> It's here - Whoo-hoo - Google Nexus 4 ordered

John - At T-mobile I get 100 minutes, unlimited Internet and unlimited texting for only $30 per month. I have been very happy with Tm as I move around the country.

Whoo-hoo! I woke up this morning to an email from Google telling me my N4 has shipped. The web site said one to two weeks. It was only 5 days. The problem is that I am at Disney World and I had it shipped to my mailbox in Las Vegas. So as soon as my mailbox tells me it is there I will have them overnight it to me. I am still going to be here ten more days so I should have the phone in a week. I didn't want to take a chance and have it shipped directly here since it could have arrived here after I left here.

I am anxious to hear more of your opinions. I use Gmail so I won't be using their generic email client. I use a whole lot of Google products and they all exceed my expectations so I am assuming the N4 will too.

Interestingly the camera in my Galaxy has died. I get a camera failed error message. I looked for a solution on the Internet and none of the solutions worked. So I have to take it back to Tmobile and if they can't fix it then they will have to get me a new one. Either way it will most likely be going up for sale soon.

Unfortunately there is no T-Mobile in our area or they would absolutely be on the list for consideration.

Great news yours shipped!  Mine came by 2-day air but I certainly understand the issue of getting mail on the road, we've dealt with that for years.

I have three email accounts, one Gmail, one for personal and one that I use with businesses ( [email protected]) and I use IMAP for them since I check email from several devices.

While installing apps on the N4 last night I discovered my Chirp USA paid app (bird calls) has no Android equivalent  .

Stopped by our AT&T wireless store this morning (to get a new SIM card and have my account changed to a 4G smartphone plan without jeopardizing my unlimited data plan) and to my pleasure everything went exceedingly well.  The young fellow (heck, almost everybody is younger now  :) that was helping me was a little perplexed - I don't think he's dealt with many unlocked phones before.  Oh boy, I'm getting geared up for a fight.

I chatted with him for a bit loosening him up - we talked about Apple's iOS and how slowly my 3gs has performed after every Apple upgrade and how I was considering a Galaxy S3.  I said there was probably no IMEI listed for the Nexus 4 since it's not an ATT branded phone and that from what I've read on Android forums, you just need to pick an ATT branded 4G smart phone to use its IMEI to associate with my plan.  He didn't say anything but continued to tap away on his company iPad.

After he played with the N4 for a bit he said, this is better than the S3  ;D - he's a big fan of LG electronics.  I asked a couple of questions like "are we good here..." regarding to getting me set up and his response was yes, no problem.

New SIM card inserted, plan changed to 4G and we're out the door in 20 minutes - OH YEAH!

More playing with the phone today.  I was standing in a line at Lowe's (it seemed like forever) and when in these situations I whip out my phone and read news, email, play Sudoku, etc. and discovered the phone is so wide that I can't use one hand to reach the entire screen area to manipulate the app (stuff to buy in one hand, only one hand free.)  That I can live with - I'll take the larger screen every time.

I tested the display in bright sunlight (as in zero clouds at 2pm) and found it almost hopelessly washed out.  Checked the settings and discovered that the brightness was at about the 50% level.  Crank up the brightness to 100% and it's completely useful now.

A few test pictures attached.  The panorama feature is way cool, the movie I shot looked good.

Edit:  the test pictures are not manipulated in any way and were saved in Photoshop 4 as a very high quality jpeg

The photos look very impressive. How long does it take from pushing the power button until the phone is usable? What is your opinion of the charger? Is it fast? What are your current thoughts on getting a Nexus 7 or 10?

My phone will be in Vegas tomorrow. It was shipped 2nd day. I will have it shipped 2nd to me in Florida so I should get it on Friday. To quote you, Whoo-hoo. I am glad I didn't hesitate any longer. There is a currently a 2-3 week waiting period now on both the 8 and the 16. LG just can't make them fast enough.

Tom - I think not much shutter lag considering it's a phone, I've had more lag with my Nikon D80 under certain conditions.

No feel yet for battery life or recharge time.

Thinking seriously about a Google tablet but I haven't researched it yet, but the N4 is a winner for sure!

John Canfield said:

Thinking seriously about a Google tablet but I haven't researched it yet, but the N4 is a winner for sure!

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Come on over and you can play with my Nexus 7 for as long as you like.  We'll be home tomorrow, barring any serious problems.

John, I wasn't asking about shutter lag. I was curious to know how long it takes the phone to turn on.

Ned said:

Come on over and you can play with my Nexus 7 for as long as you like.  We'll be home tomorrow, barring any serious problems.

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Jane's volunteering at the library today, but that would be fun to come over and say hi sometime in the near future.  Seven inches for a screen size seems small, my Acer tablet is 10" and that size seems about right.

SeilerBird said:

John, I wasn't asking about shutter lag. I was curious to know how long it takes the phone to turn on.

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Hmm, wonder how I got shutter lag out of that question, must have been that last glass of Chardonnay .  I timed boot up and it was 27 seconds (+- a second or two.)

I don't think I've commented on call quality yet, made one call and left a message on DW's Samsung Nexus.  On my end the volume was loud with very good tonal quality.  There are complaints on forums about a buzzing or rattling sound from the speaker but this particular N4 seems fine.  I listened to my message on the Samsung and I thought it sounded just a tad muffled - not crisp but very easy to understand - I'm being very critical here, I'm sure most people wouldn't think twice about it.

