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Google Announces New Nexus Smartphone and Tablets

TheBoat writes In with news that not even a hurricane can keep the Google product announcements away. "Surprise, surprise. It looks like Hurricane Sandy can't hold Google down, as the company has just gone ahead and unveiled the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet even though its press conference was canceled. Nexus 4 specs include a 4.7-inch True HD IPS Plus display with 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution, an 8-megapixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM and Android 4.2. The phone starts at a shockingly affordable $299 without any contract or subsidies, and it will launch in the United States on November 3rd. The Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet sports a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel display with a pixel density of 300 PPI, a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos chipset, 2GB of RAM, NFC and a 5-megapixel camera. Pricing starts at $399 with 16GB of storage and tops out at $499 for the 32GB model, and both will launch on November 3rd alongside the Nexus 4. Both devices will be available through the Google Play store."

8 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No Strings Attached? by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nope, it is optional. You cannot use the play store without associating the phone with the Google Account though. You could use Amazon App Store, which has most apps. You could side load apps (just copy them to the system apps folder), if you have the apk and you are rooted (I dont know of a reliable site, where you can get the apk file from though)

  2. Re:No Strings Attached? by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't think you need to be rooted to install APK files ... just drop them on the phone and run them.

  3. Still no microSD? by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Informative

    All the leaks seemed to indicate the Nexus 4 would have no microSD slot, and none of the news this morning seems to contradict that. I'd pick one up in an instant if not for that fault.

    My ancient Nexus One has an 8 GB microSD card in it, and that filled up ages ago. So getting the 8 GB Nexus 4 would be a non-starter, and i don't expect it would take me long to fill up the 16 GB version either. I don't care what Google says, streaming everything off the cloud is not an option. I'm happy with T-Mobile for the price i'm paying, but they don't have the best coverage. (And from what i understand other carriers that have better coverage have stricter limits on data usage instead.)

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  4. Re:Ugh, Pentile displays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple's retina displays are also a "lottery". They are not all from the same manufacturer. The lower quality ones have IR (image retention, kind of like short term (a few minutes) screen burn in). The samsung displays are superior to the lg ones, here is a 350+ page thread from fanboys as proof https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848?start=255&tstart=0

  5. Re:No Strings Attached? by brian.swetland · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is correct. Just check the "unknown sources" option under settings and you can install apps from pretty much anywhere (web, email, etc) -- the system will show what permissions the app needs and obtain permission to install it (or not) from the user.

  6. Re:Ugh, Pentile displays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not that they don't know how to do it; it's that they choose not to.

    Jeff Atwood gives a good commentary on why they choose not to here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/06/font-rendering-respecting-the-pixel-grid.html

  7. Re:Ugh, Pentile displays by kllrnohj · · Score: 5, Informative

    The tablet is a Pentile display.

    Nope, RGB subpixels - standard LCD layout. It is *NOT* pentile. Hence the "RGB Real Stripe", which is Samsung marketing for "we didn't fuck with it"