chrlswltrs

So here are my impressions so far:

Hardware is amazing. I really like the feel of it. Fingerprints rarely show on the screen and when they do a quick wipe on a shirt and they are gone. The phone has a good weight to it and doesn't feel cheap at all. The notification LED works great with many different colors (LightFlow works great to control the LED).

Sound: Speaker is loud and clear. Speaker phone works great and call quality is also good.

Screen: resolution is amazing, colors are vibrant, and no problem seeing the screen outdoors.

Speed: So far this phone has handled everything I have thrown at it without missing a beat.

Camera: I love it. Here are some pictures I posted in another thread I got mine!

Battery: Don't ask. I've only had it a day and at work I'm in buildings and tunnels all day without a signal. It will be at least a week until I get a good evaluation on the battery.

Software:

Keyboard: Best Google has ever done. The swiping works really well. Keyboard is extremely easy to use and accurate.

Lockscreen: I really like the setup with being able to add widgets, and the camera is accessed as a full screen widget to the right of the main lock screen. 2 things I wish was different: I wish I could set a separate lockscreen wallpaper, and swiping the lock icon in any direction unlocks the phone.

Notification settings: I really like this implementation. There is an icon at the top right of the notification area when open that opens a page of quick toggles.


Navigation
This is a big one for me. GPS locks quickly, stays consistent and accurate. Voice guidance works great. I had my phone plugged in with my 2mAh car charger and it was able to charge the phone while navigating, streaming internet radio, playing everything over bluetooth, and the screen being on the whole time. The screen remained readable the entire time it was in my dock, even in sunlight. Very impressed with the navigation, especially coming from the GSII which was known for bad GPS.


Battery
It's not a RAZR Maxx, but it is sufficient. I work in areas where I am in underground facilities a lot and have no signal. I am in and out of these areas all the time. Sometimes I have Wifi, sometimes I don't. Even with these conditions I am able to make it through a workday without a charger. My typical workday includes a few texts (10-20), playing a few social games (WWF, Scramble), playing other games (Angry Birds Star Wars HD), and maybe a phone call (<5 min). With all of that and a screen on time of around 20-25% I easily can make it through an 8 hour shift.

The screen is easily the biggest drain on the battery. I can't leave it off to do any real testing, but the battery hardly drains at all when the screen is off.

Overall, I find the battery life acceptable. I wish it was more since replacing batteries isn't an option, but as long as I can make it through the workday until I have a charger available I'm ok.

I do have an external 6000mAh battery charger I picked up on eBay about a month ago in anticipation of getting this phone. It was pretty inexpensive (around $20-25 I think). If you are used to carrying around a spare battery for your phone you might want to pick one of these also.


Any other questions just ask, I'll try to answer them

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Last edited by chrlswltrs; November 19th, 2012 at 10:08 AM. Reason: Additional info

tonytouch311

have you put it in your pocket yet? any scratches? just bought the skinomi protector, but wont come in till after i get the phone hopefully.

Pappy35

So...How's the battery???

Haha...just kidding 'cause I'm jealous.

chrlswltrs

Yep, on my pocket all day at work, no scratches. I'm really confident in the Gorilla Glass 2

dunjamon

Did you get a bumper case with it too? I really want to see some proper images and a review of the thing.

chrlswltrs

No, I'm keeping mine naked

Plus I picked mine up at T-Mobile which is why I have it so quickly and they had no accessories for it at all in the store

MartinS

I would pretty much echo the OP's comments:

Hardware:

Nice and sturdy with no creaks and a well built look and feel. I'm still not sure about the back but that is a matter of taste.
I too am using Lightflow for notifications and the colours are very good.
The screen is fantastic, superb high resolution, colours seem good and so close to the surface. As most have commented it's right up there with the HTC One X (which I have) and Apple's efforts.

EDIT: Camera takes reasonable pics, especially in light, I've managed a couple of decent close pictures (not macro) with the flash too.

Software:

Android 4.2 is great, smooth, functional and now feels coherent throughout. My only negative is the lock screen widgets, I'm not keen on these as it feels a bit too much and can end up looking like another launcher to be honest. The new keyboard is great and swiping works really well. The camera software is much improved, especially the tap anywhere options. Varied results with Photo sphere - but some pictures have come out well.
Chrome is fantastic on the N4. Much quicker than the N7.
Notifications are excellent, as they were in 4.1.2.
I like the 2 finger swipe which brings down quick settings instead of notifications too.

Battery:

Doesn't seem bad at all but I don't want to comment too early. Also my 1 year old GNex battery was terrible so I have a poor comparison. Currently I am not concerned about getting through the day though.

