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Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0
- kyleslattery 15y agoInteresting how Google has been removing the hardware buttons in favor of software buttons onscreen. I've always like having at least a home button to always be able to exit an app, even if the UI is frozen.
- TomOfTTB 15y agoYou can see their logic though. Even one button means you have to give up a whole inch with of space on the phone. I don't see Google removing the side buttons (assuming the Motorola Xoom is where the phone is headed in terms of button design). So you should always be able to do a hard reset if nothing else. For the record I can see Google's point but I agree with you. The irony of the Xoom is the ever present software buttons take up as much room as the hardware buttons do.
- nuclear_eclipse 15y agoThe benefit though is that when you rotate the screen, the back and home buttons are still at the bottom of the UI. You can use the Xoom in any orientation and the buttons will always be where you want them.
- nlogn 15y agoAnother benefit is that manufacturers can't screw with the button order.
- generalk 15y agoThe three extra physical buttons beyond Home are my favorite Android features! - Menu: It's nice having a go-to place to find options or additional functions. With the iPhone, it's however the app author decided to design his software. With Android, hit menu, it's probably there. - Search: Again, having a context-sensitive search button is a big win. It pulls up the URL Bar in the browser, the Search screen in the Market, and the voice commands on the home screen. - Back: This is the really big win. Having a constant way to have the phone go back to wherever you were previously is huge, especially given Android's "intent" system. Twitter -> Browser -> Mail Client -> Incoming SMS, and to get back to Twitter I just hit the back button until I'm there. I'm not sure I could even use an Android phone at this point that didn't have the hardware back button.
- TomOfTTB 15y agoI Assume Honeycomb is a template to where the phone is headed (given Google's announced intent to merge the two OS forks and the fact that Honeycomb was branded 3.0). If that's the case you'll have all the same buttons and they'll be ever present on the screen. They'll just be Hardware instead of software. On my Xoom the Back, Home and Application List buttons are visible in every application (as is a search button in the menu bar)
- Symmetry 15y agoI think the idea is that the OS will always have software equivalents of those 4 buttons on the bottom of the screen, so you'll always be able to do the things you mentioned. You won't get nice tactile cues, though, which makes me like the hardware buttons.
- nuclear_eclipse 15y agoOn phones like the Nexus One and Nexus S, the "hardware keys" are raelly just an extension of the touch screen, so the phone uses "haptic feedback" to vibrate the phone when you trigger those keys. I actually like it even better than the hardware keys on my old G1 or on any of my friends' phones since then.
- TeHCrAzY 15y agoExtension in that they are "smooth", but physically, they are separate pieces of hardware (the light intensity of each can be set independently for instance).
- nuclear_eclipse 15y agoOn phones like the Nexus One and Nexus S, the "hardware keys" are raelly just an extension of the touch screen, so the phone uses "haptic feedback" to vibrate the phone when you trigger those keys. I actually like it even better than the hardware keys on my old G1 or on any of my friends' phones since then.
- theBobMcCormick 15y ago
- nextparadigms 15y agoI like the idea of no buttons and I've been waiting for it for a year now. It means no wasted physical space, and depending on how they implement the virtual ones, they might not even occupy screen space all the time, but just activate on demand.
- jinushaun 15y agoThe physical home button is my favourite feature of the iPhone compared to Android phones. I fight with the Android soft keys every day...
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoSome manufacturers still make a physical hardware button; the Galaxy S2 for example.
- hack_edu 15y agoPersonally, I find the iPhone home button to be the worst feature of its design. Now that I have a Nexus S, seeing that bit giant hole of a button reminds me of its 5 year old design.
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoThere will be software buttons, so even if an app freezes, the home button will not. Unless Android itself freezes, in which case the hardware home button would be just as useless.
- zheng 15y agoThe major place I miss a hardware button is to end calls. If the software is just slow (not frozen), it can lead to awkward trying to hang-up sounds for the other party.
- palebluedot 15y agoWith Android, under Settings -> Accessibility, you can select that the power button ends the call. I find this very useful, as it gives me a hardware button to use to end a call.
- SkyMarshal 15y agoMy experience with my Nexus S is that the few times the UI freezes, neither the physical mechanical buttons nor the physical capacitance buttons help any. I can either wait a while, or hard reboot and wait longer.
- Splines 15y agoThe nice thing about no hardware buttons is you don't need to worry about them failing.
- jrockway 15y agoWhat fails more frequently: hardware buttons rated at a hundred million presses, or software written in Java?
- kelnos 15y agoIn the case of the Nexus One, the power button is a huge weak point. Mine hasn't worked in 5 months.
- spiffworks 15y agoYeah, Apple got this one right. No matter what you do with your phone, you can just press the big black button and everything is back to normal. If anything, I think these software buttons will lead to further user frustration.
- robinduckett 15y agoI'll be in my bunk.
- jonknee 15y agoHigher-res screen than a net book, comprable CPU, always-on high speed internet and it fits in your pocket... The future is impressive.
- phillijw 15y agoIf only it was able to recharge itself using induction from the Earth's core.
- cube13 15y agoIf the battery lasts longer than 5 minutes. Sure, you could underclock the device to save battery, but what's the use of all that power in a mobile device if you can't use that power while mobile? This is becoming a huge problem for the smartphone market. The phones are getting more and more powerful, but the batteries aren't keeping up. iPhones last about a day, maybe 2 with moderate use, and Android devices are all over the place, with some lasting for quite a while, but others lasting only a handful of hours before needing a charge.
