Here are my impressions using the Nexus 5, after using an iPhone 4S for the last two years.
- the phone is quite light and thus does not have the heavy quality-ish feel the 4S had.
- the Camera is better than I expected (after the bashing it got online)... good enough for pics of boobs and dishes of food.
- my first Andriod device... loving widgets and the general atmosphere of creativity you have. Google Now is awesome. I don't see myself going back to iOS.
- I love Google apps, and used them on my iPhone as much as possible. Keep is amazing, Calendars look nice... dialer looks ugly when a picture is on the screen.
- I love having the notification light when the phone is locked and lying on my desk.
- I don't like how there are no notification badges on apps like Hangouts and Gmail... i'll have to find a way to get this in there - i don't like looking at the notification bar if i'm going to end up clicking the app anyways. Maybe i'll just have to get used to swiping down though and accessing the apps from there.
- the screen itself is amazing, but when you are looking at the phone from an angle you can see light washing out the screen, which to me is just a plain low quality feature. iPhones on the other hand have no such light leaking when you look at it from an angle, which to me screams high quality - it's just pure black. It doesn't really affect the use of the phone because I don't use it looking from such a sharp angle anyways - but I can see it and it bugs me.
- LTE is awesome, wifi signals seem lower on the Nexus5 than my iDevices... but maybe it's just more accurate? Either way I'm getting the same speed.
- Apps that are worth paying for are generally more expensive on Google Play than Apples App Store. App Store is way better than Google Play, with the exception that Google Play has apps that let you customize your phone.
WHAT REALLY BUGS ME SO FAR:
- the volume is WAY too low across the board, and the vibrate motor within the phone is WAY too low/ineffective to be useful.
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- the volume is WAY too low across the board, and the vibrate motor within the phone is WAY too low/ineffective to be useful.
Yeah, those two things bug me about the Nexus 4 and I was hoping they'd be fixed in the 5, but I guess not. The difference in volume between plugging in my Nexus 4 vs. an iPod/iPhone into a stereo is pretty drastic. And my Nexus can't even really power a decent pair of 55 ohm headphones whereas my iPhone had no problem getting up to a decent level.
Same with the vibrate. It's way too weak and I always find myself not noticing notifications right away because of it.
Clearly both of those problems are intended to help those of us in the office that get to hear every notification and phone call you get since you can't be bothered to put your phone on silent.
Tylt will be in some local Calgary retailers, soon. I'm just working out the details...
Awesome keep me posted as I'm definitely interested. I e-mailed them and they said they didn't have a Canadian Distributor yet but were working on some. They also said they coudn't do anything about the 30$ shipping charge, but that the price should be same if multuple units were ordered.
Clearly both of those problems are intended to help those of us in the office that get to hear every notification and phone call you get since you can't be bothered to put your phone on silent.
Actually it's the opposite. With my iPhone I kept it on silent almost 100% of the time that it was near me because the vibrate was strong enough that I'd never miss anything. But with the Nexus 4 I haven't really been able to count on that so I leave the ringer on most of the time.
And that reminds me of something that's puzzled me since switching; why don't Android devices have a hardware switch for silent mode?
Just holding down the volume button seemed simple enough.
Yeah, but then you have to turn the screen on, unlock the phone, and then turn the volume all the way down. And then of course you have to manually set the volume back up to whatever level you want to put the ringer back on. Holding the power down on the lock screen is usually quicker, but again it involves several steps.
Obviously it's a pretty minor nitpick, but I do miss having the ability to turn the ringer on and off whenever I want without even having to look at my phone.
I have a Pebble smartwatch and I find I never turn the volume or the vibration on. The vibration on my wrist is a far better notification than any phone vibration I ever had. Plus, I can have a quick look at what triggered the notification is and decide if it is worth pulling out the phone to look at.
The apps I want to hear each have their own volume settings, so when I do go to an app I still don't need to play with the volume/vibration settings.
Even with bluetooth always on (before getting pebble I left it off all the time) I notice my battery lasting longer simply because I don't need to turn the screen on the check the notification. I already know who is calling, texting or emailing (or whatever notification I want to pass through).
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Yeah, but then you have to turn the screen on, unlock the phone, and then turn the volume all the way down. And then of course you have to manually set the volume back up to whatever level you want to put the ringer back on. Holding the power down on the lock screen is usually quicker, but again it involves several steps.
Obviously it's a pretty minor nitpick, but I do miss having the ability to turn the ringer on and off whenever I want without even having to look at my phone.
That's a fair point, though I'm positive you should be able to able to change the ringer volume without unlocking your phone.
Far and away the most annoying thing with stock Android when it comes to volume control is the warning you receive as you turn up the volume wearing headphones.
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Played with my phone for the past day and I love it so far. Vibrate motor is weak as others have pointed out. SMS integration into Hangouts isn't great, you have separate conversations for each type of method you use to message someone. Finding how to send an SMS message for the first time in Hangouts isn't that intuitive either. Hopefully they can fix this. I found the Wifi signal reception to be way better than my GNex, in places where my Gnex would struggle I can still get fast wifi.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lego Man
- I love having the notification light when the phone is locked and lying on my desk.
- I don't like how there are no notification badges on apps like Hangouts and Gmail... i'll have to find a way to get this in there - i don't like looking at the notification bar if i'm going to end up clicking the app anyways. Maybe i'll just have to get used to swiping down though and accessing the apps from there.
WHAT REALLY BUGS ME SO FAR:
- the volume is WAY too low across the board, and the vibrate motor within the phone is WAY too low/ineffective to be useful.
I just skip not having notification badges by installing a widget called Dashclock. Dashclock is a lockscreen widget replacement that allows you to get notified on the lockscreen about what notifications you have or you can just do the dropdown from the notification list.
Alternative is you can and customize your notification LED with an app like lightflow. I have each app I care about coded to a different colour so I don't have to even turn on my screen to know what kind of message I've received.
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A few things on the Nexus. Mostly this is all I use it for
-Blocking ads which is normally not something that you can do without
-Removing and uninstalling unwanted 'system' apps. This applies mostly to non-Nexus devices where carrier bloatware is installed
-Better backup features if you want to make an image of your entire phone to back it up, you can.
-Change system settings to improve your battery life if needed
-You can install kernals that can drop down and tweak your battery usage or speed further.
Last edited by FlameOn; 11-10-2013 at 12:44 PM.
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Is it the rooting part that wipes your phone, the unlocking of the bootloader, or both?
I unlocked the bootloader right away, which definitely wiped it, but didn't proceed to make backups or root. If i decide to do those at a later date, does it need to be wiped first?
