Google Nexus 5 Review

A Fast, Affordable Phone With LTE For All

LTE

The Nexus 5 includes LTE support for everyone, and it's sold in two variations to offer LTE in every market supporting the standard. This is likely made possible by Android's substantial market lead. You see, there's less of a risk for Google in paying the LTE license fees upfront because the company will reap the rewards in Play store commerce.

Offering LTE in such a premium device at such an affordable price means that the Nexus 5 will raise expectations of what is and isn’t acceptable in a sub-$400 off-contract handset. And that's a big deal. In the same way the iPhone changed the nature of touch interfaces from curiosity to necessity, the Nexus 5's presence means that future customers won't have to debate price versus performance when it comes to LTE. They will just expect it, and be disappointed when it's not included.

Snapdragon 800

Beyond its cellular connectivity, the Nexus 5 is meaningful for sporting the fastest Android-compatible SoC in 2013, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800. At almost 2.3 GHz, its Krait 400 cores represent a significant speed-up compared to the APQ8064's 1.5 GHz Krait 200 architecture. 

The fact that Google's sub-$400 Nexus 5 has this SoC comes as somewhat of a surprise considering that quite a few premium Snapdragon 600-based phones were released only a few months prior. When the Nexus 5 launched in late October, it became one of the first widely available Snapdragon 800-based devices in the U.S. market. Putting such a premium SoC in this phone means no performance compromises were made. Apparently, Google wants its customers to experience the very best that Android has to offer on the company’s own branded line of devices.

On paper, the Snapdragon 800 SoC offers a lot potential performance. Some of this is related to hardware accelerators, but the Adreno 330 graphics core is largely responsible for its alacrity in games. Nvidia's Tegra K1 has us talking about a future with console-quality games on smartphones, but at least today, titles written for Android run very smoothly at maxed out quality settings on the Adreno engine. Recent releases likeAsphalt 8: Airborne, Riptide GP 2, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas run exceedingly well at maxed out settings, while slightly older games like Real Racing 3, Shadowgun, and Riptide GP appear smoother than ever. I was frankly quite surprised at the improvement, having previously come from a Xiaomi MI-2 with its Snapdragon S4 Pro/Adreno 320 SoC.

Android 4.4 KitKat: Project Svelte

Speaking of performance, the other really significant feather in the Nexus 5’s cap has to be Android 4.4 KitKat’s Project Svelte.

What Project Butter did for UI performance in Android 4.2, Project Svelte does for memory efficiency in KitKat; it essentially halves the memory footprint compared to previous versions of Android. In day-to-day use, that manifests as smoother app switching and more apps open at the same time with less impact on performance than before.

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this is a very progressive device. Priced at just $350 off-contract for the 16 GB model, the Nexus 5 (made by LG) really does seem unbeatable. A lot of that is attributable to the phone's formidable specs, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 at 2.3 GHz with Adreno 330 graphics (450 MHz) and 2 GB of LPDDR3-1600. As far as performance goes, that's a very modern platform on which to build a phone, and we've already seen it used in much more expensive devices like Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 and LG's G2 (on which the Nexus 5 is mostly based). Oh, and take note that both of thosephones sell for approximately $650 off-contract.

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