Google Nexus 4 flips finger at Sandy, appears on YouTube Google was to have launched the LG-made Nexus 4 smartphone today, but with Hurricane Sandy shutting down the advertising giant’s planned New York announcement, it has been left to Sweden’s Three network - it has been claimed - to reveal the handset in all its glory. Of course, the specs are already out, thanks to the UK’s very …
Yes, I am wondering about this, too.. seems a tad minimal. A lot of folks like to carry a pocket full of tunes, even if they are casual rather than nerdy users. I mean.. I am not sure about those strange souls with wallets full of cards, but the usual 16GB/64GB options would seem wise..
(Disclosure, I do OK with a Galaxy S3 16GB with a 32GB card in it, mostly full of music)
Indeed there is a 16GB version available... I imagine more people will end up going for this version over the 8GB one...
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_16gb
Not bad for £279 - they do mention a release date of 13th November, but like the poster above me I'm guessing that's a US release date.
http://officialandroid.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/nexus-best-of-google-now-in-three-sizes.html
Seems to be higher spec than most upper tier tablet computers you see on the market these days. *curses not waiting for the next iteration of the transformer and settling for the infinity*
Ah well, I still have a full year before my mobile contract expires, so this makes little difference to me.
The last couple of nexus phones have had no SD card and only 16GB of storage. It's kind of what they do.
I'd like a larger option, personally.
Also, the styling of the device looks really poor and uninspiring.
However, at £280 for a quad core phone with an IPS screen, 2G ram and wireless charging ... I might well be tempted ...
That's what I was thinking - it's a bloody good price for a bloody good phone, by the specs of it.
It'll be tricky deciding between this, and the Note 2, methinks.
Prices for the GSM Nexus 7 are interesting too. Looks like they are going straight for the throat of the iPad mini, without any mercy...
Also, the Nexus 10 with a 2560-by-1600 screen - at £320 for the wifi 16gb one.
Methinks that stir-up in the tablet market I asked for is starting to happen...
Steven R
Please LG, don't screw us over like samsung did with the accessories for the galaxy nexus.
Give us official car & desk docks at a reasonable price with the launch of the device, or quickly after.
Samsung was several months. In fact, I'm not sure that everything they promised has been release yet.
Apple ban El Reg from their events and gets months of pre and post launch coverage.
Google, as far as I know, haven't banned El Reg, but cancelled their event for sensible safety reasons, and have still announced the products they were going to unveil at the cancelled event.
El Reg's coverage, bugger all.
Even the BBC have managed to cover it before you!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20127135
Hang your moth-eaten vulture head in shame!
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/nexus-best-of-google-now-in-three-sizes.html
I can't help but feel the iPhone 5 has aged massively in the past 24 hours, particularly in the area that it used to hold most dear - user interface. Where android was only just keeping up with iPhone a few years ago, it feels almost an entire release ahead now.
Jelly Bean has really made big advances in UI, and Google Now seems like a lot of great ideas brought together in one area - plus widgets have reached a point where they feel like an important part of the interface, rather than an add-on. Android finally integrates all of Google's services in a smooth way.
Windows Phone 8, for all its flaws, has a UI that brings a lot of information to the front page, without clutter - live tiles make getting information easy, is very customisable, and feels intuitive (based on experiences with WP7.5, from all reports, things are even better with WP8).
iPhone5 has..... an extra row of icons. The UI hasn't really changed for generations, and simply can't convey information in the same way that the competition does.
Ironically, a lot of the new UI features that WP8 and JB4.2 have were probably a side-effect of Apple's litigious nature - they've searched for vastly different approaches to UI, and both come up with something better than what Apple has so vicously protected for the last 6 years.
I'll be getting a 16GB Nexus 4 on release (upgrading from an old Dual core LG 3D phone, can't remember what its called), the lack of an SD card slot irks me, but for $400 I'm willing to deal with it.
I really don't see how the Android UI has improved much over Froyo. Battery life, sure that's better (and not part of the UI). Things run a little smoother, but it's still the same old icons+widgets affair unless you're running a tablet. In that case, the notification bar becomes part of the non-removable waste of screen space at the bottom along with the Home, Menu and Recent Apps "buttons".
On a phone though? You could show someone every version of Android from Donut onwards and they'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. Android might have had some stuff added under the hood, but the UI is pretty much the same as it's always been.
Anyway, wonder how long until Google sue Microsoft for copying Android's widgets and calling them "tiles"?
"Where android was only just keeping up with iPhone a few years ago, it feels almost an entire release ahead now."
But we also shouldn't forget what ios was like a few years ago. On UI, it lacked even fundamental basic features like copy/paste. It still doesn't have any concept of a homescreen, something Android, Symbian and feature phones have had for almost 10 years.
In other areas - multitasking, maps, video calling all came years late, even basic functionality such as picture messaging, or even apps, were years after feature phones. It's iphone that has been playing catch up. Since the 4S, they finally have all the things that are necessary in a basic phone, but now as you say, Android is leaping ahead in both software and hardware.
Not to mention the Nexus 4 now doing it at a fraction of the price.
I agree that WP is the only real attempt at a new UI. Rows of icons has been the standard on phones since the begining. Even the first smartphone in 1992 used icons, and colourful rows of icons was the standard even on bog standard feature phones since around 2004. This was in turn taken from computers, where icons were the standard until more newer methods like start menus appeared. The Amiga had a grid of colourful icons for its programs in 1985.
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