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Having both the hardware and software closely developed together by one company (Google) will make an impact on battery life. Stock Android having less feature-creep will also make an impact. And finally, Android 4.4 may be slightly more power efficient than 4.3, also making an impact.
In theory that sounds plausible, but I don't think any Nexus device has had better battery life than its specs imply in the past. Sometimes it's been worse (Nexus 4). I think it's likely the Nexus 5 will have less battery life than the S4, with on screen time being a bit more than 3.5 hours vs. 4 hours in the S4 from the same workload.
However the price is a fair point - at 350 it's not even competing against against midrange phones, but over 2 year old phones. Having OK battery life with all the other specs is more than a fair compromise and still a screaming deal. I'll probably pick one up for the heck of it at that price.
It always amazes me that people can justify paying $650-700 on a phone. That's like paying $50,000 for a Honda Civic.
When the iphone came out I had just upgraded my PC for like $500. Buying a phone for more than I can upgrade my computer makes no sense. Yet two of my friends went out and bought them on the spot.
Looking forward to the Nexus 5. It's not perfect but it's so much cheaper that it makes sense for me.
There is some high end phones that their battery life are not better than S4, and they're still sold well before. You can go back to your flip phone, I'd get Nexus 5 when it comes out then.Well, that would suck. If the battery life is going to be worse than the Galaxy S4 what is the point of even having a smartphone? Might as well get an old flip phone and do everything else on a desktop.
Show me any high end phone that is sold less than $400 like Nexus 5The common misconception is that phones cost so much to begin with. All the companies sells their high end phones for ~$650 so they can make hundreds of dollars in profit off every phone and people think that anything cheaper must be low end. The Nexus line proves that is incorrect. It's not that the Nexus phones are low priced. They are reasonably priced. All other phones are overpriced.
It always amazes me that people can justify paying $650-700 on a phone. That's like paying $50,000 for a Honda Civic.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're thinking of it as just a phone. For me and many others, smartphones are our main computers now.
That might be true(although it would suck, a touch screen and more specifically a touch keyboard is awkward to use for more than just very basic stuff.) but that still doesn't justify the fact that most phones are massively over priced. No phone should be more than $350-400. I don't think AViking's point had anything to do with how many people use smartphones as their main device versus a desktop as their main device. I think his point was that a desktop(which actually costs more to make than a smartphone) costs less than a smartphone.
I don't know how much the Nexus 5 costs to make but based on the cost of other phones I'm guessing about $225. Add in other costs and it is likely to be about $300 total cost. That means it could be sold for $300 with no loss or profit. Of course the manufacturers are in the business to make money and want, and deserve, to profit for their work. The manufacturers can either choose to sell their phones at a reasonable price of $350-400 and profit $50-100 per phone or they rip off their customers and sell them at $650+ and profit $350+ per phone. Most people in America sign contracts and pay the subsidized price for the phone so they don't really see the true cost.
"Costs" includes other costs not found on a bill of materials.
I know. I accounted for that. Based on other phones the bill of materials is only slightly over $200. Of course I don't know the exact BOM cost for all phones but slightly over $200 seems to be pretty standard. I account for those extra costs, and profit, when I said phones should be $350-400.
Consider the Galaxy S4. BOM + assembly costs = ~$235. It sells unlocked for $650. The difference is $415 which goes to all other costs AND profits. Most of that extra $415 is profit.
The whole point is that battery life is a moving target, like everything else tech related.Please tell me what you would consider "good" battery life? How long would you want to be able between charges? How much screen on time would you expect during that off the charger time?
The whole point is that battery life is a moving target, like everything else tech related.
Good is only relative. In Anandtech's review, the S4 had middle-of-the-road performance on WiFi browsing, somewhat better on cellular network browsing, and excellent performance when the screen was off (talk time, hotspot). For the average smartphone owner, 4 hours of screen time and 14 hours off charger is good enough performance to make it through their day. For the rest of us, there are extended batteries, spare batteries, power banks, car chargers, and ultimately phones that offer better battery life with tradeoffs (smaller screens, non-removable batteries).
Well, that would suck. If the battery life is going to be worse than the Galaxy S4 what is the point of even having a smartphone? Might as well get an old flip phone and do everything else on a desktop.
The common misconception is that phones cost so much to begin with. All the companies sells their high end phones for ~$650 so they can make hundreds of dollars in profit off every phone and people think that anything cheaper must be low end. The Nexus line proves that is incorrect. It's not that the Nexus phones are low priced. They are reasonably priced. All other phones are overpriced.
It always amazes me that people can justify paying $650-700 on a phone. That's like paying $50,000 for a Honda Civic.
Not sure what your point is. Unless you can buy a competing flagship at cost, the base cost is irrelevant. It's perfectly apt to compare the retail price of $350 vs $650 and make value judgements. Or are you advising no one buys any smartphone and sticks to dumb phones.
The thing you don't seem to understand is that the $350-400 isn't the base cost. My point is that the whole of idea of the retail cost being $650 is absolutely ridiculous.
Again what's your point? Everyone in the thread understands that the BOM of phones are less than their retail price, in most cases exorbitantly. Everyone also understands there are R&D, marketing, etc costs that BOM doesn't factor in. Everyone also understands that even with those costs, companies like Apple and Samsung are making huge margins on their phones. Everyone understands that Google does away with the vast majority of margins in selling their Nexus devices.
I think you're trying to say you think Google should still have put a larger battery in the Nexus 5 - so does everyone else. If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. I actually think Google did it intentionally to not totally piss off their rest of the Android OEMs by selling a fully competitive flagship phone at 1/2 the price.
So now it's slightly and intentionally compromised, making it a true decision point for the high end consumer.
Samsung's sold what? 20 million+ Galaxy S4s? If it makes $400 per phone, that would be $8 billion in profits. Samsung 9.4 billion last quarter. I have a hard time believing that Samsung makes $400 per phone.
Let's please stop using BOM pricing as the true cost of a phone.
I don't blame you for being upset at how the market is turning out, but realistically Google is and should be more concerned with their business partners than a few tech nerds who might not even buy their product.
I never said BOM was the true cost of the phone or that Samsung made $400 a phone but they do make several hundred. What I said was that there is a HUGE gap between BOM and true cost. I never claimed that Samsung made $400 per phone but if it was less than $200-250 I would be very surprised. I wouldn't be surprised at all if close to half of Samsung's profits last quarter came from the Galaxy S4 alone.
Also, if Samsung has sold 20 million S4s that would be from when it came out which is more than just last quarter.
Cant wait for this thing to come out.. All ready to jump over to tmobile $30 plan
I don't have the July - Oct stats, but as of July, they sold 24 million S4s. Their profit was 6.96 billion that quarter. If all that was S4 profit, it would be $290 per phone. I'm estimating they sold another 20 million during July - Oct, but I may be wrong. So instead of guessing, let's just use the Q2 numbers.