Leaked Manual Reveals Details On Google's Nexus 5 177
Features of Google's next Nexus phone have finally been outed, along with confirmation that the phone will be built by LG, as a result of a leaked service manual draft; here are some of the details as described at TechCrunch: "The new Nexus will likely be available in 16 or 32GB variants, and will feature an LTE radio and an 8-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (there’s no mention of that crazy Nikon tech, though). NFC, wireless charging, and that lovely little notification light are back, too, but don’t expect a huge boost in longevity — it’s going to pack a sealed 2,300mAh battery, up slightly from the 2100mAh cell that powered last year’s Nexus 4. That spec sheet should sound familiar to people who took notice of what happened with the Nexus 4. Just as that device was built from the foundation laid by the LG Optimus G, the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2."
Same with every nexus device (Score:5, Insightful)
Every Nexus device going back the very first has been an existing phone with a few minor upgrades at most and a different set of software installed. Why would anyone expect different this time? My only surprise is that Google hasn't started having their Motorola arm manufacture them yet. Probably due to not wanting to push OEMs to other options.
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I think Google is very smart to use other OEMs, as it gives them more scale to compete, keeping the Android market healthier. Motorola and Samsung (in 2013) don't need it, but LG can certainly do with more scale.
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Hmmm which phone was the Galaxy Nexus based on, then? The Nexus 4?
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That's wrong. I own the Galaxy Nexus and I've owned a Galaxy SII - NOT the same.
The Nexus S was practically a Galaxy S... but after that?
Re:Same with every nexus device (Score:5, Informative)
The Galaxy Nexus was pretty much in a league of it's own at the time. Seems like Samsung was really pushing for it.
The Nexus One was basically an HTC Desire.
The Nexus S was pretty much a Galaxy S.
The Nexus 4 is very close (internally) to the LG Optimus G.
This new Nexus 5 looks like will be based on an LG G2
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HTC Desire only change wat the trackball
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You're thinking of the NExus One. The Galaxy Nexus is a different phone...
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Every Nexus device going back the very first has been an existing phone with a few minor upgrades at most and a different set of software installed.
And this is the brilliant part of it.
Google has zero experience with HW, however they're excellent with simple, functional yet extremely powerful software.
Samsung, LG, HTC and others make great hardware but shit software with crapily reskinned version of Android and social media up the wazoo. If you wanted something more spartan or something that was easily modifiable on great hardware you wanted a Nexus device.
However I'm a bit disappointed that we haven't seen anything decent from Moto. Moto make
Re:Same with every nexus device (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes but I expect more out of Apple because they brazenly claim to be superior to everyone else, and yet offer trivial updates and no real innovation for the first 6 versions of their iPhone, and even the iPhone 5s refresh is only skin deep in terms of innovation.
I will start calling Google out when they have gone through 6 intervals of Nexus X devices and nothing has changed except the thickness of the phone, but the differences in Nexus 4 to 5 are more numerous than the differences between even iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, so they have a little more edge on innovation then Apple does.
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Crazy tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't been following closely enough to know what the "crazy Nikon tech" is - anyone care to enlighten me? Google doesn't give relevant info...
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The rumor about having a MEMS camera was based on someone checking the leaked phone logs, and seeing that the Sony sensor used by the camera was the same sensor used by the company that builds MEMS cameras. In other words, a leap of hope.
Re:Crazy tech? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that 95% of the market isn't serious about taking photographs. That's why photography studios across the country died- ubiquitous smart phone cameras were good enough. Same for professional photographers- most of them have found new careers, because except for weddings there's no demand anymore.
Digital camera sales have plateaued and are now decreasing (by 18% year over year worldwide, 43% in north america). Nobody carries a camera around anymore, phones take a good enough picture (probably just as good given the skills of the people using them) and are more convenient to carry- heck you're carrying them anyway. At parties where before a couple people might bring their cameras, now nobody does- they pull out their phone.
