Leaked Manual Reveals Details On Google's Nexus 5

Features of Google's next Nexus phone have finally been outed, along with confirmation that the phone will be built by LG, as a result of a leaked service manual draft; here are some of the details as described at TechCrunch: "The new Nexus will likely be available in 16 or 32GB variants, and will feature an LTE radio and an 8-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (there’s no mention of that crazy Nikon tech, though). NFC, wireless charging, and that lovely little notification light are back, too, but don’t expect a huge boost in longevity — it’s going to pack a sealed 2,300mAh battery, up slightly from the 2100mAh cell that powered last year’s Nexus 4. That spec sheet should sound familiar to people who took notice of what happened with the Nexus 4. Just as that device was built from the foundation laid by the LG Optimus G, the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2."

Comments

Same with every nexus device

[AuMatar]

Every Nexus device going back the very first has been an existing phone with a few minor upgrades at most and a different set of software installed. Why would anyone expect different this time? My only surprise is that Google hasn't started having their Motorola arm manufacture them yet. Probably due to not wanting to push OEMs to other options.

Re:Same with every nexus device

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Google is very smart to use other OEMs, as it gives them more scale to compete, keeping the Android market healthier. Motorola and Samsung (in 2013) don't need it, but LG can certainly do with more scale.

Re:Same with every nexus device

[creepynut]

The Galaxy Nexus was pretty much in a league of it's own at the time. Seems like Samsung was really pushing for it.

The Nexus One was basically an HTC Desire.
The Nexus S was pretty much a Galaxy S.
The Nexus 4 is very close (internally) to the LG Optimus G.
This new Nexus 5 looks like will be based on an LG G2

Re:Same with every nexus device

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Yes but I expect more out of Apple because they brazenly claim to be superior to everyone else, and yet offer trivial updates and no real innovation for the first 6 versions of their iPhone, and even the iPhone 5s refresh is only skin deep in terms of innovation.

I will start calling Google out when they have gone through 6 intervals of Nexus X devices and nothing has changed except the thickness of the phone, but the differences in Nexus 4 to 5 are more numerous than the differences between even iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, so they have a little more edge on innovation then Apple does.

Crazy tech?

[Adrian Harvey]

I haven't been following closely enough to know what the "crazy Nikon tech" is - anyone care to enlighten me? Google doesn't give relevant info...

Re:Crazy tech?

[AuMatar]

Except that 95% of the market isn't serious about taking photographs. That's why photography studios across the country died- ubiquitous smart phone cameras were good enough. Same for professional photographers- most of them have found new careers, because except for weddings there's no demand anymore.

Digital camera sales have plateaued and are now decreasing (by 18% year over year worldwide, 43% in north america). Nobody carries a camera around anymore, phones take a good enough picture (probably just as good given the skills of the people using them) and are more convenient to carry- heck you're carrying them anyway. At parties where before a couple people might bring their cameras, now nobody does- they pull out their phone.

So yeah, a better smart phone camera would address a large market- everyone who enjoys taking photos, but doesn't do art photos. I know a good number of people who tossed their digital cameras away but take the camera into consideration when buying a phone.

Re:Crazy tech?

[spire3661]

The best camera is the one you have with you.

Re:Crazy tech?

[Zuriel]

This. A friend was telling me about how superior his early, hard disk based MP3 player was compared to using modern Android or iOS devices. He could plug surround speakers into it, it had an equaliser, etc, etc, etc. So I pulled out my phone and asked him to show his MP3 player to me. He didn't have it with him. Convenience is a completely legitimate advantage. Yeah, a phone camera will always suck compared to a camera that's physically larger, but a camera that you have with you will always take better pictures than a camera that's in a drawer at home.

Re:Crazy tech?

[AJH16]

Arguably, the photos most people take with a smartphone are actually better than they would take with a "real" camera. As sensor size increases, sensitivity to focus also increases. If you don't know how to properly use the autofocus of your "real" camera, you'll get a lot of out of focus images. On a camera phone, it's a lot easier and there isn't a whole lot of advantage for a point and shoot over a smartphone.

If you know what you are doing, the difference between a smartphone and a DSLR is night and day, but most people don't. Note, I say this as a professional photographer that shoots weddings with a Canon 5D Mark iii. I do it as a part time gig specifically because the impact on the market is quite real since the images are good enough for most people and even then, people flood in to the market thinking they can shoot weddings because they had some "good" facebook photos and bought an entry level DSLR with a kit lens.