- estel 15y agoI haven't really found a correlation between power and battery usage though: battery life hasn't really improved for a few years, but phones have gotten massively more powerful in that time. They only really need to last through the day.
- buster 15y agoAlso, i think it's more the display, UMTS and WLAN chips that draw most power.
- rudyfink 15y agoIn my current experience (EVO) the GPS and cellular data radios are absolute beasts at drawing power. -If only my cellular phone radio is turned on I get several days out of a full charge. -If cellular data and GPS are enabled, my battery life tends to drop down to hours and the phone becomes physically hot (about three hours). -Cellular data by itself probably cuts my battery life by half or more if left on constantly (about a day and a half). -Bluetooth has a almost imperceptible effect on battery life (four or five days). -Wi-Fi by itself probably drops the life by about a quarter or third (about two days).
- rdin 15y agoHopefully this will address some of the issues with the Nexus S, particularly: -No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support -Lack of MicroSIM
- Griever 15y agoAnd as a bit of a smaller complaint, no notification LED. I still don't quite know what they were thinking when they decided to leave that off.
- kgtm 15y agoWhich is somewhat mitigated by an AMOLED panel (if you can get it) and use of the NoLED app.
- axiomotion 15y agoNot sure what I would do without NoLED, it is one of the best apps I've ever used on my SGS.
- technomancy 15y ago> -No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support According to the article it's on LTE, so that means AT&T or Verizon. I can see why they're doing it as it looks like WiMax doesn't have a great future ahead of it, but I both those carriers have abysmal track records for customer abuse (as opposed to merely bad.)
- rdin 15y ago4G networks will have to fall back on 3G networks sometimes, which is one of the reasons why AT&T is still building out its backhaul for its 3G network. Though I agree, it would be nice to have interoperable phones
- cstuder 15y agoHow is the lack of MicroSIM an issue? As far as I know there's no functional difference apart from the size.
- nextparadigms 15y agoKind of disappointing it's not Tegra 3, but at least I hope it's the dual core Qualcomm Krait at 1.5 Ghz built on 28nm process and Adreno 300, rather than OMAP 4. Everything else about it is exactly what I've been hoping for: HD resolution, 4.5" screen, no buttons, 4G.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago4.5" seems a tad excessive to me. I'll follow you to 4.0", and you can probably talk me into 4.3... but 4.5? Getting a little to close to Dell Streak territory in my opinion.
- andrewjshults 15y agoIf they follow the HTC Evo design (basically non-existant borders) and drop the dedicated button area I could see them being able to squeeze a 4.5" screen into an almost the same sized package. It's thicker than an iPhone but the surface area really isn't much more.
- megaman821 15y agoI am with you. These super-sized phones just seem awkward to me. 3.7-4.0" seem to be the sweet spot for me. If am looking at something that needs a bigger screen than that, an 0.5 inches probably isn't going to solve my problem and I would rather just use a laptop or tablet.
- protomyth 15y agoIf you measure out one of the O'Reilly Pocket References, you get the feeling that a manufacture could build a phone that still fits in the pocket and has a bigger than 4.5" screen
- fieldforceapp 15y agoCurious, any reason you're against the Qualcomm part? Just that you prefer OpenGL on Imagination Technology GPU and not the Adreno or something else?
- nl 15y ago
- zitterbewegung 15y agoNo mention of NFC? I guess we could assume its going to be in the phone I hope?
- tfh 15y agonfc is already in the nexus s. So i guess it's in.
- abeppu 15y agoI bought the nexus s in part because of it's nfc hardware. I thought that cool new nfc applications were imminent. Six months later, I still haven't been able to use it for anything interesting. The next google phone may have nfc hardware, but until systems reposing on that hardware are rolled out, it makes sense that neither the OP nor potential consumers should really care.
- jonknee 15y agohttp://www.google.com/wallet/ http://www.google.com/wallet/
- grandalf 15y agoNo mention of the 1 hour battery life in the article. Features are great but so far Google has a horrible track record of caring about the overall user experience of the phone (toward which battery life is a very significant factor). I'd like to see Google make a battery life claim that is on par with the iPhone and have it come true.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoWhat? My D1 battery lasts all day long easily and it's an abused, sad battery. Better than my friend with a 3GS after a day of regular usage with him.
- fragsworth 15y agoMy Nexus S lasts several days with regular use, so I don't know what you're talking about. You probably installed a bad app on your phone that was draining its battery, and mis-attributed the problem to the device.
- KirinDave 15y agoI would go less than a day with a virgin Nexus S, just by playing an hour or three of music. Some phones handle much better in the face of low signal, some are worse. T-Mobile's coverage was pretty mediocre around my home, and that also had a huge impact on battery life.
- grandalf 15y agoMy experience was with an Evo 4G. I tried closing / uninstalling all the apps, and I mostly just used the standard Google and HTC apps. I sold the Evo and got an iPhone 4 and now I never have to think about the battery. During the few weeks I had the Evo I was caught a few times with a dead phone when I'd been planning on using the GPS to navigate somewhere at the end of the day. Not fun.
- mdwrigh2 15y agoGoogle had very little to do with creating the Evo beyond providing the OS. The hardware (screen, battery, etc.) were all HTC.
- usaar333 15y agoPhone names are getting confusing. I have a Nexus S 4G, which is significantly inferior to this Nexus 4G. O_o
- swah 15y agoI wish the laptop market was having this amount of innovation.