. It makes sense to let the user know that under a typical setup, the N5 will have a weaker battery than it should due to the screen being so bright, and if indeed the N5 is the monster in benchmarks, that it could be even better once the screen brightness is tuned to a more reasonable setting.

The reason why I stress for autobrightness is more for the fact that it simulates real world conditions that users go through. Otherwise if you try to normalize everything like capping screen brightness, one could make the argument that all phones should run AOSP for benchmarking, or all phones should have capped CPU speeds so that it purely measures SoC generation efficiency, etc. If you normalize everything, in the end all you're comparing is raw battery capacity.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Well something like standard office lighting would make sense to me. That's indoors lighting to most people. I know it won't favor someone who uses their phone outside 100% of the time, but 50% or 200 nits doesn't suit everyone either.

I think my point of using auto brightness was to capture the different brightness curves. If the N5 is indeed too bright, that will be a strike against it for battery life. It makes sense to let the user know that under a typical setup, the N5 will have a weaker battery than it should due to the screen being so bright, and if indeed the N5 is the monster in benchmarks, that it could be even better once the screen brightness is tuned to a more reasonable setting.

The reason why I stress for autobrightness is more for the fact that it simulates real world conditions that users go through. Otherwise if you try to normalize everything like capping screen brightness, one could make the argument that all phones should run AOSP for benchmarking, or all phones should have capped CPU speeds so that it purely measures SoC generation efficiency, etc. If you normalize everything, in the end all you're comparing is raw battery capacity.

^Of course not - we're just talking brightness here. That would be true if every phone ran the same OS with the same pre-installed apps, had the same screen resolution and technology and used the same SoC. Different SoC's have different power draw, not to mention different radios (ie. the Nexus 5 and Note 3 have envelope tracking for reduced power draw).

Then there's the difference in background apps stealing CPU cycles under Android 4.x (Nexus), HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz, whatever LG's is called, etc.

Then there's the difference between AMOLED & IPS, and 1080p vs 720p, etc, different screen sizes, etc.

 

[thecapsaicinkid]

If you make the N5 light sensor ramp the brightness deliberately and then toggle auto off/on again, you will see it instantly drop to more sensible levels. It knows it's too bright but seems to have some sort of built in delay when dimming.

 

[Radeon962]

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...oid-police-authors-takes-on-the-latest-nexus/

Not sure if this review has been linked but nice review.

 

[dawheat]

Have you guys tried Lux Dash to control auto brightness? Far better than the Samsung built-in feature for the opposite reasons (by default too dim).

Even if the auto Lux Dash settings are too bright, you can add custom calibrations to lower it to your preference across the entire ambient light range.

 

[jiffylube1024]

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...oid-police-authors-takes-on-the-latest-nexus/

Not sure if this review has been linked but nice review.

Good review(s) there. I totally Agree with Ryan's conclusion:

Can we just step back for a moment from grumbling about mediocre camera performance and a less that stellar speaker? This phone costs $350, and I don't think there's another Android device out there I'd rather use.

Pretty much how I feel too. The phone is $350 (really $400 for me - 32GB version) and I'd rather use it over any other Android phone out there. The camera UI still needs some work, IMO, and apps need to be optimized for full screen view, but Android 4.4 is a solid update and the phone is great.

 

[lopri]

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...oid-police-authors-takes-on-the-latest-nexus/

Not sure if this review has been linked but nice review.

Added to the OP. Thank you, Radeon962.

 

[ponyo]

Good review(s) there. I totally Agree with Ryan's conclusion:



Pretty much how I feel too. The phone is $350 (really $400 for me - 32GB version) and I'd rather use it over any other Android phone out there. The camera UI still needs some work, IMO, and apps need to be optimized for full screen view, but Android 4.4 is a solid update and the phone is great.

It's more like $450 after taxes and shipping. It's a good deal if you need a phone for prepaid but postpaid subsidized users can get their choice of phones for $0-$200.

