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Just a quick heads up in case you aren’t a Reddit dweller — someone over in those parts has the Nexus 5. Whoever the lucky soul is, they were nice enough to snap a ton of pics for us to sink our teeth into ahead of what could be a big unveiling later today. Sources suggest Google will be launching the device (as well as announcing the latest version of Android — KitKat 4.4) at noon pacific today.
While we are not interested in believing those rumors, that won’t keep us from peeling our eyes and looking out for any official news that might eek out of Mountain View today.
So what do we learn from this little escapade that Reddit user throwawaynexus5guy has gone on this morning? A good deal, actually:
- Hangouts with SMS was pre-loaded onto the device
- There is a complete backup solution built-in — think iCloud, except for Android.
- In response to a question about always-on voice controls (Moto X), the leakster simply smiled :)
- The leakster said it was as smooth as smooth can be. Android 4.3 is already pretty smooth on the aging Nexus 4, so we wouldn’t expect anything less here. Note that rumors are saying Android 4.4 has been designed to be able to work smoothly on even the weakest of hardware.
- They said it doesn’t feel cheap “like a Samsung phone.” Their words, not ours.
- There will be a Google Drive offer for 100GB of storage, which makes Drive the likely candidate for the built-in backup.
- Battery life? 17 hours talk time, 8 hours web surfing, 6 hours of video watching, according to one engineer.
- Camera is an improvement over Nexus 4, but nothing like the jump from iPhone 5 to iPhone 5S.
- Speakers sounded really good, clear and loud.
- It doesn’t taste like a KitKat bar.
That’s all we could gather from the questions posted so far, and there’s a chance that many more could be answered in the hours to come. Be sure to sink your teeth into all of it over at the Reddit thread here, and stay tuned to Phandroid as we’ll be on top of the news as it happens (if it happens).
How does the Nexus 5 camera improve over the Nexus 5 camera? Mind=Blown.
Simple, bro. Two Nexus 5 cameras are better than one. LOL!
I like how you just freaked out about your comment being deleted when it actually wasn’t, and then you deleted your comment about it. Haha.
Science.
Its an improvement over the “Nexus 4 camera” not the “Nexus 5”.
Coincidentally I had my droid razr lost/stolen yesterday at the airport. Debating the switch from verizon to at&t (i live in brooklyn, i dont see a coverage/price advantage?). Time to do my research, and compare phones …htc one, or this, or something else!? choice is good but confusing to us laypeople.
“it doesn’t taste like a kitkat bar” you’re tasting it wrong. Lol
Can they just stop with the tease and announce this phone officially already.
Camera: What’s an improvement? Is it good or not? 2 is an improvement over 1, but out of 10 points it isn’t good.
He said don’t expect anything like the S4/iPhone 5S – which is really disappointing for me :-/
I think what he meant is don’t expect the improvement to be so drastic as iPhone 5 to iPhone 5s. I guess there was a big improvement between those iPhone versions. I’m not an iPhone user so I wouldn’t know much out of experience.
which makes it even more disheartening cuz the iphone5 camera was still worlds better than the nexus 4.
Where the system dump?
Controlled environment.
Nexus devices are less appealing each time they come out. They were all the rage when there wasnt much for custom roms and carriers were taking forever to get updates out. Now there are more custom roms than you can shake a stick at and updates from carriers arent as stalled as well as the stock roms on many phones are way better than they used to be. My s4 on Verizon is the first of many droids I have owned that I dont feel any reason to root and flash a custom rom on. Now my Galaxy Nexus was a diff story and left a bad taste in my mouth about Nexus phones. I think a lot of the stuff samsung / htc puts on the phones now days is actually useful. Nexus tablets on the other hand, well I want one…
Oh and lack of LTE on nexus 4 was a joke when previous generation nexus, galaxy nexus had it. Also no sd card slot was lame. Glad to see 5 will have that.
5 doesn’t have an SD slot. Also you’ll never beat the price point of a Nexus phone.
Funny, I feel the exact opposite. In my opinion, Touchwiz on the GS4 is a disasterous pile of useless “features” in search of a need, and all the bloat and crap they’ve stuffed in there causes the device to stutter and skip when doing even basic operations.