Something else:

When I first took out the N4 and had a play, I was a little underwhelmed and thought it was a small step from the GNex.

I was wrong, this phone is excellent and I'm sure most of you will be extremely pleased with you purchase.

Last edited by MartinS; November 16th, 2012 at 04:53 AM.

chrlswltrs

Liamo_210 sent me a PM with the question of usable storage and I figured I would answer it here since I'm sure others have the same question.

I have the 16GB version (only size available on T mobile) and in settings my total space is listed as 12.92GB

shiv81

You also have to make sure to deduct another 500 mb as the system does not allow you to use it for performance reasons.

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Banished Angel

We all know there are a million positives to this phone. What negatives have you found so far? What don't you like about it? Nitpick.

Farru503

How much did you pay for the nexus 4 at Tmobile? Give me the total please

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chrlswltrs

I just updated the OP with navigation, it is VERY good.

chrlswltrs

I payed $494 total for 2 Nexus 4's including tax.

1. There are some things that take some getting used to like the camera controls, but I still think it is an improvement, just different.
2. I can't set a different Wallpaper for the lockscreen (feature I was used to with WidgetLocker, this is the first time in 2+ years I've used the stock lockscreen). If this really mattered I would just go back to WidgetLocker

Don't know much else right now, but I may just still be in the honeymoon phase. So far it has matched or beat all of my expectations (which were VERY high).

I am going to hold off judgement on the battery. Not being able to use an extended battery is the one thing that I am still wary about. That is the only glaring potential negative I have found so far.

Farru503

I think I just gonna cancel the order and go to Tmobile

chrlswltrs

Make sure they have it in stock first. Only about half of the Tmobile stores got them. The one I went to I was the first one in line. I got 2, they only had a total of 3 to sell.

Farru503

Thanks for the advice

BigCiX

Hopefully all u LG haters can cut it out now. They've always made solid phones. They just lack in the software department.

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chrlswltrs

Yeah I heard all the LG bashing and had my doubts because of it. I had faith in Google choosing a good phone to be the nexus though. So far the GPS and radios are performing great, way better than my Samsung phone. And the build quality feels incredible!

tdm

+1

I love their hardware, the optimus v is indestructible.

But unfortunately they have started locking their boot loaders lately, so this is probably going to be my last LG phone. Pity.

chrlswltrs

You have to type 3 words into a command prompt to unlock a Nexus bootloader. Mine was unlocked before I even left the T-Mobile parking lot (I took my netbook with me)

tdm

Yeah that's why I'm getting it. Wouldn't touch it otherwise. Still makes me feel dirty even buying a phone with the capability to lock the boot loader. Goes against my principles. But for this price, my principles can bend a little lol.

Pappy35

And those three words are....

RaLeX

i'm hoping it's this easy.

I'm a relative noob- to the hacker side of Android,
Reading how to unlock the bootloader sounds a little like rooting, which is easy, assuming all goes well... for whatever reason I had no problem with ODIN on my AT&T S3, then when I switched to a Verizon S3 ODIN doesn't show up with the yellow bar anymore.

I'm hoping I figure out how to unlock the bootloader without any issues.

chrlswltrs

fastboot oem unlock

OK, there is a little more to it. You have to have the Android SDK on your computer and I think some drivers. But that's it. Exactly the same as when I unlocked my Nexus S bootloader a couple years ago the day it was released.

Android802

I can't wait to get my Nexus 4! But im a little concerned about the photo samples you posted. I am a huge fan of taking pictures on my phone and if those pictures are indeed the quality that I should expect then I am going to be very disappointed.

The phone I have now is an HTC Sensation on T-Mobile. While it doesn't have the best specs or battery life, one of my favorite features has been the camera. While it isn't the best camera it took some really good pictures.

Luckily I have read some reviews that makes the camera actually seem pretty decent. Again, not the best on the market but im okay with that. As long as it can take pretty decent pictures ill be happy with it.

MartinS

If I'm nitpicking then I would say:

I'm not in love with the pattern on the back - especially in bright light

The camera flash surround doesn't seem to fit in with the aesthetics somehow

This thing is really slippery - don't leave it on any inclined surface, even the weight of the charging cable had mine sliding slowly across a perfectly flat desk

I don't like the lock screen widget set up - as I said before, a scroll able lock screen just feels like too much

Other than these (really small) comments, I love it.

steslatt

First of all I came from a galaxy s2 and let me just say this phone is SO MUCH better in every way. The 2 things i noticed straight away were the build quality and the screen, amazing when compared.

I've had no force closes, random reboots or any bugs what so ever which is more than can be said for the s2 when that was first released.

