So let's talk about the software. Now with a
Nexus device we don't get lots of bloatware. What we do get is all of Google's core apps
and services fully integrated into the device. Now that starts now with a new
launcher. Now the
launcher is fully integrated with Google search
and vice versa and so you can pull up a search from
the home screen as you could always but now there are also voice commands which allow you to say
OK Google and the device will kick off Google Now and you can run your search
query.
Now I'm actually having some problems with it today. I installed
the SwiftKey keyboard last night and
now for some reason my voice commands aren't working even though they should be
and all my settings are perfect.
So I will just show you a video now of how that works
and then come back and we'll carry on talking about the rest of the
software. OK Google, what's the weather like today?
Software wise, like I say,
we get all of the core Google experience, so
we have Gmail, Google+ the new photos app
which at some point is probably going to replace
the Google gallery but not just yet, we now have Google gallery and
this photos app which is tied really into Google+.
Google Maps, the people or contacts list,
Google Calendar, Google Keep, Drive and YouTube. We also have Hangouts
and a new phone dialler as well. Now, the phone dialler is again
fully integrated with the Google search system so you can search for contacts.
Instead of providing huge numbers of contacts and a fairly ugly interface
now you can do everything via a simple search query and the most-used
will appear at the bottom here with photos as necessary.
There's a new phone dialler which is very nicely integrated and just looks awesome when it's
popping up like that,
and then you've got your options on the side here.
All very nice done, it's a beautiful carded
design and it works very nicely. Now
Hangouts has a major new feature that's been added in
which is now SMS integration within Hangouts so if one of your Hangouts
contacts sends you an SMS
instead of it going to the separate messaging app like it used to it all comes into Hangouts.
Effectively
Hangouts is your messaging client from now on. You also get Google Chrome
which has been updated I think to the latest WebKit
build or whatever Google are doing with WebKit these days and
there's also the Google camera app and as I highlighted earlier in my review,
the camera app is atrocious and
really Google should be ashamed that they even shipped it, it's so
buggy, it makes their camera look weak when the camera actually isn't that
weak in my opinion but the app is very weak. We also have access to Google Play
music,
movies and books and the play games app which is very nice by the way.
Overall it's a great package
of basic software if you only use Google services
absolutely fine. If you happen to be tied into Samsung, HTC services already
it's going to be a bit of a retrograde step for you unfortunately.
But overall the whole experience
with the Google Android 4.4 is
very good. It's a very fast operating system and not just because
of the upgraded hardware specs that the Nexus 5 offers.
Overall it's very tight and fluid
There's none of this kind of stuttering or laggyness that we've seen in
other versions of Android. Now there is still the occasional
stutter when you're installing something but that's kind of
par for the course, we see that on absolutely every Android device out there and
even iPhones so you know it's not something that I
really mark a device down for anymore it's just that the way
software works on these devices. Trying to read and write data to the flash memory
simultaneously is
going to cause a little bit of stutter. So
overall the software package is really excellent. The Gallery app
is OK it's been hanging around now for a little too long probably about time the
photos app did kill that off actually.
If you are interested in knowing how you get into your widgets area because that's moved now,
you long press and that will then bring up
your home screen overlay. You can access your
wallpapers and your widgets and also your settings. So if you go into widgets
you've then got access to all of your widgets there and you can just do a long press to drop them onto
the home screen.
And press, drag,drop.
Easy is that. In my opinion
Google have put together a very good update to Android. 4.4 might not be the revolution
we were all hoping for
that we came to expect. Might be Android 5
but it's a very good solid update and it's good to see that there's still this
progression at Google, you know,
tweaking and fixing and making things faster and better.
Overall each stage of Android has got better and better and better.
I would say that I think they need to put a little bit more time and effort into their
camera app and
some of the other apps that you know are kind of go-to
apps for most users and if the experience isn't great, it's not giving a great experience
of the hardware but you know maybe Google will patch that over the next few
weeks and things will improve quite considerably.