Smartphones

Half of that or more doesn't match the manual leak.

Is the speaker on the back or the front?

Korgoth_sl said:

What do you guys think about the Nexus 5 specs leak? Looks like it picks up a lot where the 4 fell off...

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Lol @ that leak assuming the Nexus 5 is Samsung made and so on. When are we? 6 months ago?

It's been pretty much confirmed for a while that the Nexus 5 is made by LG again, and the manual with the exact specs just leaked today.

But seriously, this phone can't come soon enough. Got my HTC One stolen on fucking Friday the 13th, and I'm now stuck with my old lagging Galaxy Nexus waiting for them to release the new one.

1080p on the leaked manual - the Samsung one is just completely random bullshit.

What made the N4 so great was the price and price-to-performance ratio. Don't get me wrong, it is a well built piece of equipment and had pretty nice ascetics, but price is what really drove the success of the N4.

Everything in the manual leak looks great, but how much is it going to cost? If it is priced like the other 'developer-model' phones out there, the N5 will be a niche phone. If it is priced like the N4 was, able to compete with the subsidized cost of on-contract phones, then good luck getting one

opiate82_sl said:

What made the N4 so great was the price and price-to-performance ratio. Don't get me wrong, it is a well built piece of equipment and had pretty nice ascetics, but price is what really drove the success of the N4.

Everything in the manual leak looks great, but how much is it going to cost? If it is priced like the other 'developer-model' phones out there, the N5 will be a niche phone. If it is priced like the N4 was, able to compete with the subsidized cost of on-contract phones, then good luck getting one

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I'd be very surprised if it comes out at the same cost of the Nexus 4, but I'm not expecting it to cost the same as the other high end phones, either. I think it'll get a $50 price increase over the Nexus 4, which would be fine in my book.

As much as I want to sit this update out, I'm really tempted to grab a Nexus 5. OIS camera, better battery life and lte (even though I'm not sure how much of a difference that'll make considering I regularly get 8-15 mbps down through my 3g connection anyway) are some pretty decent upgrades over the N4.

What is the significance of an OIS camera? Seems like every phone anymore has a 8MP camera, is the N5 supposed to have one of the better ones?

Reason I ask is I really liked the camera in my S4, I know megapixel ratings can be misleading, but its 13MP camera took significantly better pictures than the 8MP camera that was in the S2 and S3. I was seriously considering the Nexus 5, but I want to know that the camera is better than what was in the S2 and S3, even at the same 8MP mark.

joeboo_sl said:

What is the significance of an OIS camera? Seems like every phone anymore has a 8MP camera, is the N5 supposed to have one of the better ones?

Reason I ask is I really liked the camera in my S4, I know megapixel ratings can be misleading, but its 13MP camera took significantly better pictures than the 8MP camera that was in the S2 and S3. I was seriously considering the Nexus 5, but I want to know that the camera is better than what was in the S2 and S3, even at the same 8MP mark.

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OIS is a pretty big deal, in my opinion. It's what allows the HTC One, LG G2, Nokia Lumia 920/928/1020 to take really great low light shots.

There's a good primer on how it works here -Optical Image Stabilization

The TLDR is - it allows more light to hit the sensor without the image going blurry and out of focus allowing for clearer, crisper low light shots.

It also smooths out motion when recording videos, so videos don't look like shaky and horrible. There's a good demo of the technology in action here -Nokia Lumia 928 PureView Camera vs Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 - YouTube

The camera could be good, or it could be bad. Megapixel count does matter, but it's not the end all and be all. The LG G2 has a really good camera, so I'm hoping the Nexus 5 will be similar to that, albeit with a smaller megapixel count.

As for whether it'll will be better than the one in the S2 and the S3, nobody knows, at this point. Google could easily cheap out and put a shitty sensor into the phone to save on costs, which would lead to shitty picture quality, regardless of the quality of the lens. We'll have to wait for reviews to hit before finding out whether the camera is any good.

The thing about megapixels is that the quality is all relative to the size of the sensor. Too few or too many megapixels relative to the size of the sensor are both going to cause image quality issues. However, for the most part you won't notice these issues unless you are blowing up a photograph, especially when they cram too many megapixels onto a sensor (too few MP's and you can notice even on non-enlarged photos). Since the vast majority of the time you are just taking snap-shots with a camera-phone that you have no intention of enlarging you aren't going to notice the derogation in quality that comes with putting to many MP's onto a sensor.

*edit: This is a pretty rudimentary explanation of the megapixel issue. You want more in-depth information on how megapixels and sensor size effect the quality of an image just Google the 'megapixel myth' but honestly I think the information is far more important to someone trying to pick out a digital camera than it is for someone trying to pick out the best camera-phone.

As far as OIS, I don't know much about it when it comes to camera-phones. Just a cursory Google search makes it look like it is LG's form of image stabilization, which means less blurry shots when the photographer is moving (if it works properly).

Man I was hoping the Nexus would come to Verizon, was hoping for a $3-400 unlocked phone. I'm on an unlimited plan and I need to buy a phone off contract.

It is always possible, but Google and Verizon have been having a spat ever since the VZW Galaxy Nexus. VZW wants their bloatware which on every phone on their network (and Google refused to put it on Nexus devices) and Google doesn't want the service providers to be a hurdle when it comes to updates on Nexus devices.

Chanur_sl said:

I very likely will be getting a Nexus5 unless the price model is way different than the 4

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Same although I might not be using mine for a bit - thought my upgrade date was when my contract ended with Sprint but apparently it's 3 months before it.... and not gonna buy a Sprint model so.... ugh... why can't Sprint use SIMs like everyone else!?!

Vaclav_sl said:

Same although I might not be using mine for a bit - thought my upgrade date was when my contract ended with Sprint but apparently it's 3 months before it.... and not gonna buy a Sprint model so.... ugh... why can't Sprint use SIMs like everyone else!?!

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Make sure you math it out. I bought my N4 with 8 months remaining on my contract. I was cheaper for me to pay an ETF and switch to the T-Mobile prepaid plan then it was to ride out my contract w/ VZW then switch.

opiate82_sl said:

Make sure you math it out. I bought my N4 with 8 months remaining on my contract. I was cheaper for me to pay an ETF and switch to the T-Mobile prepaid plan then it was to ride out my contract w/ VZW then switch.

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Got a 4 person family plan right now - and her parents are in bankruptcy right now so they'd be screwed if we walked out on it - I know the math works out to go to T-Mobile where we'll be going as well, but if we bail on the contract they'll be really hard hit and can't take it right now while they're worrying about making their house payments and shit.

And yes, I know literally why Deathwing - I just meant why did they choose to go with CDMA that diverges from the norm - would make switching from (or to) easier for people.