My love affair with the Nexus 5 three days in

nexus-5

I’ve had the Nexus 5 for three days, only one of which was it actually on a cellular plan (AT&T), and I already love this phone. I was saying to a friend yesterday that it feels like the first time I got the iPhone back in 2007. It’s that good.

Until Apple gets their act together (they are currently try playing small ball), it’s all Android and their larger screens and more flexibility for me. But my experience with the S4, both on Verizon and T-Mobile, was painful over time. I bought these phones through the carriers and when you do that they come full of all sorts of crap that the carriers think will make the experience better but in fact causes the phone to be slower and far less stable.

After having yet another 20 minute period a week ago where I couldn’t make a call on the S4 and had to restart it twice, I went to the Google Play Store online and bought the Nexus 5 Google Edition. It came a few days later and yesterday I went to AT&T and got it hooked up. By not buying the phone at AT&T it doesn’t have the bloatware that AT&T would have put on it. And therefore…

This phone is blazingly fast. It’s the first Android phone I’ve used that is as fast as the iPhone. For people that haven’t tried a bloatware-free Android device (essentially a Google Edition), you don’t know what you’re missing.

And it has the “OK Google” functionality that makes Siri look anemic in comparison. You just say “Ok Google” and it immediately starts listening to whatever you say next. The voice-to-text matching is incredibly accurate and I’m already a much safer driver.

The main down side with this phone is that the camera isn’t as good as the iPhone or the S4, but it’s close and I’m willing to overlook that for the rest of the experience.

More to come on my experience with the Nexus 5 as I’m clearly still in the honeymoon phase, but I just had to get something out expressing how much I love this phone. Thanks to @interpolate and @gumboshowjoe for highly recommending it.

7 Comments

  1. adams472 on January 12, 2014 at 10:19 am

    After being on iOS for the past six years, I’m smitten with the Nexus 5 as well. For power users, the Google Apps integration is really powerful. Google Keep has become one of my favorite apps. I agree the camera isn’t state-of-the-art. But, you don’t buy the Nexus 5 for the camera.



  2. Jay Jhun on January 12, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    +1 on the Nexus 5, the clutter free experience and Google Now. The screen resolution is gorgeous. I do miss the Beats Audio enhancement from my ‘old’ HTC One X. adams472 – welcome to the Android fam!



  3. Alejandra Monroy on January 12, 2014 at 8:07 pm

    All of those things you wrote are the reasons why I got a nexus 4 a yr ago. I still have it and I love it! But yeah, the camera is awful.
    I also love that they come unlocked so every time I travel internationally I just put in another Sim card and I’m good to go!



  4. Jeff Hilimire on January 13, 2014 at 10:59 am

    So far the camera on the Nexus 5, after the recent software upgrade, is “pretty good”. Not excellent, but acceptable for the time being. The video recording is on par w/ the iPhone.



  5. Emil Engelman III on January 13, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    I just got my Nexus 5 three days ago too. I moved from a Samsung S3. Love the Nexus 5, I have already rooted it. One thing i like about the phone is while recording a video you can take a picture. I love that there is no bloatware on the phone. The screen seems incredibly sharp as well.



  6. Jeff Hilimire on January 13, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    Interesting, why did you root?



  7. Emil Engelman III on January 13, 2014 at 7:27 pm

    i use titanium backup pro and the phone needs to be rooted to backup all the settings. i like to try our new applications and some of them i need root access to use.



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