I would have bootloaded this b*tch on day one and reached for Cyanogenmod or similar, were it not for Verizon’s heavy handed insistence that Samsung lock down the bootloader in ME7. Between Verizon and Samsung, the GS4 is a DISASTER.
I disagree. Touch Wiz and Nova Prime are the best combo one can get for Samsung devices. Clean, least bugs, most features. Awesome stuff.
My Galaxy Nexus gets maybe 6-7 hours of battery life just sitting in my pocket doing nothing, so this sounds like a good improvement for me!
I’m lucky to get an hour out of mine – lol
with heavy usage on a road trip or something, I can blow through 3 batteries in about 4 hours.
My battery does great, unless I play games or movies, but text calls some internet lasts me not to bad. Paranoid android 3.99 rc2 android 4.3
Mine just died on me for the 2nd time today and it’s only 1pm. This nexus 5 better be coming to Verizon, and soon.
I get about an hour and a half – super lame.
Stock GSM here, my wife’s, and easily 2 days with her normal usage, if no tethering, otherwise 8am-10pm, WiFi on eveneven(when not tethering, obvs) and rootmetric’s coverage map doing background testing. No joke.
Maybe it’s an issue with the CDMA version then, but seriously I can’t believe there could be that much of a difference between the two.
My Galaxy nexus doesn’t charge all the way to 100% anymore. The dies in about an hour or two. Stays tethered to the wall! Please release Nexus 5!…. Now!!
Posts like this make me appreciate my note 2. I don’t constantly worry about battery life anymore.
My morning so far! F5 make coffee F5 F5 F5…*drinks more coffee* F5 F5 F5 *Glances at Chemistry midterm study material that’s today *deathstare and slowly sips coffee* F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5
Being a programmer I wrote an app to check web_home_5000005_nexusUS and checks if Nexus 5 is on the page.
How would one get that app good sir?
LOL if you want I can send you the .exe It checks the site every 5 minutes. No guarantee it will catch it in time.
Hmm… I should have wrote it as a website instead of an application.
Sounds good. Thanks! All my info is connected to my disqus so give it to me any way you like
Well it’s out now!
Look at this image what do you see? – :D
http://postimg.org/image/glyqj2ekj/
My destiny…
Does not taste like a kit kat bar??? FAIL!!!! :P Cannot wait. Finally a phone worth to replace my galaxy nexus gsm.
Poop, I’m either going to be in physics or on the road home at 3 EST. I hope they don’t sell out so fast.
But, like I said last night on another part,
Holy battery life, Batman!
Gimmie a Break, Gimmie a Break, Break me off a piece of that Nexus 5…
That 4 point 4 taste is gonna make your day
Wherever you go you’ll hear the Phandroid’s saaaaay
Gimmie a Break, Gimmie a Break.. Break me off a piece of that KIT KAT PHONE!
ALREADY!!!!!
Everything sounds great, but I’m disapointed about the camera. I’ll wait for in depth reviews before I make up my mind, but the camera is pretty important to me.
You will see comparison reviews against the best from Apple, Nokia, Sony, Samsung, and HTC. For example, see http://www.gsmarena.com/six_way_camera_shootout-review-998p10.php. It will be interesting to see where the Nexus 5 comes up in these comparisons. Early rumors about much improved photo quality (back when it was said Nikon would be involved), had me quite excited. Now I’m not expecting much either. I’d rather have paid $50 more and had the N5 be on top in terms of camera quality. Maybe if the Motorola modular phone concept takes off, I can get one of those and someone will offer the #1 camera as a module.
please have touchless control!
It does have always listening on it:-)
thats exactly what i want
Is there no pure black? like the leaked rendered images? Its really grey….
:(
I think this is pure black but with a very bright light shining on it.
It never occurred to me that it was anything other than the lighting. The phone is black.
Damn, I was hoping he’d be able to confirm whether USB OTG is working properly this time :(
For those of you that have no clue what iCloud can back up (like me since I never owned any i device since the 160GB iPod a while back), here’s what the official site says (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519?viewlocale=en_US):
Here’s what iCloud backs up:
Purchased music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books
Your iCloud backup includes information about the content you have purchased, but not the purchased content itself. When you restore from an iCloud backup, your purchased content is automatically downloaded from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore based on iTunes in the Cloud availability by country. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they have been refunded or are no longer available in the store.
