Hi everyone. So, I've spent a week with
the Nexus 5 and all-in-all
I'm incredibly impressed. There are a few things I'm going to correct
throughout this video, some things that
I considered to be either good or bad during my first look or full review
and some things I'd like to just update you on really. So
one of the first things that I found to be
quite interesting with this device over time is the battery life.
Now, a lot of people have been really grumbling about battery life
and for my mind it's not that bad.
I've just not encountered the issues that a lot of other people have
been having. For instance, my Nexus 5 easily makes it through a full day,
its standby time pretty good. I will say that when you have the screen on and the
brightness up full, the
battery does drain incredibly quickly but show me a smartphone that
isn't the case on! You know, It
could do with a bigger battery but a bigger battery would probably have pushed the
price up and the weight and we've got quite a
package of hardware in here. Overall the camera
is disappointing but that's purely because of that software APK for the camera. it's
not the best camera app
in the world. If you're having problems with your camera I've
uploaded a video which will show you how to patch the camera. If you've
rooted your device and you have access to a custom recovery you can flash
a file from
XDA and that will improve the camera quality quite considerably.
Well worth doing in my opinion. The package of apps that
Google provide are good, you know. The
updates to those apps as part of Android 4.4 are excellent in most cases.
Interestingly the screen record tool that was
provided to developers as part of the
updated Android SDK does
work reasonably well and there's already a developer who has built
and on device application to allow you to do
screen recording. It's fairly limited at the moment, you can't adjust the bitrate for
instance and you can't record for longer than three minutes
sadly, and that is actually a hard lock applied
to this particular piece of functionality on Android 4.4
so from my perspective I won't be using it to record gameplay videos or demos
or anything like that
I'll still be using my HDMI capture setup. But it is a very useful thing for
developers. My
one thing I would say is it sucks if you're trying to run a
FPS game at 60 frames a second. For whatever reason
the internal memory just can't keep up and you get quite a lot of tearing
and stuttering going on and that's the case whether you're playing it back on the Nexus 5
or dropping it onto a computer.
The quality just isn't good enough in my opinion for use as part of demonstration videos
if it's an FPS or, you know, a game that's really pushing
polygons for 3D. For instance I tried Dead Trigger 2
and honestly I would rather just hook it up to my HDMI capture set up
at least then I get a perfect 60 frames a second and it just looks great.
It was very very janky that recording tool
and that's by the way not this app which
to all intents and purposes works just same as the
background elements that are part of Android 4.4.
This app is basically calling those. I've hooked it up over ADB,
done the record command through a shell and yes, the video quality is exactly the
same as that little record app that the developers created
and it has exactly the same problems so it's very much an issue with the
implementation of Android 4.4 screen record tool, it could do with some work, it's
not quite there yet in my opinion, something that I think that the majority of
developers
game developers certainly are going to be able to use to really show off what their games are all about
are still better off using an HDMI capture
set up at this point. Now one thing that I do really want to mention
is the audio quality. Now in my first review
and my my first look review, and my full review I commented the audio quality was
quite
excellent. Now, having spent a bit more time with the device, what I've
discovered is the audio quality is excellent but only in certain
applications.
Haha! Gotcha as it were says Google.
So effectively if you're in Google Play music
it's loud it's got plenty of dynamic range to it, it feels great
and you have to turn the sound down because it's making your ears hurt.
However, go into YouTube go into a game or anything like that and I'm afraid the audio
quality falls off quite dramatically,
certainly in areas where there's a strong vocal part, so for instance
somebody talking
or you know somebody singing and it's obviously very well separated from the music
you can feel that the voice is tinny. It's losing some of its dynamic range and
it feels like it's almost missing its low ends
in the 4khz or 44khz range.
Now what I think is happening
is Google Play music has its own inbuilt EQ whether it's turned on
or not within the Google Music app and I think that is improving the audio
quality
considerably. What's obviously happening within the YouTube app and
within games and so is it doesn't benefit from that built in EQ.
Ideally there needed to be an EQ within Android 4.4 as it were so that all
apps could take advantage of it and it does seem that there is a per app
tuning occurred here where Google Play music is
able to produce a much better range of sound from the speaker than
any other application would. Now it's a little bit disappointing but it is very
much a speaker orientated
thing, when I've plugged in a set of headphones, I have not noticed the problem so just bear that in mind.
It's a shame in some respects but it's kind of par for the course I think
with a device of this spec. It's just a shame really that Google music is
giving such a great sound and
obviously then you go to YouTube, and then fair enough we've got the whole YouTube
low bit rates on the audio and the video and everything like that it's going to make
the sound a
little bit more wishy washy but
I would still have expected it to be just a little bit more bassy than it is.
Perhaps Google could add the same EQ technology
to their YouTube app if they're looking at doing this background audio with YouTube in
the near future
perhaps we'll see that functionality coming then. There is so much music that people
listen to on YouTube
that it just would make sense to improve that quality if they can add just a bit of EQ to it.
So there you go. That's an unfortunate downside I think now.
If you are buying this as a device you want to listen to music on
without headphones as long as you're going to be using Play Music
you're going to be fine but if you wanted to listen to music through YouTube or another app
you may very well find you need to
accept it's not going to be particularly awesome.
Or use an app for playing back your music that has a built in EQ and tweak things
until you get it how you like it.
Now, overall I found the device to be absolutely fantastic when I've been using it.
I found no major slowdowns I've been playing a variety of different games on it
using different apps and it's absolutely great. One thing I will say
when you gather a few friends around though it maybe doesn't make the best
impression because
those viewing angles are not particularly awesome off the 30%
and so a few friends have gone, ooh, screen's a bit washed out and it's like well, hang on a second
you hold it. Oh, that's much better.
So just bear that in mind as well. If you're getting any stick off your friends you know, tell them to
actually hold the device if you trust them not to drop it
then they can actually see what the device is really capable of.
It's a beautifully bright screen and it has incredible
sharpness to it as well.
Overall I'm not grumbling about the Nexus 5
there's a few rough edges here which are software-related more than anything else
and it just feels to me that Google have absolutely nailed what the Nexus devices
are like. This is almost like the final
progression of the Nexus range.
If they continue to build on top of the Nexus 5 as it were, if the Nexus 6 takes
everything they've done with the Nexus 5 and just makes a few improvements
we're going to be looking at a very very good range. Ultimately
the Nexus 5 is well worth picking up. its price point is fantastic
and after a week I still love the thing, bearing
in mind I've got an HTC One here,
a Galaxy S4, a Z1 and the Nexus 5 has now become my daily driver.
Overall brilliant performance, an excellent screen, you take the Nexus 5 outside
and compare it to the Galaxy S4 and straight away you can see that the
Nexus 5 is easy to read, you know, even in strong sunlight
the Galaxy S4 disappears unfortunately
very difficult to read and that is really the main difference between IPS
and AMOLED. AMOLED does not work particularly well in strong sunlight
no matter what Samsung may claim. Nexus 5 on the other hand using IPS screen
it's lovely and bright and it really cuts through the glare.
So, if you've enjoyed this one week look at the Nexus 5
do feel free to share it with your friends, do leave us a comment let me know how
you're getting on with your Nexus 5 any problems,
any tips you'd like to share with other Nexus 5 owners, do let us know in the comments.
And have a great weekend everyone.