Obviously you can't draw any conclusions from one call - it will takes a few weeks to really wring out the N4's call performance. Another facet of the phone's performance is battery life, don't have a feel for that yet.

John - A 7 inch screen does seem a bit small to me that is why I will be getting the Nexus 10 with a 10 inch screen. The amazing thing about it is the screen is a dazzling 2560-by-1600 high-resolution display. That is 4 megapixels compared with 2 megapixels on a lot of modern computer monitors. The 16 gig version is only $399 and the 32 gig is $499.

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_10_16GB?id=nexus_10_16gb

I am hoping I can use one to replace my Chromebook. But from what I have read it doesn't replace laptops. I really wish I could edit my photos with it since it has such a great display then I could get rid of my Windows laptop, but Lightroom is not available in Android yet.

I've had my tablet for maybe a year and I also found it is not a replacement for a traditional PC.  As Ned says, good for content consumption and not content creation.

That is what I figured, but I can always hope. Well my N4 arrived in Vegas and I put in a shipping request so it will be here Friday.

Thanks for checking the startup time John. My Exhibit takes twice as long, 45 seconds, just to get to the home page (if that is what it is called on a cell phone) then it takes another minute for Media scanning to complete before the phone is usable. I won't miss a slow processor and all that crapware.

I just got a notice from my mailbox that they shipped my N4 Priority mail and it should be here Friday. It only cost me $9 to get it shipped across country. It will be a well traveled phone by the time it gets to me.

Good deal Tom, I know the wait will seem like an eternity though.

Received my first call on the N4 about 30 minutes ago from the FedEx guy asking how to spell the name of our street  : - I'm expecting Jeep parts.  I was impressed with the clarity and volume of the call.  Three thumbs up so far.

I have been reading about the Nexus line this afternoon and I found out that the Nexus phones and tablets are always the first ones to get upgraded. I hate upgrades but I will have to live with that minor problem since I love Google so much. The good thing is that the upgrades are transparent to the user. We should be among the first to taste Key Lime Pie. Two days will pass quickly for me since I will be at Disney World. I have been here a week already and it only feels like two days, except in my feet, which feels like I have hiked from California :-X Man this place is gigantic.

SeilerBird said:

.. I found out that the Nexus phones and tablets are always the first ones to get upgraded. ..

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That's a bonus for me  .

I used to work at AT&T's Exchange Drive data center in south Orlando and for a couple of years wife and I bought annual passes to Disney.  We would run out there once or twice a week after work and would typically walk around Epcot and have dinner there.

The reason why Nexus gets upgrades first is because the OS is written specifically for Nexus. Once it is released the other manufacturers have to make changes to the new upgrade to make it work specifically on their phones.

Tom or John,

Where does my Samsung Galaxy Nexus fit in the spectrum of Nexus devices when it comes to getting upgrades to the OS?  Currently my phone has Jelly Bean but it's version 4.1.1, not 4.2. 

Also what is this bloatware or crapware you mention that comes on some phones?

Thanks.

ceemike said:

Where does my Samsung Galaxy Nexus fit in the spectrum of Nexus devices when it comes to getting upgrades to the OS?  Currently my phone has Jelly Bean but it's version 4.1.1, not 4.2. 

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You might be eligible for an upgrade. It depends on your carrier. Check your carriers web site. However the phone has been discontinued so your carrier may no longer be doing upgrades for your phone. You may have 4.1 forever. My Exhibit is stuck on Gingerbread forever and it is not that great a version of Android and one of the reasons I am getting the N4.

Also what is this bloatware or crapware you mention that comes on some phones?

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That would be apps that come pre-installed on your phone that you will probably never use. Almost everyone of them is a demo and if you like the demo they will sell you the full version. Carriers put crapware on to help underwrite the cost of the phone. The more crapware, the cheaper the phone. The problem is that you can't remove them. The Nexus phones come without crapware so they boot quicker and run faster with more memory space available to you.

Tom,

Thanks for the reply.  When I got my phone last October it was running ICS and it upgraded to JB shortly after I registered it.  I'll check with Verizon to see if there's any info about an upgrade.

Enjoy Disney World.  We love Fort Wilderness.  We had planned to be there this month but things didn't work out this year. 

Dear Wife has the Google Samsung Nexus and it's a really nice phone - even if you are stuck on your release of Jelly Bean, you could do a bunch worse.

Couple of advantages of the Google phones are the upgrade path is controlled by Google and not the carrier and the fact that it is running a pure version of Android not tweaked (ruined) by the hardware vendor with other stuff insisted on by the cell carrier.

One attribute that I absolutely detested with my ATT iPhone 3gs was that the user had zero control of carrier selection.  I would be in a poor to very poor signal area and the phone would take forever to switch to roam, that was beyond my control unless I hacked the phone with a Jailbreak.  Obviously ATT wanted to avoid paying roaming fees to other carriers to my disadvantage.

On DW's Nexus, we could select a carrier with a better signal and use it assuming they have a roaming agreement (not always the case as we discovered in Forest City, IA.)

On another note..

Both of our phones have Near Field Communications (NFC) - I've been playing with putting the phones back to back and transferring apps, just started playing so I'm not all certain what can be transferred.

I also set my N4 for face recognition unlock, still evaluating that feature.