So yeah, a better smart phone camera would address a large market- everyone who enjoys taking photos, but doesn't do art photos. I know a good number of people who tossed their digital cameras away but take the camera into consideration when buying a phone.
Re:Crazy tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably, the photos most people take with a smartphone are actually better than they would take with a "real" camera. As sensor size increases, sensitivity to focus also increases. If you don't know how to properly use the autofocus of your "real" camera, you'll get a lot of out of focus images. On a camera phone, it's a lot easier and there isn't a whole lot of advantage for a point and shoot over a smartphone.
If you know what you are doing, the difference between a smartphone and a DSLR is night and day, but most people don't. Note, I say this as a professional photographer that shoots weddings with a Canon 5D Mark iii. I do it as a part time gig specifically because the impact on the market is quite real since the images are good enough for most people and even then, people flood in to the market thinking they can shoot weddings because they had some "good" facebook photos and bought an entry level DSLR with a kit lens.
The fact is, the main thing that differentiates professional photographers from the amateur has very little to do with the photography. Even if you know how to use the gear perfectly, doing a good, professional job is far more about making the client comfortable, having the experience to avoid being overly noticeable while capturing the key moments, having the ability to interact with people in such a way to get both good posed and candid shots and the ability to run a business and sell yourself. The actual ability to take photos is the easiest 10% of what it takes to do the job.
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Arguably, the photos most people take with a smartphone are actually better than they would take with a "real" camera. As sensor size increases, sensitivity to focus also increases.
Just a proper lens which can change focus will improve shots.
But the reason a lot of people produce worse shots with a DSLR than a smart phone is that they are just crap photographers. Watch them fumble with focusing, let alone understanding the effects of changing aperture and film speed (erm, not sure what the digital equivalent is called). They dont even know what a light meter is, so if you give them a camera that does more and requires more work from the user it's inevitable that quality is lost. Go
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Hey mjwx, for legacy SLRs I agree with you, but tech has moved forward a bunch since then. A modern DSLR is well capable of handling the metering for a user just as well as a smartphone or point and shoot, so that really isn't what impacts the performance of a beginner using a DSLR. To really make the most of it, you need to understand the exposure triangle, but you can get by using a DSLR and take better photos than a point and shoot with no understanding of exposure triangle. (Also, FYI, ISO is still c
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There are at least one or two smartphone cameras that have image stabilization now. There are also one or two smartphones that include an optical zoom, though they are really more specialty devices. Better lenses I'd say is debatable, on a high end point and shoot, sure, but there are some pretty bad lenses on some point and shoots too. The resolution is less of an issue because diffraction limiting is going to prevent a lot of that gain from being realized with the higher resolution point and shoot, tho
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I'm saying that focus makes people suck taking photos with DSLRs. Focus on camera phones is comparatively forgiving due to the sensor size producing less background blur (in fact, it makes background blur near impossible.) This results in a wider depth of field, so focus doesn't have to be spot on. When you move to a DSLR, the sensitivity to choosing the proper focal point increases drastically. It allows things like getting bokeh, but it also requires being more careful how you shoot and a beginner isn
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Ehh, a lot of that is just quantity though. I do shoot consistently better images than an amateur, but the name of the game in professional photography is always quantity. Too many factors you can't control. I can do everything perfect, but a last second blink or movement can ruin the shot. At a typical wedding, I'll shoot 3000 or so photos. Maybe 1 in 10 of them will be what I would rate as a really great photo, but that still winds up being 300 great photos. Even if an amateur's rate is more like 1
Re:Crazy tech? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Crazy tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
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What, my eyes? My memory? Whoa, that's deep dude.
obligatory xkcd (Score:2)
http://xkcd.com/1235/ [xkcd.com]
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The best camera is the one you have with you.
Ah, you are quoting Chase Jarvis - who wrote a book with this as the title.
This is fine advice, if the goal is to persuade photographers to go ahead and use their smartphone, rather than whine about not having their good camera with them - thus missing the shot. But it offers zero assistance for camera selection.