The fact is, the main thing that differentiates professional photographers from the amateur has very little to do with the photography. Even if you know how to use the gear perfectly, doing a good, professional job is far more about making the client comfortable, having the experience to avoid being overly noticeable while capturing the key moments, having the ability to interact with people in such a way to get both good posed and candid shots and the ability to run a business and sell yourself. The actual ability to take photos is the easiest 10% of what it takes to do the job.

This is not at all a mildly revamped G2

[pthisis]

the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2.

No, it really doesn't. The two most-often mentioned features of the G2 are:

a) The gorgeous 5.2" screen; and
b) A 3000 mAh battery; and
c) The rear-panel placement of the only buttons (power/volume), as opposed to the traditional volume rocker on the side that most smartphones have.

This has none of those--it has a 4.95" screen and a 2300 mAh battery. And the buttons are laid out like a standard smartphone. Those things alone are significant alterations that make these phones different in the most visible and usable ways.

The G2 also has a 13 megapixel rear camera; this has an 8 mp camera.

The G2 also has a customized version of Android with knock-on and other features; the Nexus 5, presuming it follows the Nexus pattern, will run a standard Android OS and UI (and get faster OS updates).

Without digging into it for more than 30 seconds, I see a phone with a different screen, different camera, different battery, different physical button layout, and different UI, and with significantly different physical properties (e.g. wireless charging on the Nexus)--these might be distant cousins, but they are most decidedly not "mildly revamped" versions of the same thing.

Re:This is not at all a mildly revamped G2

[AmiMoJo]

Wireless charging is a really big deal too. It's the sort of thing that makes you think "how much easier can it be than just plugging a cable in" but when you have it you find really useful.

I build a charging pad into my car holder so now I don't need to plug in any wires. Audio is bluetooth to the car stereo. No more USB cables trailing across the dash.

We need more memory

[ZDroid]

The most of Android users captures high-res photos and high-res videos, downloads movies etc. That things waste memory very easily.

Here is no 64 GB version, and N5 lacks MicroSD card slot, like the most of new phones.

Re:We need more memory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to spy on your locally stored content. Why not upload you geotagged videos and pictures to the cloud so we can send you targetted advertising?

Re:Confused about the numbers

[AuMatar]

In the US, a comma is used to separate millions, thousands, hundreds, etc. A period is used to separate whole numbers from decimals. So 2,300 is 200 more than 2100.

Re:FM Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the radio chips in these phones does FM because it was a throwaway feature, "Hey, since we've done all this already we could build an FM radio, it'd add like 1% to the transistor budget" "Sure, we'll add it to the feature list". So CyanogenMod enables that, because why not. In some jurisdictions being able to receive FM radio is a legal problem (no, that doesn't make any sense, why would it need to?), so since FM radio is rarely a deal breaker for people buying phones the stock Android leaves it disabled.

This happened in the late MP3 days as well, cheap Far Eastern suppliers would build a generic chipset that played say six audio formats, supported five different common models of LCD panel, and so on, and they'd throw in FM radio because it was easy. But then brand name companies would ask for a firmware version that removed the FM radio and added their branding because in one country they ship to FM radios are a legal problem and they'd rather not have two variants of "their" MP3 player.

So you'd be able to buy like a Hitachi MP3 player for $20 that claimed to play MP3, WAV and WMA and nothing else, but if you flashed it with firmware from the supposedly unrelated $15 MP3 player from some Taiwanese novelty electronics firm you've never heard of you'd get all the same plus Ogg Vorbis, AU and AAC, an FM radio, a three level backlight instead of two levels, but now your volume buttons work upside down...

Re:I want a Nexus 3

[jrumney]

I don't care if its fancy, I just want an up to date android version and the basic hardware features.

Sadly, it looks like mostly we are moving to larger phones with more bloated software that requires fancy CPUs and lots of batteries

No sadly, it looks like mostly we are moving to a world full of people who want things while simultaneously not wanting them. The price you pay for an up to date Android version rather than the crawling JavaME engine in your dumb phone of 6 years ago, is a fancy CPU and the battery to power it. Put these phones side by side and tell me again that the difference in battery drain is caused by software efficiency not improving. Oh, and try to actually use your JavaME engine while you're at it, and see how it is on the battery. A major part of the reason why the batteries on your 6 year old dumb phone lasted so long is that it spent the majority of its life sitting in your pocket on cell-standby, because lets face it, it wasn't much use for anything else was it?

Re:Does not make sence

[CastrTroy]

It would be more correct to say that Java doesn't support Android. Nobody is stopping Oracle from making a version of the JVM that runs on Android. It's not like a walled garden with IOS. I'm sure that with all the emulators on the Google Play store, that Google probably wouldn't care if Oracle put up a working version of the JVM on the store.