back to article Tech specs wreck: Details of Google's Nexus 5 smartphone leaked over internet

A leaked manual for Google's next flagship phone, the Nexus 5, shows a filled-out screen, a faster CPU, more memory and full 4G support, but no shocks, in the ongoing evolution of Android. The manual, leaked to Android Police, is an engineering tome packed with technical specifications and debug procedures, enough to show that …

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  1. James Hughes 1

    Well, the guy that leaked that won't stay is his job for long (or shouldn't do). That's a serious failure in security. One does wonder whether he/she has actually broken the law as well.

    As for the phone - well, doesn't take a rocket engineer to figure bigger screen, wireless charging, faster CPU and bigger RAM.

    1. Reality Dysfunction

      Double the internal capacity from 16GB to 32GB, RAM is the same 2GB you already get with the Nexus 4.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why do LG care?

      Everyone already knew it was pretty much a re-hash of the LG G2.

      Thats been out for a while, anyone can go buy one and stare at the board layout.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Same old, same old... but what do you expect.

      Fingerprint sensors are a decent step but of course we've seen them before. Wireless charging - not a lot of point if it's slower and / or they have not actually decided on a standard. Bigger screen, faster CPU - yawn.

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        "Fingerprint sensors are a decent step..."

        I saw this headline on hckrnews:

        "Fingerprints are usernames, not passwords."

        It's probably the most concise summary of this topic - ever.

        1. Michael Hutchinson

          Re: "Fingerprint sensors are a decent step..."

          "Fingerprints are usernames, not passwords."

          But you can still change your username (sometimes). Once someone has your fingerprint, it'll be a painful process to change it.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      LG v Samsung

      No we might see some more high value litigation rather than the old Apple v Samsung.

      1. Dave 126

        Re: LG v Samsung

        >Everyone already knew it was pretty much a re-hash of the LG G2.

        The G2 has some nice features... none that would cause people to go 'Wow!, but nice nonetheless, such as the screen that saves the GPU power (although others use this too), the bi-wiring that saves on bezel space, and the high definition audio playback. The LG G2 seems to have suffered (in terms of media exposure) from being the 4th entry to a race that already included the S4, HTC One, and Sony Z variants.

    5. Robert E A Harvey

      re: as for the phone

      ... and no removable storage?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you want one now I have an example that also includes a handy s-pen, 4K video and the words 'Samsung' and 'Note-3' written on it.

    1. Reality Dysfunction

      I love the specs on the Note 3 but you will probably be able to buy 2 Nexus 5s for the price for 1 Note 3.

    2. samster

      Ah yes the Samsung with Touch-Wiz... "A lesson in how to take a incredibly fast CPU and gorgeous looking n' smooth OS and slow it down and make it butt-ugly"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        It's very fast, runs at that speed for 3+ days on one charge, looks beautiful in my and everyone else who has seen it's opinion and you don't have one ...

        1. samster

          You're right Phil... I don't have one. But I've had the GS2, GS3 and have daily access to the GS4... Touchwiz is 'orrible, compared to stock OS (I'm talking design not features) Also, if you take Samsung's ROm off off and flash a stock Android 4.x ROM, both the S3 and S4 are much quicker and smoother. Samsung must code their overlay in Visual Basic or something.... Plus it's nice to have quick access to Google Now, one of the best software innovations in years, but surprise surprise Samsung make it harder to access.

          ....What's your problem with 'swipe up' Samsung...?

      2. joeW

        TouchWiz

        Yeah, and there's absolutely no way whatsoever to use another launcher either.

        Oh, wait.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But the benchmarks show it is the fastest phone around ;)

        1. Dave 126

          @AC that's a touch too subtle, perhaps.

          Seems a strange game for Samsung to play... non-geeks don't care about benchmarks, true geeks know that their benchmarks are cooked...

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  4. Simon Rockman

    The sad thing is..

    The bit of the specification that excites me most is "notification light".

    Some things - the notification light and the Jog Dial -- were so fundamental to what made early Blackberries great you have to wonder why no-one uses them.

    1. Reality Dysfunction

      Re: The sad thing is..

      The Nexus 4 has a notification light..

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is..

      Blackberry Notification light

      so when you wake in the middle of the night, you have to figure out why your bedroom is lit with an unearthly pulsating red glow....

      1. samster

        Re: The sad thing is..

        The Nexus 4 has the nicest notification light I've ever seen... simply beautiful (and doesn't light up the entire room at night)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The sad thing is..

          Easily pleased obviously.

        2. Stefing

          Re: The sad thing is..

          Mine certainly doesn't light up the room - I put it in airplane mode overnight ;)

      2. Thesheep

        Re: The sad thing is..

        Cylons. Bloody cylons.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The sad thing is..

        Get an app then. There are apps that can supress the notification LED's between certain hours... The power of Android is unlimited, if there is a GPIO pin, then someone's written an app to tweak something.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is..

      The Note-3 has a very useful and totally configurable notification light. I've missed the one on my Nokia N900 until last week when my Note-3 arrived. My Note-1 didn't have a light.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The sad thing is..

        > The Note-3 has a very useful and totally configurable notification light.

        That's great. It also has a region lock if I'm not mistaken. That's not so good.

        1. frank ly

          Re: The sad thing is..

          Try NoLED. It puts notification symbols on your screen that tell you what kind of notification it is (e.g. e-mail arriving for a particular account, txt message, etc). These are customisable for colour and symbol set. You can set it to supress the screen display if the case cover is closed and set 'quiet times'.

      2. Elron

        Re: The sad thing is..

        Amusing to see someone with exactly the same upgrade path to me (Nokia N900->Note 1->Note 3)

        1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

          @Elron Re: The sad thing is..

          For the sake of comparison, I went n900->xperia mini pro (which was awful)->xperia pro

          I couldn't live without the physical keyboard. Even with the screen size of these latest phones, the lack of tactile feedback from a screen just confuses my fingers. It's a failing. If I could get some sort of clip-on bluetooth keyboard that suppressed the on-screen keyboard I'd switch in a heartbeat.

    4. Timmay

      Re: The sad thing is..

      Xperia Z

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is..

      Notification light?

      Wow how technology has moved on from my £10 Motorola w220 from about 2006.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is..

      HTC One has one, Galaxy phones have them. The HTC One at least hides its light neatly in the top grill, not shining through cheapo plastic like the Samungs do.

      1. Dave 126

        Re: The sad thing is..

        Xperias have LED notification lights, different colours for different alerts. Strange thing is, all I would want from a 'smart watch' is a notification light.

  5. Steve Crook
    Black Helicopters

    Too late too late

    Deep in my research cavern my minions are already manufacturing parts based on these designs. Google will soon be a thing of the past Bwahhhh ha ha ha.

  6. Rich C

    Really? High speed digital design is not black magic, and a mobile phone chip uses standard interfaces.

    Might be useful to someone trying to mod the handset I guess...

  7. Robin Bradshaw

    Should publish these for all phones

    OK I'm fairly sure I have the right leaked service manual in front of me and i can see "16Gb(SDRAM DDR2)" which I'm quite certain is wrong, unless they are using 14Gb of it for the baseband, which would be wasteful.

    One thing I particularly appreciate is they list how many bars in the signal strength == what dBm.

    I would paste the table here but I'm sure that would draw the ire of the moderator.

    I for one salute LG for there attempt at ending the bullshit that is random uncalibrated signal strength meters, and I shall be happy in the knowledge that if I am ever using LTE and have 4 bars I have better than -85dBm±3dBm signal strength.

    1. Victor Ludorum

      Re: Should publish these for all phones

      Gb usually means gigabits. GB usually menas gigabytes (16 gigabits = 2 gigabytes)

      V.

  8. IHateWearingATie

    My S4 has a notification light

    One of the reasons I chose the S4 for my work phone to replace an old blackberry

    1. Big_Ted

      Re: My S4 has a notification light

      So does my HTC 8X windows phone.

      Must say I prefer the Nexus pale grey light though.

      Then again as soon as this is availabel my mint nexus 4 and the HTC will be sold to but the 5......

      Also notice no mention of the camera in the article that most others are making a big thing about being miles better than not only the current Nexus but pretty much anything else out there.....

      http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/nexus-5-lytro-like-mems-camera-outed-in-leaked-files-1185946

      http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/124145-nexus-5-details-leak-in-service-manual-32gb-storage-8mp-ois-camera

      1. Miffo

        Camera

        >Also notice no mention of the camera in the article that most others are making a big thing about being miles better than not only the current Nexus but pretty much anything else out there.....

        The two links you gave contradict each other. The first says it's a MEMS camera with no OIS, the second one says it has OIS and doesn't mention MEMS. The second one sounds more likely but that doesn't say it's miles better than anything else! It's got OIS - could be nice but not ground breaking.

  9. Michael Jennings

    I've seen things you people would not believe.

    Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 7. They are definitely taunting us.

    1. Popup

      Re: I've seen things you people would not believe.

      Well, you surely wouldn't want a nexus-6 haunting you!

      (And Dick's lawyers would have a field day. if they tried...)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I've seen things you people would not believe.

        Re: Blade runner no one would ever confuse a nexus 6 from google with a clone. ..... No wait.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't think so.

    > One can be certain that engineers from every other phone manufacturer are already delighting in the insights offered.

    This is the type of thing that every other phone manufacturer will ban their engineers from seeing.

    Any manufacturer that solves the problems in similar way to LG and had their engineers look at this could find themselves at the wrong of a losing lawsuit.

  11. Longrod_von_Hugendong

    Come on people...

    Its marketing bullshit, it was leak for people to talk about in the masturbatorium of mobile stuff and things.

    ok, its a cheap phone with good specs - nothing to see here.

  12. tentimes

    Will it be cheap as chips like the Nexus 4?

    The Nexus 4 was a total steal (I am a proud owner). If they do the same this time and sell it below cost I will be getting a Nexus 5 (LG G2) as well.

    Hopefully it doesn't have the stupid buttons on the back though.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The phone will be out in 3 weeks.

    Any company that was really interested would buy one and take it apart? What have LG lost really? Nothing. They have the interwebz talking about the Nexus 4 2013 model, and that's what really matters.

    In fact I wouldn't be surprised it this was the latest form of "phone found in bar", which got old a while back.

  14. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    No SD card

    It seems that Google is, like Apple, realizing that the best way to know what everybody is doing all of the time is to not allow storage upgrades. You can't have people downloading OpenStreetMap databases and breaking Google's realtime tracking and marketing analysis. You can't have people loading their phone up with music files or you don't know what people are listening to. You certainly can't have people storing images and videos in their phone because then you don't know who they're with. Send it to the cloud, process it, and see how far you can push the "creepy line."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No SD card

      Utter tripe/. You know Nexus phones have EXTERNAL storage right? Sure it might not be removable, but it's accessible like a SD card, so you can copy music and OSM databases to it just fine.

      Just another idiot that's ranting without realising what an idiot he is making of himself. I guess you bought a Samsung and are pissed that a Nexus4 is half the price and twice as good?

  15. Robert Measday

    I had an LG mobile phone once...

    Never again.

  16. Metrognome

    A couple of legit questions

    Guys, just 4 years ago was when the first mainstream quad-cores made it to market. Back then 2.3 ghz meant a hefty cooling fan.

    Nowadays they're in a phone (I understand the exaggeration but bear with me).

    So have we got successful parallelism that so plagued early x86 code to make the most of the extra cores?

    Is parallelism handled differently on ARM and is easier to leverage?

    At the end of the day I recall from the x86 camp that twice the cores!=twice the power. How is it on ARM and Android?

    (Funnily enough the phone's specs albeit with a little more RAM has been the "good - enough" setup that slowed pc sales down the last 5 years).

  17. Parax

    Nexus

    Still surprised Motorola are not making the Nexus for Google.

    tbh I preferred the previous Samsung Nexus. the LG version does not seem as responsive, I don't like the glass back seems bulkier and you can't put it down without it sliding off, and the battery is poor, my Samsung nexus would last 36 hours the LG sometimes only manages 18 hours.. (My usage has not changed.) and without a removable battery, that is very poor.

    I'm tempted to swap back..(if the wife will go with it...) and If google cant be arsed to make decent nexus's I may end up considering a non-nexus like the htc one.. but I really hate the operator OS modifications with slow/poor updates.

  18. corestore

    Bzzzzzz

    "One can be certain that engineers from every other phone manufacturer are already delighting in the insights offered."

    I'm going to give you a caution there.

    Everyone knows how litigious this business can be.

    If it could ever be shown that engineers had in fact read such a contraband manual, LG & Google would OWN the manufacturer involved, and all their products, in court.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Screw the Nexus 4

    God, I hate my stupid Nexus 4 now. It's really embarrassing and OLD.

  20. The Axe

    Will the manual be read by competitors? Lawyers will say no.

    I don't think it will it. I'm sure that engineers will be told to stay well clear of it. Companies do not want any hint, even the slightest, that they used a competitors information as it would provide ammunition in court cases. They will reverse engineer stuff that the public can get hold of, but they can't short cut the design by using the manual - the lawyers will be saying no.

  21. Metrognome

    To all those talking about competitors utilising the manual

    Sorry to sound like a spoilsport but there is nothing, *nothing* that any known handset manufacturer doesn't already know.

    If a maker found any new knowledge in there then they are behind the curve by some years.

    And as for the intel value of knowing the competition's products before launch, any half decent marketing department would have worked it out from its market intelligence.

    So, to the makers at least, this is a non story.

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