The camera I have with me is the camera I select before I leave the house. That might be a tiny Nikon V1, or a large Nikon D800 DSLR. Or I might pack up the Sinar 4x5 view camera, as it is still
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After reading this one liner, you can go a step further and realize that you can have multiple "best" cameras! Things are not mutually exclusive! If you don't have your camera on you, then your phone's better than nothing. Otherwise, pretty much any other camera is superior.
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The real point behind having a large camera is to restrict the focal depth of field. This allows you to highlight a subject in the foreground whilst blurring the background (think portrait photography). And the laws of optics aren't going to allow a pinhole camera to ever manage that, sadly.
Incidentally, the laws of optics also mean that most of these camera phones are diffraction limited around 8mp (and that's being generous). I'm not sure why more manufacturers don't stick with a decent 5mp rather than
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sensor size alone is not comparable.
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Hear, hear! Moderation is first about sifting threads for quality discussion. Rewarding and penalizing commenters comes later. I wonder, does the grandparent also never mod down anonymous comments?
(Posting non-anonymously as I haven't had any mod points since Saturday.)
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..which gets us to why optical stabilisation is so useful.
and that the manual doesn't mention nikon means of course nothing. the manual certainly doesn't mention all chip manufacturers on the phone either...
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Making phone calls what century do you live in?
I take more picture and shoot more video than calls I make. It is first and foremost a computing device, then a camera lastly a phone.
Why would I lug my camera everywhere with me? Do I really read my DSLR to take pictures of racks and server ID tags?
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Camera makers hate her. Find out why she takes such great photos with one crazy tech!
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If you'd bother to RTFA, you would have noticed that the phrase "crazy Nikon tech" is hyperlinked.
This is not at all a mildly revamped G2 (Score:5, Informative)
the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2.
No, it really doesn't. The two most-often mentioned features of the G2 are:
a) The gorgeous 5.2" screen; and
b) A 3000 mAh battery; and
c) The rear-panel placement of the only buttons (power/volume), as opposed to the traditional volume rocker on the side that most smartphones have.
This has none of those--it has a 4.95" screen and a 2300 mAh battery. And the buttons are laid out like a standard smartphone. Those things alone are significant alterations that make these phones different in the most visible and usable ways.
The G2 also has a 13 megapixel rear camera; this has an 8 mp camera.
The G2 also has a customized version of Android with knock-on and other features; the Nexus 5, presuming it follows the Nexus pattern, will run a standard Android OS and UI (and get faster OS updates).
Without digging into it for more than 30 seconds, I see a phone with a different screen, different camera, different battery, different physical button layout, and different UI, and with significantly different physical properties (e.g. wireless charging on the Nexus)--these might be distant cousins, but they are most decidedly not "mildly revamped" versions of the same thing.
Re:This is not at all a mildly revamped G2 (Score:5, Informative)
Wireless charging is a really big deal too. It's the sort of thing that makes you think "how much easier can it be than just plugging a cable in" but when you have it you find really useful.
I build a charging pad into my car holder so now I don't need to plug in any wires. Audio is bluetooth to the car stereo. No more USB cables trailing across the dash.
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I have had wireless charging on my Palm Pre for years, its ok but not all that.
I've got it for our Touchpad that got converted to Android. The kids previously broke the charging port on a Nook Color. The microUSB connector is a nasty little lever due to its thinness and length.
I'll bet old people with arthritic joints (much less Parkinson's) don't appreciate MicroUSB charging either.
Now, then, can I get one big mat for all the family gizmos instead of a dozen individual charging mats?
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The problem with wireless charging is that a single charge pad costs $50+. A usb cable + wall wart costs $5.
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But the Nexus 5 will probably be half the price of the G2. And run stock Android and receive updates.
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But the Nexus 5 will probably be half the price of the G2. And run stock Android and receive updates.
The last sentence is why I wrote "the Nexus 5, presuming it follows the Nexus pattern, will run a standard Android OS and UI (and get faster OS updates)".
I'm not making a case for either phone being better, simply saying that the idea that one is a mildly tweaked version of the other is laughable.
