The Nexus range of smart phones from Google have been manufactured by various vendors, from HTC to Samsung and latterly LG.
The Nexus 5 is a 5” or 127mm display device that brings the range bang up to date.
The Nexus 4 sat firmly between the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 but just below the S4 in terms of outright specs, and the Nexus 5 occupies a similar niche, being just below the most current most highly specified devices, but still highly competitive.
The device is a sleek unit, with a highly tactile backing, though a plastic chassis. That said, it does feel rather sturdy and betrays no twist longitudinally, unlike some of its competitors.
The bezel on the front is minimal, giving full reign to that lovely 1920 x 1080 display. However, on the back, the new 8MP camera lens has a raised edge that seems somewhat incongruous with the rest of the smooth lines.
Overall dimensions are a 69 x 8.6 x 138mm, and weighing 130g, which is light indeed. It runs Android Kitkat 4.4, but has its own unique look. Even with its older sibling, the Nexus 4, running the same version of Kitkat, there are significant visual differences, but we’ll come that.
A significant point with the Nexus range is that you don’t get bundled headphones. This does allow you to use whatever you have to hand, but if you want a hands free headset, you’ll have to be careful to find one that is compatible, as not all will work.
What you do get is a charger and the little tool for the SIM drawer, but that’s it and there is no SD card slot.
The Nexus 5 is a sleek unit with a highly tactile backing, though a plastic chassis. That said, it does feel rather sturdy
On powering up, and having been a Nexus 4 user, I had all the Google account credentials necessary to get started, but there was one major snag. With my SIM card aboard, I was asked to log into my Google account, which I could not complete as I had set up two factor authentication as a security precaution.
In the Kitkat 4.4 implementation on the Nexus 5, SMS functionality has been integrated with Google Hangouts, the combined messaging and chat platform in Android. That might sound like a bit of a land grab, and I suppose it is, but it meant that I could not access the confirmation SMS code that I had been sent as part of my two factor authentication for the account. The only option presented is to get a verification code sent via a voice message, but, you’ve guessed it, I could not access that either.
So, counterintuitively, I had to skip the Google account section of the initial set up to get to the main screen, from which I could collect my verification code before going back to log into the Google account and resume the set up. This is a botched effort to say the least. A central argument for having a Google device is that it is fully integrated with all of the other Google services — not on this occasion, it seems. Now, I would not be a big Hangouts user anyway, so on getting past this point, a very quick Google on the topic revealed that the SMS application is available on the Play Store for download for free, and after installation, you can specify which app you want to be the default SMS handler.
With that sorted, it was into the device itself.
The first thing that strikes a user is that the home screens and icons have been given a new treatment. No longer do you have the five screens, with the central one as the main screen. Now, you have a home screen and a swipe to the left brings up the next one. The set-up is adaptive insofar as it expands to accommodate however many icons and widgets you wish to have available. I found that three was more than enough for my usage.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers