A day with the Nexus 4

As I mentioned to a few people, I have abandoned my Samsung Galaxy S3 for a Google Nexus 4 (the one made by LG). As for Samsung, I will never buy their devices again, they do not care about opening their Exynos platform and provide updated sources. Cyanogenmod has been playing catch up game for so long now it is no longer funny. Stock ROMs are just a joke, laggy and over crippled with bloatware. So in short, goodbye Samsung, you lost a customer.

I had been thinking about getting a stock device for a while, eventually caved in for the Nexus 4. Setup was a breeze, first boot upgraded the firmware for 4.2 to 4.2.1 over the air. That brings it to the same software version as I used on Cyanogen on the S3. I will start with the things I miss from the S3.

  • Notification led: Definitely better on the S3, the Nexus 4 one is very small and not so bright, also at the bottom of the phone, not the best place
  • Screen: I knew this one before buying the device, screen is much better on the S3, but again, I should get used to it, it is still quite stunning
  • Soft buttons: Force of habbit I guess but I like physical buttons better, and been used to them for a long time on the Galaxy series

Now onto the PROS:

  • Speed: That one was a given but I have been stunned by how quick the device feels.
  • Stock firmware: I had a taste with Cyanogen but stock feels even better, no extra software, pure Google experience
  • Battery life: I get quite a strong battery life and no drain over night even with wifi left on
  • Price: Back then the S3 was at 600 euros, the Nexus 4 16GB set me for 350 euros, difficult to fault it there

So far this is all I have to say about the phone, liking it a lot and not even planning to root it for now. There is a Cyanogen thread for the Nexus 4 but I would advise against it for now. I have read a fair bit of entries in there and there still are a few nagging issues compared to stock.

Last but not least, you can always recover stock by downloading from Google itself should you need to.

UPDATE : 4.2.2 was delivered to me OTA yesterday. Feels as good as previous version. For benefits and changes, take a look at this article: 4.2.2 screenshot comparison.