Before the winter of 2011, I had very little idea about what an Android was. Heck, I had very little idea about any mobile OS except for Symbian. When I bought my first true smartphone I did so blindly. It was an LG Optimus One. And it wasn’t actually too bad a phone. Considering I had just migrated from a laggy, unresponsive Symbian – it was actually awesome. And I had grown to be fond of it. It bricked however trying to customize it.
My next phone was an LG G2X. I don’t really have a particular fondness for LG products. If anything that phone just made me dislike LG even more though it was more thanks to T-Mobile and their discontinued support for one of the first dual core phones. Despite being that it had only 512MB RAM and was one of the laggiest phones I had used, especially if I enabled WiFi. I tried a lot of different roms before settling on Paranoid Android during the last few months – that made the experience all the more bearable. And it was worse when I got to touch and feel the Galaxy Nexus. Now that was an awesome phone. Little did I know my next purchase would be even more awesome.
I missed the windows of opportunity to order the Nexus 4 when it became available on the store. But on their most recent (and most stable seemingly) batch, I placed an order right away. Google was surprisingly prompt shipping out the device barely 12 hours in.
I was beyond excited when I received the package on the third day of ordering.
Once back in my mancave, the unboxing commenced. There weren’t too many things in the box. The phone, manual, USB cable, a pushpin for the sim tray and a travel adapter.
Unfortunately for me, when I pushed out the sim tray I realized that the N4 uses the micro-Sims, mine was the bigger. I took a deep breath, got out a video from CNET (http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57484847-285/how-to-cut-your-own-micro-sim-card/), and trimmed the plastic to make it a micro-sim. It worked thankfully and I was on my way.
Nexus 4, Look and Feel:
My last phone to use was the T-Mobile LG G2X. It wasn’t heavy but it wasn’t light either and it was quite tiny compared to other Android phones. The Nexus 4 was not only bigger but also lighter. The whole phone is rounded and though it lacks the sweet curve from the Galaxy Nexus it manages to be very sleek nonetheless. In terms of appearance, the most prominent feature of the Nexus 4 is of course back glass. It’s absolutely beautiful and definitely a plus point. Investing in screen protectors and bumpers is a very good idea as glass can be fragile. But do try to get a bumper with a transparent back. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, y’know?
Performance:
Buttery smooth. More than buttery smooth. It’s amazing how fast this phone performs. I’ll have twenty things running and it has yet to lag. Responsiveness is crisp and switching between apps is very smooth with minimal wait. The only performance related issues I’ve had so far is on the Chrome. A website here and there would ‘cause it to freeze but it’s really easy to just exit out of it and close it. I’m not sure if that’s because of the app or the website itself but it’s not a very big inconvenience.
I haven’t had the chance to run any high-end games on it yet but anything I HAVE run ends up being smooth and lagfree. Coming from a phone was plagued with all kinds of performance issues, the Nexus 4 feels like a godsend.
On an ending note: I’ve heard a lot of people complain about a washed out screen. While it does appear to be like that, so far it has yet to bother me and I feel it is a minor drawback than a major obstacle.
In conclusion:
This is definitely the best phone I’ve ever used, hands down. It still surprises that Google set the price of a flagship phone to such an affordable rate. There’s honestly very little reason to get any other phone. Nexus phones will always get the update firsts. 4.2.2 has already rolled out to my phone, and it’s promised a longer battery life (on top of it’s already great one). If you’re considering buying a new phone, the Nexus 4 should be at the top of your consideration list if not an instant buy.
