Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0

[jonknee]

Higher-res screen than a net book, comprable CPU, always-on high speed internet and it fits in your pocket... The future is impressive.

[cube13]

If the battery lasts longer than 5 minutes. Sure, you could underclock the device to save battery, but what's the use of all that power in a mobile device if you can't use that power while mobile?

This is becoming a huge problem for the smartphone market. The phones are getting more and more powerful, but the batteries aren't keeping up. iPhones last about a day, maybe 2 with moderate use, and Android devices are all over the place, with some lasting for quite a while, but others lasting only a handful of hours before needing a charge.

[kyleslattery]

Interesting how Google has been removing the hardware buttons in favor of software buttons onscreen. I've always like having at least a home button to always be able to exit an app, even if the UI is frozen.

[generalk]

The three extra physical buttons beyond Home are my favorite Android features!

- Menu: It's nice having a go-to place to find options or additional functions. With the iPhone, it's however the app author decided to design his software. With Android, hit menu, it's probably there.

- Search: Again, having a context-sensitive search button is a big win. It pulls up the URL Bar in the browser, the Search screen in the Market, and the voice commands on the home screen.

- Back: This is the really big win. Having a constant way to have the phone go back to wherever you were previously is huge, especially given Android's "intent" system. Twitter -> Browser -> Mail Client -> Incoming SMS, and to get back to Twitter I just hit the back button until I'm there.

I'm not sure I could even use an Android phone at this point that didn't have the hardware back button.

[SkyMarshal]

My experience with my Nexus S is that the few times the UI freezes, neither the physical mechanical buttons nor the physical capacitance buttons help any. I can either wait a while, or hard reboot and wait longer.

[TomOfTTB]

You can see their logic though. Even one button means you have to give up a whole inch with of space on the phone. I don't see Google removing the side buttons (assuming the Motorola Xoom is where the phone is headed in terms of button design). So you should always be able to do a hard reset if nothing else.

For the record I can see Google's point but I agree with you. The irony of the Xoom is the ever present software buttons take up as much room as the hardware buttons do.

[zheng]

The major place I miss a hardware button is to end calls. If the software is just slow (not frozen), it can lead to awkward trying to hang-up sounds for the other party.

[nextparadigms]

I like the idea of no buttons and I've been waiting for it for a year now. It means no wasted physical space, and depending on how they implement the virtual ones, they might not even occupy screen space all the time, but just activate on demand.

[jinushaun]

The physical home button is my favourite feature of the iPhone compared to Android phones. I fight with the Android soft keys every day...

[Splines]

The nice thing about no hardware buttons is you don't need to worry about them failing.

[MatthewPhillips]

There will be software buttons, so even if an app freezes, the home button will not. Unless Android itself freezes, in which case the hardware home button would be just as useless.

[usaar333]

Phone names are getting confusing. I have a Nexus S 4G, which is significantly inferior to this Nexus 4G. O_o

[zitterbewegung]

No mention of NFC? I guess we could assume its going to be in the phone I hope?

[tfh]

nfc is already in the nexus s. So i guess it's in.

[swah]

I wish the laptop market was having this amount of innovation.

[rdin]

Hopefully this will address some of the issues with the Nexus S, particularly:

-No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support

-Lack of MicroSIM

[cstuder]

How is the lack of MicroSIM an issue? As far as I know there's no functional difference apart from the size.

[Griever]

And as a bit of a smaller complaint, no notification LED. I still don't quite know what they were thinking when they decided to leave that off.

[technomancy]

> -No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support

According to the article it's on LTE, so that means AT&T or Verizon. I can see why they're doing it as it looks like WiMax doesn't have a great future ahead of it, but I both those carriers have abysmal track records for customer abuse (as opposed to merely bad.)

[grandalf]

No mention of the 1 hour battery life in the article. Features are great but so far Google has a horrible track record of caring about the overall user experience of the phone (toward which battery life is a very significant factor).

I'd like to see Google make a battery life claim that is on par with the iPhone and have it come true.

[fragsworth]

My Nexus S lasts several days with regular use, so I don't know what you're talking about.

You probably installed a bad app on your phone that was draining its battery, and mis-attributed the problem to the device.

[mcantelon]

The Galaxy tab released at Google IO has great battery life. So hopefully this tech will migrate phonewards.

[drivebyacct2]

What? My D1 battery lasts all day long easily and it's an abused, sad battery. Better than my friend with a 3GS after a day of regular usage with him.

[nextparadigms]

Kind of disappointing it's not Tegra 3, but at least I hope it's the dual core Qualcomm Krait at 1.5 Ghz built on 28nm process and Adreno 300, rather than OMAP 4.

Everything else about it is exactly what I've been hoping for: HD resolution, 4.5" screen, no buttons, 4G.

[MatthewPhillips]

4.5" seems a tad excessive to me. I'll follow you to 4.0", and you can probably talk me into 4.3... but 4.5? Getting a little to close to Dell Streak territory in my opinion.

[fieldforceapp]

Curious, any reason you're against the Qualcomm part? Just that you prefer OpenGL on Imagination Technology GPU and not the Adreno or something else?

[nl]

What's wrong with the OMAP 4?

[robinduckett]

I'll be in my bunk.