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I hope it isn't a mildly revamped G2! The G@ has a below-average loudspeaker, and call me odd, but I consider a loud speaker to be essential in a phone. I find most reviews of smartphones useless, because they spend over half the time on the camera, software features, plastic vs metal, etc. and maybe one if that, on call quality, and except for 1 or 2 publications, never bother to put a sound meter near the thing. FYI, GSMArena, for one, actually measure the volume.
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I have a Galaxy Nexus, and the call quality is *garbage*. Voices often manage to be both loud enough that they provoke nonlinear garbage from the speaker *and* drowned out by background noise at the same time!
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I hope it isn't a mildly revamped G2! The G@ has a below-average loudspeaker
There are a lot of decent criticisms of the G2. The SlideAside is pointless (and doesn't work with a ton of common Android apps), the screen is too big for some people, the buttons on the back are something you can adjust to but they're needlessly quirky and more prone to accidentally being pressed in your pocket than side-buttons are. I'm still not sold on having the headphone jack on the bottom instead of the top.
But the speaker
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The sections you quote are for music. Calls are far more important to me, and for this:
LG G2 65.7 62.2 66.2 Below Average
Re: This is not at all a mildly revamped G2 (Score:2)
No, the sections I quoted are for the built in headset speaker used for calls. The numbers are all above average for call quality and average for volume. I'm not sure how their subjective judgement said "below average", given that every single one of the objective measurements was average or above. It's not the loudest or best speaker out there, for sure, but it's better than most.
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Get the HTC One and be quiet then..
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Without digging into it for more than 30 seconds, I see a phone with a different screen, different camera, different battery, different physical button layout, and different UI, and with significantly different physical properties (e.g. wireless charging on the Nexus)--these might be distant cousins, but they are most decidedly not "mildly revamped" versions of the same thing.
But the screen, camera, battery and buttons are all extras; the point is that at the core of both devices is the LG G2's mainboard with a Snapdragon 800 sitting on it. If I take my desktop box here at work and change the monitor, keyboard and mouse, it's still the same box, and that's pretty much how most of us are viewing the Nexus 5.
I see this as a good thing, mind you. LG does the low-level stuff well; they just have no idea how to make an interface (either physical or graphical) to save themselves. M
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Bigger battery, 'Gooooorgeous' 5.2" screen, 'traditional smartphone' buttons... dude, it's a telephone, not a woman.
Clearly. I won't look at a woman that doesn't have at least a 6" screen.
Does not make sence (Score:3)
Maybe that's why it's labeled "draft" (Score:2)
Amazing that it isn't completely finished and coordinated, yet, huh?
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Android doesn't support Java. Java is not just the language, it's the APIs as well. Android's version isn't complete or fully compatible with Java, and isn't called Java, and you can't run a Java .jar file on Android.
From the consumer's point of view their Java apps won't work on Android.
Re:Does not make sence (Score:4, Interesting)
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It would be more correct to say that Java doesn't support Android.
Why would I try to run Android in Java? Stop being obtusely pedantic. Nobody would say "Java doesn't support Android" when what they mean is "Android doesn't support execution of Java programs".
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We need more memory (Score:5, Informative)
The most of Android users captures high-res photos and high-res videos, downloads movies etc. That things waste memory very easily.
Here is no 64 GB version, and N5 lacks MicroSD card slot, like the most of new phones.
Re:We need more memory (Score:4, Funny)
It's hard to spy on your locally stored content. Why not upload you geotagged videos and pictures to the cloud so we can send you targetted advertising?
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more than that, if I want to transfer a few gig of music or movies to my phone, its much easier to slip the sd card out and put it in a reader on my PC. Or better - swap with a sd card that already has the required files present (ie I have 2).
the other thing that I always worry about is the battery. I have had to reboot my old Galaxy S1 by removing the battery before now. What do I do if it really goes belly up and needs a hard reset?
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more than that, if I want to transfer a few gig of music or movies to my phone, its much easier to slip the sd card out and put it in a reader on my PC.
