In 2014, I finally got off my duff and joined the fantastical world of 2007 by purchasing a smartphone for myself and my lovely wife. In order to eliminate any possible barriers to support, we both got the same phone. AT&T has been our cell provider for over a decade, but they wanted to charge my my first born child for data service, so we kicked them to the curb and went with an MVNO (which I will review in a future post). What does all this mean? That we needed to buy an unlocked phone.
Holy Geez have you seen how much those things cost? The phone I originally lusted after, the Moto X by Motorola, retailed for $600 unlocked at the time of my purchase. What was a cost-conscious-yet-tech-loving purchaser to to? After some cursory research (Read: “Hey Internet, what should I buy?”) I ultimately went with the Nexus 5, 32GB edition for $400. This is my review.
First Impressions
The box this came in is remarkably similar to the Nexus 7 (2013) box, which is honestly a pretty good sum up of everything about this phone in general. It comes with the phone itself, a wall charger and cable, and finally the SIM tray ejection tool, which is like a blunted pin with a large round handle.
The phone itself feels good in the hand, light but sturdy-feeling. The soft touch plastic on the back allows for a nice solid grip, and it fits the hand well with the slight curve of the back. The front of the phone is mostly taken up by the screen, and the bezel along the edge is very, very tiny. For $400, it looks good and feels good. It is also not too big for me. I was worried that the current trend of “BIGGER PHONES. ALWAYS.” that it would be oversized, but I could easily manipulate this with one hand, and I didn’t feel self conscious holding it up to my ear to use it as a phone.
After some transfer number shenanigans, I popped a fresh micro-SIM card in, and the phone sprang to life. My very first impression of the device actually on? DAT SCREEN. Seriously, the screen is absolutely beautiful. But, we all know that first impressions are not often a good indicator of overall happiness. Let’s explore further!
Initial Setup
The initial setup is the standard guided process for Google’s Nexus 7, but with a few “phone centric” bits. It still really wants a wi-fi network, though since I have two-factor authentication it went a little weird, as I couldn’t see the text I got to input the code at first. All in all, it mostly just worked.
Interface
The big to-do about the Nexus 5 is that it comes with Android 4.4 a.k.a. KitKat. What can I say about KitKat? I’ll tell you. I kind of love it. Since I’ve already sold my soul to Google I turned on Google Now and all that crap and you know what? it’s pretty neat to have my phone tell me how long my commute will be in the morning...even if it tells me 2 hours earlier than I need or my personal favorite, 2 hours LATER. There are 2 initial home screens, with a 3rd added with Google Now. However, there are actually “unlimited (-ish)” screens available if you want them, created by dragging icons past your last screen. I generally only use 2 or so screens, so this isn’t a big deal for me, but it is a nice feature.
The speed of this phone is evident in the general usage cases. Screen transitions are smooth and crisp, and apps open very, very quickly (with a few exceptions for apps that have to call back to a server). Things just work, and that is very important in a phone. Not all is 100% rosy though. The new dialer app is pretty, and once you get used to it it is very nice, but getting to a straight numberpad involves an extra step that can throw people off. The alarm app is also buried in a “clock” app that isn’t on the home screen, and it uses a radial menu for time selection instead of punching the time into a number bad. This seems very “different for the sake of different” but it is perfectly usable.
Widgets are no longer selected from the “all apps” screen, but instead by “tap and hold” on a home page, and then selecting the widget option from the screen. You can also set the wallpaper here, though there aren’t a lot of good stock options. Lucky for me, I like the default one. It doesn’t take too long to get used to, but it is different from earlier versions.
The much touted voice commands for Google Now are mostly a novelty, though I’ve had great success with using them to set ad-hoc alarms and for calling people w/o having to tap. It’s not 100% perfect, of course. Background noise can make it too sensitive or not sensitive enough, but for the most part? Voice searching and doing minor things works pretty well. Google’s voice recognition has really come a long way. If you don’t have a source of data though, the accuracy drops.
Apps
All the usual Google Apps are there, which I would expect given that this phone is touted as the “pure Android/Google experience”. Not having to delete/move/ignore some sort of dumb reskinning for things was a huge factor in my decision to purchase a Nexus device, and it was nice to have my phone set up the way I wanted to with little effort. Special notice goes out to the Google Keyboard, which has incorporated a “swype-esque” gesture typing and speech-to-text modes that have come in handy on several occasions. The apps are pretty good is what I’m saying...with one exception.
The camera app is kind of bleah. Oh, it takes pictures well enough, but making any sort of adjustment to things is a hefty chore. It LOOKS kind of slick, but it isn’t very usable. I am used to being able to “touch hover” over an item to see what it is, since I am not a huge photography person. This app pretty much throws all that into the garbage so it’s a “guess and hope” sort of affair until you memorize all the symbols. I’ve accidentally turned on or off (or set to some crazy value) a number of options when I was simply trying to figure out what that option was. My solution? Turn on HDR+ and stop trying to change things. Sure, I give up a lot of control over my pictures, but it’s worth the lack of hassle. This should not be the case with a camera app.
Performance
This thing is packed with mostly top-tier hardware and it really shows. The standout winner? The screen. It is simply gorgeous and everything on it is clear and sharp. The internals back it up nicely with no stutter, skips, or other problems outside of the occasional app problem (that is usually the app’s fault, not the hardware). It is just a joy to use. The wi-fi connectivity is very good, and I can even get a bar of wireless from several feet outside my house. There is only one speaker for media (calls have a much tinier speaker near the top of the phone) but it is surprisingly loud. Calls sound excellent, and my mother reports a lot less crackle and static during our phone conversations.
The camera hardware is pretty solid, though it lives in the “mid-range” area of phone cameras. The software doesn't really take advantage of the thing, but the HDR+ mode is good at keeping things looking decent. Am I going to take an award-winning shot with it? Doubtful, but the best camera is the one you have with you right?
For some, a big downside is the lack of an SD card slot. That’s right, there isn’t anything resembling user-upgradable storage on this thing. This is one reason why I spent the extra $50 for the 32GB edition, rather than the 16GB edition. I don’t have a lot of music or anything, but I am taking a lot more pictures these days. I don’t expect to run out of space any time soon, but it’s nice to have it there if I want it.
Battery life is, again, in the mid-range for this class of phone. I’ve gotten a full 36 hours out of it in one go, but that was with minimal usage. With light browsing, notifications, and so forth, it generally gets down to 50% charged over the course of a typical day. If I’m playing a lot of media (podcasts are a new thing, and I enjoy them), keeping the screen on, or making a lot of phone calls the battery drains much quicker, but I still get about 14-16 hours out of it before it yells at me. I get a day’s work out of it no problem, but more than that and I’m pushing it. I did buy a battery backup device just in case.
Overall
How did I ever live without a smart phone? Seriously, why did I not buy one of these years ago? I’m pretty darn happy with the Nexus 5 as a phone and as a networked device. The ability to pull out the phone and check email, in the middle of a state park or at a restaurant or wherever is truly a life-changing experience, however simple it may seem. This phone does everything I want it to do, albeit imperfectly in a few cases. For the price though? It is a bargain. $400 gets you a lot of phone these days, especially with the recent price drop of the Moto X, but the pure Google Experience (and robust history of quick software updates) make the Nexus 5 an excellent choice if you are looking for an Android phone. On the FACE Rating System I give this phone 3 smiley faces. It would have gotten 4, but the camera app is kind of “bleah” and the battery life could be better. Truly an excellent piece of hardware.
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