The choice of changing the Nexus manufacturer, from Samsung to LG has certainly surprised many and left them wondering if the company can pull it off. It would seem that LG has really stepped up and made a device worthy to be in the Nexus line. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting reviews of the LG Nexus 4 device across the blogosphere and see how others feel about it.
LG Nexus 4 Review Roundup
Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web
The LG Nexus 4 has a wonderful design, much better than its predecessors, with Gorilla Glass display and back cover, similar to the iPhone 4S design. Although very sharp looking, it can fall victim to minute scratches. The back camera looks great, having no lense and being perfectly integrated with the overall design of the phone, but the speaker is placed on the back of the phone, thus, being blocked when the phone is placed down. It feels smooth to the touch, but it has rubberized edges for better grip. This design feature makes the phone very pleasant to hold. The only problem could be the big screen that can be at time hard to access in of its corners with one hand. A few other design flaws are present in the phone, such as the volume buttons that look like one single button and slightly out of place and the screws on the bottom of the phone that look like they shouldn’t belong there. The Nexus 4 presents itself with a generous 8 MP camera, a feature that will make all those amateur photographers very happy. Also, the camera performs much better in low light and bright light, but there are still some minor issues with the autofocus. The strongest point of the LG Nexus 4 is the new Android 4.2, and more exactly, Google Now, which has really made a giant leap forward. If you ever felt threatened by Google because it was gathering information about you, using Google Now will show you where all that information has gone. The 1.5 GHz processor that the LG Nexus 4 is equipped with really does its job fantastically. It gives the phone the power it needs to keep everything smooth and fast. Also, with the upgrades that the OS has received, the LG Nexus 4 is the fastest droid yet However good it might be, the Android 4.2 OS still has some of the old irritating issues. For example the process of installing previously purchased apps takes 4 taps instead of one, as it should and the sometimes awkward screen rotation. With all its features, the LG Nexus 4 still lacks something: LTE connectivity. Google claims this is because they wanted more interoperability between carriers, but they still could have developed a version with this feature.
Joshua Topolsky, The Verge
Two new features make the camera of the LG Nexus 4 awesome: 360 degree pictures which allows you to take StreetView-like pics and the very useful and cool looking settings panel for the camera that can be accessed by tapping the screen on the camera app. Also, the camera has a new HDR setting that will allow you to take quality pictures in less than ideal lighting conditions. The reception and call quality of the LG Nexus 4 are great. LG have included a great speaker as well, and the microphone and earpiece work great. The battery last considerably longer with the LG Nexus 4, sometimes over 18 hours of normal use. This is much more than its predecessors, and a cool feature is the “orb-like” wireless charging kit. Gmail has gotten a few updates, such as Swipe to archive or delete and pinch to zoom, a feature that the iPhone had for quite some time now. A very interesting feature is the quick setting panel that can be accessed from within the drop down menu, or by swiping the drop panel with two fingers at once. The quick settings panel holds your most used settings, which you can quickly modify. The clock app has been updated, something that shows us that Google is paying attention to every last detail.
Chris Velazco, Techcrunch
While the front of the device closely resembles the last Nexus device, the Galaxy Nexus, the back cover has a reflective tiles that give is nice, futuristic look in the right light. The lack of a SD card slot is one of the biggest drawbacks of the LG Nexus 4. But then again, none of the previous Nexus devices had this feature. They must have kept with tradition in this perspective. Voice search has gotten a lot better. Now it better resembles Apple’s Siri, and it can launch apps, but it still has some issues with this feature in the sense that it does not work every time you need it to. The ability to set screensavers on the device is also a great new add on to the LG Nexus 4. You can also set your gallery as the screensaver, so you can watch your photos as the device is on standby. For those who enjoyed the Swipe keyboard and other third party apps that would give you this feature, the new swift keyboard will fit in nicely. It allows you to write by using gestures, something that will make messaging much quicker. HTC users had a feature that many thought it should be implemented in all Android phones: lockscreen widgets. You can now rest assured that the Nexus 4 has this feature and it allows you to load your favorite widgets directly on the lockscreen. The cherry on the cake is without a doubt the multiple users setting that make the LG Nexus 4 resemble a PC. This allows more than one user to use the smartphone and each have separate wallpapers and settings. The device ships unlocked, and it is pretty cheap, so if you are not a fan of multiple-year contracts, then this is the phone for you.
Brent Rose, Gizmodo
The new LG Nexus 4 has the guts of the Optimus G but in a slicker and better looking body. Essentially, the LG Nexus is a Optimus G with rounded corners and a “Nexus” label on its back. Apart from the camera app, the Gallery app has been revamped. If until now it was a simple image viewer, now you have an entire image editor in one app. The screen of the device tends to have a blue-ish look and it falls short of some other models, such as the HTC One X or the Xperia TL, but still, better than most. Although the battery life is much better than what it used to be, the major battery hog is the camera, especially when making 360 degree photos (or PhotoSphere as it’s called). A feature that should be implemented in the Android OS but still hasn’t made the cut is “Find my Phone”. This is still only achievable only with third party apps. Google is pushing more and more for cloud storage, but it seems to let behind the direct file transfer from a computer. The “Android File Transfer Utility” still needs a lot of work.
Brad Molen, Engadget
The Nexus 4 is one of the most elegant devices we’ve played with. Nexus 4 also fully supports the Qi wireless charging standard, which means you can use any Qi-capable charging pad to refill your battery The display is among the best that you can currently find on a smartphone. The new and improved Jelly Bean also features native widget support on the Lock Screen and even offers multiple panels for additional widgets. The camera is much improved over what we saw on the Galaxy Nexus. It may not be the best performer among its peers, but the camera is still an asset to the Nexus 4. The camcorder is capable of taking 1080p movies in MPEG-4 format, and records footage at an average of 22 fps with a 9 Mbps bit rate. This resulted in noisy, slightly choppy videos that didn’t really convince us that what we were watching was of true HD quality. Performance is pretty solid, though it comes with the occasional hiccup. Battery life is considerably poor as compared to LG Optimus G.
Wrapping it up
Although the LG Nexus 4 is the best Nexus device to date, having lots of cool features and significant upgrades, it still lacks some features and it still has some issues that need to be ironed out, but we can see that the Nexus line is on the right track. The next Nexus device will be even better than this one, and maybe Google will abandon the tradition and add some features that no other Nexus has had. For now, we think that LG has done a marvelous job developing the new Nexus, and despite what our initial thoughts were, I encourage Google to keep in touch with LG and work together in the future as well. If you are wondering if you should buy it, I believe so, I know I would.