Really? I've always copied them via the network, either from the phone (loads of decent file browsers out there that support SMB, FTP, SFTP) or from the computer (run an FTP server on your phone). The only time I use the cable is when I have to charge my phone.
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I can transfer them over wifi, but its much quicker to do it with the card directly connected to a card reader. ... is what I meat to say.
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Google want everything to be in the cloud. Any photos or video you take can be automatically uploaded to your Google account, so there is no need to keep them on your phone long term. That's why they don't bother with massive amounts of storage or example - they expect the phone's memory to be mostly used for apps, and some temporary data that gets moved to the cloud.
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I use my storage for things like music. Sure, there are cloud music services, but that only makes sense when pulling things down from the cloud:
1) is possible everywhere
2) doesn't drain the battery
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Well, 32Gb isn't exactly acres of space these days, but I think it'll be enough for me. 16Gb definitely isn't anymore.
I do wish they'd use SD cards (ext-formatted, of course) mainly because I'd know at least some of my data was safe if my phone ever died or bricked. But I realise it's never going to happen with a Nexus, and I'm more-or-less happy to pay that price.
FM Radio (Score:3)
Interestingly, the manual radio says "FM Radio - Yes".
I don't recollect a Nexus device with a functioning FM Radio.
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The Nexus One has FM radio hardware (accessible if you install Cyanogen -- I am not sure if any stock Android builds enabled support). I kept mine after getting a Nexus 4 for this very reason.
Re:FM Radio (Score:5, Informative)
One of the radio chips in these phones does FM because it was a throwaway feature, "Hey, since we've done all this already we could build an FM radio, it'd add like 1% to the transistor budget" "Sure, we'll add it to the feature list". So CyanogenMod enables that, because why not. In some jurisdictions being able to receive FM radio is a legal problem (no, that doesn't make any sense, why would it need to?), so since FM radio is rarely a deal breaker for people buying phones the stock Android leaves it disabled.
This happened in the late MP3 days as well, cheap Far Eastern suppliers would build a generic chipset that played say six audio formats, supported five different common models of LCD panel, and so on, and they'd throw in FM radio because it was easy. But then brand name companies would ask for a firmware version that removed the FM radio and added their branding because in one country they ship to FM radios are a legal problem and they'd rather not have two variants of "their" MP3 player.
So you'd be able to buy like a Hitachi MP3 player for $20 that claimed to play MP3, WAV and WMA and nothing else, but if you flashed it with firmware from the supposedly unrelated $15 MP3 player from some Taiwanese novelty electronics firm you've never heard of you'd get all the same plus Ogg Vorbis, AU and AAC, an FM radio, a three level backlight instead of two levels, but now your volume buttons work upside down...
Re: FM Radio (Score:3)
So what you're saying is that FM was like the Bluetooth of the 90s/00s. Everywhere and mostly useless. But neat.
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A lot of manufacturers disable FM because they want you use to services like Google Music or Spotify. Often the phone comes pre-loaded with a music streaming app.
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200MB*30 days ~= 6GB = 1GB more than almost any plan available in the US (unless you're on a $80+/line plan with Sprint you'll get throttled at either 2.5GB or 5GB most Verizon and AT&T plans are similar)
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How quaint. I have unlimited 3G data.
Then again, I do have to pay £16/month and despite the unlimited texts, unlimited same-network calls and unlimited landline calls I do only get 2500 'free' minutes.
I'd switch to a cheaper provider but I'm on a one-month rolling contract and I've already paid for next month.
OIS (Score:2, Insightful)
"there’s no mention of that crazy Nikon tech, though"
You do realize that Canon invented it and Nikon copied it right?
Canon OIS is still the single most superior OIS out there. Nikon is good but nothing like what the Canon system can do, mostly because they have nearly a decade on them in R&D.