Photos and videos in your Camera Roll
Device settings
App data
Home screen and app organization
iMessage, text (SMS), and MMS messages
Ringtones
Visual Voicemail
No wonder one of my iPhone friends complains about not being able to get any more messages or add any more apps. What a mess!
The reddit post was update with this
Ok, Google Now” listening is present and works with screen off, you will have to swipe up when you use google now while the screen is off
I just hope they add the update to use our own custom hotwords.
The Phandroid logo just changed to Kit Kat! :O
Let’s wait to get an informed review about the phone before trashing it. If you want an überphone, there are many different options available. If you want a phone that is optimized by Google software, this is it.
My contract with VZW is up in December. I have a dilemma…..
1. Get Nexus 5 and go with ATT
2. Get G2 and stick with VZW
If the N5 had a better camera and bigger battery, I’d say this is a no-brainer.
The only downside I see with the G2 is the button placement on the back. I can still put custom ROMs on it and I don’t like plain stock Android anyway. I prefer CM/AOKP/or some other variant.
Bah………I don’t know what to do lol.
I’m leaning N5, but want to wait for battery and camera reviews I think.
Isn’t n5 only for sprint at current.?
Uh, no. Sprint will most likely have their own version, but the N5 will work on ATT
Doesn’t VZW drop your termination fee month by month toward the end of your contract? You should be able to find out with a quick call….
Compare how much you’d save per month with the $50-60 unlimited T-Mobile plan with no contract on a Nexus phone and use that to justify the cost to get out early!
Obviously a fake. Its spelled Nexis not Nexus
what are you referring to?
Being a troll I would imagine
Also, why is the camera so important? With such a small lens you will never get extraordinary images. If you want better photos, buy a real camera.
Some devices make better pictures than other.
And since I don’t carry a real camera with me all the time:
“The best camera is the one you have on you at every given time”.
So, yes for me it IS important to have a rather good one.
loving the high gloss “Nexus” logo…good touch….
Awesome…now just release the thing!!!
6hrs video playback is exactly what nexus 4 was managing, slightly disappointing :(
Are we totally positive on no VZW support?
The N5 supports LTE band 4 based on the FCC filing. So does Verizon as of October 2013. I believe it’s there AWS LTE band. But who is to say that band 4 is lit throughout the country in all LTE areas. Far from likely. But one can hope.
Verizon was exclusively using band 13 before they started the upgrade to band 4. The N7 supports both those bands but no CDMA. Now if the CDMA frequencies being used in the N5 work with Verizon then one can assume that the N5 could possibly run on Verizon 3G network when there is no LTE band 4 available.
Also of Note the N7 has a NA/Japan model and a rest of the world model. Are we still so sure that the N5 won’t have 2 models as well. I guess we will find out shortly as today is the rumored announcement date. It is Halloween. Maybe we will get a treat.
This would probably mean that is works with Verizon but just like the N7, don’t expect them to activate a new sim for you b/c its not passed through their system yet…
Agreed.
The issue isn’t that it doesn’t support VZW’s LTE Band 4. The issue is that VZW likely will not want this particular device on their CDMA network. One must not forget that they are control freaks. However, that will all change when they move to VoLTE.
Doesn’t taste like a kit kat? Dang! How about bacon?
Just launched in Spain
Woohoo! Just ordered a Black 32GB with a ChromeCast!!! Now to sell this HTC One.
It was $399 for the 32GB. I wanted the little bit of extra space. Now to find a cover and a wireless charging unit. Hmmmm. I liked this HTC One as well, Its 64GB, but i never really get above 20GB. Shame. Great phone, wish I had reason to keep both!
Official cover cost €29.99. I think I am going to wait and see what else is out there.
No Covers In stock when i tried so i went without. The official LG cover is nice and wireless charger compatible, but $50 is steep for a cover.
Only available in black 16gb here right now, priced at €349.00 (plus €9.99 shipping). How much more for the 32gb vs 16gb?
Opps sorry, see below.
Site behaving very odd. Maybe the other models were available, but the “cart” suddenly stopped working
Just ordered mine.
Well, he can keep his “non Samsung cheap” integrated battery and small non expandable storage useless P.O.S. I’ll keep my “Samsung cheap” removable battery, 80GB total, 5.5″ display, S-Pen and Samsung SW features like MultiWindow thank you very much.