this is the Google Nexus 5 remember the smartphone guys it was
launched roughly four years ago and it's sold like hotcakes
I remember this device going in and out of stock in a fish of Google Playstore
and the sole reason for that is because people really liked what it offer for
the price there were two storage variants for this device so 16 gigabytes
and 32 gigabytes priced at 349 and 399 USD think about it
actually that's me that makes me wonder how far we've come in terms of pricing
for Android smartphone these days take this baseline Google pixel to for
instance it currently retails for 649 dollars that's $300 more compared to the
baseline Nexus 5 now obviously it's not fair to compare both these smartphones
but we're really starting to pay a premium for Android devices these days
especially if you're looking to get the latest and greatest in terms of specs
features camera performance and you know basically a whole round package that was
not the case with the Nexus 5 it was it was a relatively you know decent
hardware but with a great software experience back then what I really
appreciated about Google was their ability to offer the best of Android at
a relatively affordable price point clean version of Android and no
bloatware was the best software experience this was a great buy back
then but eventually Google sort of dissolved the Nexus branding and they
moved on to the pixel lineup and as always you know smartphones are not
meant to last year longer the performance degrades the battery life
degrades the camera performance well let's say it's not gonna compete with
today's standards but you know what for fun sakes I decided to use this device
for a single day and just see how it actually is holding up because it's fun
just revisiting tech from back then so let me walk you through my experience
run it for this wondering how to fix a boring fan
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build outline what matters all right so the first thing that I noticed is just
how well this thing has held up over time from a structural standpoint that
is this is in mind by the way in fact if you've been following our channel for a
while you we have noticed Mike aka sky MTL our
boss yeah so this is his smartphone and he's taking care of it pretty well I can
see that he hasn't used a case and the rear side of the phone really does show
some where the screen has a few scratches but it's nothing major no
cracks or any weird marks he's done a really good job taking care of the phone
so good job Mike the 5-inch 1080p IPS display still functions it's nice and
sharp colors are on point viewing angles are still excellent considering the
panel technology it's obviously not super vibrant when
compared to the AMOLED panel and the contrast ratio might be a little off but
honestly I'd still consume content on the Nexus 5 because it works and it's
still good however be prepared to use a pair of headphones while consuming
content because the integrated speakers are pretty terrible in fact it was one
of the downside to the Nexus 5 in the first place I can definitely notice
distortions at higher volumes handling might have been a cause for that but I'm
not exactly sure the button still feel nice and tactile and they're still
functional so overall from a build quality
standpoint I'm really impressed with how far the Nexus 5 has held up now for my
drive today I'll be using the Nexus 5 for navigation of a few places to go to
unfortunately I wasn't able to load my SIM card to this device because the
Nexus 5 supports Micro SIM and not nano SIM that's on my pixel too and I don't
have an adapter that can support it so I'm just gonna be using the hotspot
method for navigation I've installed my most frequently used apps like Instagram
Twitter and a few more of course I'll be consuming content for the rest of the
day on this device so let's just see how that goes
okay so I ran out of battery on the Nexus 5 it was I was coming it was kind
of expected because you know over time the battery life degrades on any
smartphone I was able to get run an hour and maybe an hour and a half worth it
being on time on this guy I just watching YouTube videos and of
course navigating through the city so I think you know it holds up pretty well
you definitely have to carry a power bank especially if you're rocking a
Nexus 5 right now I'm pretty sure you'll be rocking in power bank with you while
you're on the go also it's really cold here in Toronto I mean it's a mini April
and it's like freezing so I'm gonna go back to my car yeah okay so my cable
drawer is a little bit of a mess and I don't think I do have any micro USB
cables lying around here so I mean actually hold on I think oh yeah this
works this is actually the one that I used to charge the Corsair glaive RGB
Mouse it's a wireless mouse so it charges via microUSB so it's perfect for
the Nexus 5 because I ran out of battery on this guy so let's plug it in so the
softer experience is fairly straightforward on the Nexus 5 at lunch
it came with Android 4.4 KitKat if I'm not mistaken I really do miss those days
guys but over time Google did roll out updates until 6.0 marshmallow and it
ended support for the device after that currently it's rocking 6.0.1
and from just a day worth of usage it's pretty smooth it definitely suffers a
multitasking especially if you have a ton of apps running in the background
and this makes sense because it's running a four-year-old CPU in this case
these Snapdragon 800 with 2 gigabytes of RAM but just for casual stuff it gets
the job done really well I mean I was able to watch youtube videos TV shows
and Netflix check social media and I'm really surprised at how well it handles
those apps I'll be it not as fast as modern smartphone these days but you get
the point one of the cool advantages of running stock Android on a device like
this is just the way how Google has optimized the apps to run on the
hardware so back then you know has it started with 4.4 KitKat Google has
optimized the apps they've improved the performance and just a way how they've
handled things in the background and so far it just works the app
I mean app support is still present I'm pretty sure most apps on the Play Store
still support and can still run on the Nexus 5 because it's running 6.0.1 and
it certainly meets the requirements for most apps in the Play Store which is
great I think one of the devices that competed with the Nexus 5 back then was
the HTC One in fact my very first Android smartphone was the Google Play
edition HTC One it was sold directly by Google it's to receive constant updates
over time and I absolutely loved my experience with it came with great build
quality fantastic build quality if you ask me and just overall I felt a lot
more superior compared to the Nexus 5 yet it offered the best of Google coming
to think of it why aren't we seeing Google Play edition devices on
smartphone these days I would love to see a Google Play edition galaxy s 9
Google Play edition LG G 6 or something like that it would be really awesome I
mean think about it you've got great design software
experience would be just amazing on these devices you can only wish so the
last thing that I wanted to test it was the camera on the Nexus 5 it features an
eID megapixel sensor with an F 2.4 aperture comes with OS which is
incredible and looking at these shots I'm actually really impressed with how
well this thing takes pictures I left all the settings in auto mode with HDR
plus turned on it takes a few seconds to process the image but man I really
respect what what what this phone does I mean it's great the dynamic range is
actually pretty good on this camera you're obviously not gonna get the best
detail out of this when compared to you know something like a pixel and it's not
a fair comparison but at least you know 2018
a phone like this which is 4 years old I'm really impressed but I'd love to
hear your thoughts on the quality what do you guys think about it
now I have some trouble getting the sensor to focus in low-light conditions
I think it must be an optics error or something like that I'm not exactly sure
but overall I'm actually really impressed for a 4-year old smartphone so
that's the story with the Nexus 5 guys I definitely had a lot of fun revisiting
this device in 2018 and I'm surprised at how well it's still holding up apps
still work great and let me know in the comments down below if any of you guys
are still rocking one of these devices and now it's been working out with you
but yeah that's about it thank you so much for watching
I'm Eber with Hardware Canucks and once see you in the next one