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I dunno, have you used Nikon's newer stuff? I shoot birds with the new Nikon 80-400. I can get sharp shots handheld down to 1/40 sec most of the time and 1/20 sec much of the time. (This is on a highly-demanding sensor, 24MP DX, and on truly static targets; these speeds aren't practical for actual birds.) Can you do that with Canon's new IS? I don't know; i only know the performance of the older IS on my father's 100-400.
Another extremely good IS system is the sensor-shift IS used by Olympus in the E-M5 and
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Their newer stuff is fantastic, but also the Canon newer stuff is as well the gap is closing incredibly fast.
Screen quality? (Score:2)
I hope Kitkat gives users the capability to calibrate color settings in the same manner that LG flat panel TV's can be calibrated.
By 2016... (Score:2, Offtopic)
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This is an excellent point. We need to petition Google to skip straight to the Nexus 7 just to avoid any confusion. Or mutinies in the off-world colonies.
Yes, but... (Score:2)
Does it receive ATSC television signals?
Useable voice recognition?
Yawn, tell me when a device gets new capabilities rather than just larger numbers in front of "GB", "pixels", "inches", or "mAh".
No thanks (Score:2)
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The sell "entry-level" or "low-cost" smartphones in developing markets like Africa or Asia. Look on eBay for such phones.
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They still sell smaller phones in HVGA sizes. There's not a lot of demand for them though- they're difficult to use (fonts are so small most people can't click on links well), the keyboards are almost impossible to manipulate, and there's so little screen real estate that most apps won't fit on them. Basically there so annoying to use most people who want that size prefer a cheap dumb phone.
For myself, I want something even bigger- I'll be picking up either a note 3 or a galaxy mega in the next few week
Re:I want a Nexus 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
No sadly, it looks like mostly we are moving to a world full of people who want things while simultaneously not wanting them. The price you pay for an up to date Android version rather than the crawling JavaME engine in your dumb phone of 6 years ago, is a fancy CPU and the battery to power it. Put these phones side by side and tell me again that the difference in battery drain is caused by software efficiency not improving. Oh, and try to actually use your JavaME engine while you're at it, and see how it is on the battery. A major part of the reason why the batteries on your 6 year old dumb phone lasted so long is that it spent the majority of its life sitting in your pocket on cell-standby, because lets face it, it wasn't much use for anything else was it?
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I want a nexus phone that doesn't feel like a big-screen-tv in my pocket.
Why do you need the nexus branding so badly? What's wrong with any of the plethora of other Android devices available?
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One advantage of a Nexus phone is that you are certain to get all the Android software updates, and get them in a timely manner.
Well that's debatable, the Nexus S for example was released at the late2010/early2011 and at the end of 2012 they announced it would not be getting the 4.2 update, it went out of support pretty quickly.
When the Nexus 4 came out, Google stopped doing carrier versions of the Nexus because that lack of software updates was damaging the brand.
Well that's a good thing.
Re: I want a Nexus 3 (Score:2)
Sounds like you're in the market for a Firefox phone.
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You might look at a Moto X -- nearly the same performance in a smaller form factor. (Smaller than the Nexus 4, and Galaxy Nexus but it hat the same screen size).
Re:Confused about the numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, a comma is used to separate millions, thousands, hundreds, etc. A period is used to separate whole numbers from decimals. So 2,300 is 200 more than 2100.
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Properly, one should be using (thin) spaces with SI units; I would link to NIST but they seem to have taken the day off.
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Interestingly, I have a 3800mAh in my Google Galaxy Nexus. With NFC.
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I hope not.
You cannot get a nexus device on verizon. The galaxy nexus is not a real nexus, nor would any future device. Mine is still on 4.2.2 as of right now. I will be leaving verizon over this and I suggest you do too.
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You can find how to service the battery at the end of the manual, page 272. Basically in involve the back cover, 6 screws and 2 connectors. It's not that difficult but certainly most of users will be afraid to do this alone. But I think that the biggest problem will be to buy the battery part at a fair price 3 or 4 years from now.
Like for the standard USB power adapter, a standard range of phone batteries could be an advantage in the long term for the end users.