 

[OS]

Some states you have to pay tax on the full retail price of the phone upfront. So say 9% on a $650 phone is $58.50, or ~$250 upfront on contract. Thanks stupid, bankrupt state govs. Some providers even charge a stupid activation fee like $30, though usually you can get that waived, hate contracts myself.

 

[Seven]

It's more like $450 after taxes and shipping. It's a good deal if you need a phone for prepaid but postpaid subsidized users can get their choice of phones for $0-$200.

Its a good deal all around. A subsidized phone will not be any cheaper, imo.

 

[lopri]

Trusted Reviews -> http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/google-nexus-4-1108999/review
The Telegraph -> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...us-5-review-the-best-phone-at-this-price.html
Forbes -> http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2013/11/02/review-of-googles-nexus-5-smartphone/
Gizmodo -> http://gizmodo.com/nexus-5-review-the-best-is-still-the-best-especially-1458003288

OP updated for the last time.

 

[lothar]

Well something like standard office lighting would make sense to me. That's indoors lighting to most people. I know it won't favor someone who uses their phone outside 100% of the time, but 50% or 200 nits doesn't suit everyone either.

I think my point of using auto brightness was to capture the different brightness curves. If the N5 is indeed too bright, that will be a strike against it for battery life. It makes sense to let the user know that under a typical setup, the N5 will have a weaker battery than it should due to the screen being so bright, and if indeed the N5 is the monster in benchmarks, that it could be even better once the screen brightness is tuned to a more reasonable setting.

The reason why I stress for autobrightness is more for the fact that it simulates real world conditions that users go through. Otherwise if you try to normalize everything like capping screen brightness, one could make the argument that all phones should run AOSP for benchmarking, or all phones should have capped CPU speeds so that it purely measures SoC generation efficiency, etc. If you normalize everything, in the end all you're comparing is raw battery capacity.

Auto brightness for the most part is nothing but a sham.
I stopped using auto brightness on all my phones when I read this article over 3 years ago.
http://www.displaymate.com/AutoBrightness_Controls_2.htm
If you read that article, you'll see that "auto brightness" does not in anyway simulate real world conditions.

Your suggestion won't do much of anything.
If anything, it will simply embolden OEMs like Samsung, LG, and HTC to cheat like they already do today in Android benchmarks.
Hmmm...Testing battery life based on an overly aggressive "auto brightness" settings of a particular OEM and not a fixed luminance like 200 nits? :hmm:
Let the race to the bottom begin...On your mark...get set...GO!!!

Just to understand it correctly, you are advocating testing phones exactly as they are delivered by the OEMs with absolutely no modifications done be tech sites to remove cheating and other "questionable" tactics?
Do you also believe that reviewers should not bother repackaging GLBenchmark and other Android benchmarks, or create some kind of "StealthBench" and just use the standard benchmarks that have hidden code in TouchWiz to make them run faster on Samsung's devices and never throttle?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Auto brightness for the most part is nothing but a sham.
I stopped using auto brightness on all my phones when I read this article over 3 years ago.
http://www.displaymate.com/AutoBrightness_Controls_2.htm

So that article shows that autobrightness is all over the place. However, I too have studied autobrightness, and if you look at the CM Jira, I actually specifically opened an issue regarding autobrightness in CyanogenMod and had a lengthy discussion with the developer. The best approximation of how AOSP does brightness with respect to output is a cubic spline.

The article is confusing in that its focused on measuring luminance. Nowhere does Apple or Google say that the slider bar is a linear scale for luminance. Also this site has very limited data. Has anyone bothered to research how newer devices work with auto brightness?

If you read that article, you'll see that "auto brightness" does not in anyway simulate real world conditions.

Once again I think you're focused on the issues of autobrightness rather than what I'm talking about. No where did I say auto brightness simulates real world conditions. I suggested benchmarking with autobrightness because it simulates what most people experience. Benchmarks are about real world benchmarks, no?

Your suggestion won't do much of anything.
If anything, it will simply embolden OEMs like Samsung, LG, and HTC to cheat like they already do today in Android benchmarks.
Hmmm...Testing battery life based on an overly aggressive "auto brightness" settings of a particular OEM and not a fixed luminance like 200 nits? :hmm:
Let the race to the bottom begin...On your mark...get set...GO!!!

The manufacturer's aren't "cheating" on auto brightness right now, and even if they are, that's their loss. You don't think users won't see that their iPhone screen will be dark as hell unless they step out in to the sun or something? The fact is auto brightness works for the vast majority of users, and while it could possibly be better, I, like many other users are perfectly content with it. What makes most users more capable at calibrating a good brightness curve unless we have the right tools? Probably nothing. It's as good as letting users tune RGB to their liking. Just look at the N4 screen calibration thread. Most people are shooting for punchy AMOLED colors and they call that "good."

Until cheating on auto brightness is actually an issue where people feel the need to get OFF auto brightness, it makes more sense to have a benchmark apply to more users than the few users who calibrate their screens to 200 nits, which I'm sure you don't do either.

Just to understand it correctly, you are advocating testing phones exactly as they are delivered by the OEMs with absolutely no modifications done be tech sites to remove cheating and other "questionable" tactics?

There's clear motives in cheating for performance benchmarks where users are obsessing over gigahertz, RAM, and bar charts. Until cheating for battery tests is an actual issue, let's not fabricate a problem.

Do you also believe that reviewers should not bother repackaging GLBenchmark and other Android benchmarks, or create some kind of "StealthBench" and just use the standard benchmarks that have hidden code in TouchWiz to make them run faster on Samsung's devices and never throttle?

I think you're obsessing over the cheating incident with Samsung. These battery rundown tests are typically homemade scripts so it's not something that easy to optimize for. Can you show me where there's battery benchmark cheating right now?

Now if you just take a step backwards from this whole cheating discussion and understand what I'm saying, then perhaps it would make sense. Hypothetically speaking, if the Nexus 5 is too bright in most conditions and eats up 30% more power than other screens, then calibrating at 200 nits would negate that disadvantage. So using a fixed brightness test, one might see the N5 do pretty well, but when they actually use the N5, they find their phone performs significantly worse. Then what? What does that benchmark even mean? How many users will figure out to set their own brightness curves? I guarantee you the most other users (excluding power users) will do is manually set the brightness to some more reasonable level. The users who I see manually set brightness have done it for fear of battery issues, and they typically set their phones far too dim to even be comfortable. So at this point one could argue no battery benchmark matters anymore. I'm simply advocating for benchmarks to show out of the box performance so that people know what they're getting into. If we're all about equalization, then I would push for all phones to be benched on AOSP ROMs and CPUs to be capped at 1ghz.

 

[Walkop]

So that article shows that autobrightness is all over the place. However, I too have studied autobrightness, and if you look at the CM Jira, I actually specifically opened an issue regarding autobrightness in CyanogenMod and had a lengthy discussion with the developer...

For all your points and thorough speech, your argument is fundamentally flawed.

1. screen brightness and CPU power are TOTALLY different beasts. With a CPU, you test them in real-world situations or benchmarks to get a feasible, understandable output. A similar comparison is graphics power. That output is FPS, for example.

What you're really testing in this case is efficiency. If it gets high FPS, but low 3D graphics battery performance, you can infer that the battery is weak or the SoC isn't very efficient.

There are many variables inherent to each SoC which are what give each SoC their own characteristics! You can't just match the clock speeds and say "look! Its fair". That is not an accurate representation.

The nit-output is the same thing, except you can lock the "FPS" so to speak, and purely test efficiency. Thats all you should really care about in a display; power efficiency at a certain brightness. A main point: no-one I know uses auto-brightness. They set it themselves.

Setting all displays to 200 nits is the best way to do this. Its the perfect test. Every display has its unique qualities. Do you want to replace the AMOLED display in the Moto X with an LCD to make the test 'fair'? No. You need a good equalizer that can scale to the real world, and setting a specific nit brightness level is the best way to do that currently.