If I HAD to find fault, these would the the few things:

Lock screen widgets. You can only select from 4 widgets, i was under the impression that I would be able to use any widgets but you are limited to messages, calendar, clock and gmail. Also I can only seem to get one widget per page with no re size options. It would be nice to have some sort of settings menu implemented.

LED control. There are no options to control the LED notification ie flash frequency, colour etc only an on/off tick box. I think this should be build into the software. There are apps you can download to control it eg light flow from the play store. I have been using this and it seems to work ok. There is a free version and a paid version. The free version has limited controls.

Quick settings. These should be customizable but sadly they aren't.

No t9/smart dialer. Most phones now have the smart dialer included don't they? Annoying when you are used to it, just means you have to go into the contacts app to find a name stored in your list and the dialer for if you are just dialing a number not stored.

No Youtube HD option over 3G. Not tested over wifi yet as my home internet connection is painfully slow.

These are things I have noticed so far after having the device 24 hours. Camera seems ok although I have not really played with it that much. I haven't tried video recording yet and I can't really comment on battery life as its too early to tell. If anyone had any questions please feel free to ask.

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Last edited by steslatt; November 16th, 2012 at 07:09 AM.

MartinS

Lightflow is a great "fix" for the LED - and not too expensive.

Crashdamage

Quick questions for those with a T-Mobile N4 - is it exactly the same as the Google N4 as in no T-Mobile added apps, emblems, etc? Carrier locked or unlocked?

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Last edited by Crashdamage; November 16th, 2012 at 08:39 AM.

chrlswltrs

Carrier locked is the only difference, period. Not even the T-Mobile name on the outside of the phone

T-Mobile is pretty good about giving unlock codes as long as you have been with them for a while also.

MartinS

For those who don't like the lock screen clock, HD Widgets now supports the lock screen.

acp

Regarding networks, it says HSPA 42, my iPhone 5 has HSPA 21 for example on AT&T, is the "42" only utilized on Tmobile's network?

Will the Nexus 4 have faster HSPA data speeds on AT&T vs. the iPhone 5? Or, is HSPA speed on AT&T the same no matter what phone you have.

I live near Chicago and I've been disabling LTE the last week so I'm just using ATT HSPA and I do noticed web pages load a little slower than LTE, but the difference is probably less than 2-3 seconds.

Last edited by acp; November 17th, 2012 at 06:41 AM.

Banished Angel

T-Mobile is HSPA 42, while AT&T is HSPA 21. AT&T is focusing on LTE. T-Mobile knew it would be late to adopt LTE so it beefed up its HSPA. On AT&T you won't notice a difference between the iphone and the nexus in regards to data speeds. Even on T-Mobile you wouldn't notice a difference unless you live in an area with very good speeds (21Mbps+).

McCookie

Did you have the photosphere option on your camera app? Or have I missed a bit of info regarding this, since I don't have it on my nexus 4...

sean76

How's YouTube in HQ?

chrlswltrs

I've only seen close to 20Mbps on T-mobile (still faster than my home wifi though)

Open the camera, touch the camera icon on the bottom right of the screen. There should be a menu of 4 icons that opens. Photosphere is the globe looking icon

MyTjSux

Simply amazing phone...amazing...Jelly Bean is clearly a hugh advancement as compared to my factory ICS on my GS2....this phone truly moves like butter....after 24 hours im amazed, as far as battery obviously i have adays worth of break in and use but i was able to get 7 hours of use and i am on my phone screen on or streaming via bluetooth over the air on my slacker ...it was better than my GS2 i cannot wait to root it and see how this beast performs....and btw i was very weary of the LG tag but this phone has changed my mind the design is beautiful and doesnt feel cheap at all

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McCookie

Thanks , I was too impatient and asked before getting the update that adds photosphere :P

JunBringer

Yeah I made sure the first thing I did was go into the settings and update the OS. Gotta have the newest Android or this phone doesn't serve it's purpose.

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chrlswltrs

That was the first thing I did also, after unlocking the bootloader of course

McCookie

Sorry for all the questions , but does anyone know why light flow doesn't control the notification light properly for me ? I tried every colour but it only shows white, and sometimes it doesn't even work at all.
Only time I got a green colour is on the light test which only shows green ?
Also just tried the "lite" version and this time the test just shows a flashing white colour

chrlswltrs

I'm not sure. I have the paid version and I have notifications in yellow, orange, blue, red, and green and they are all working.

In settings I have run in foreground checked and also the bottom 4 for additional LEDs that may not be supported checked. Try that maybe

Last edited by chrlswltrs; November 17th, 2012 at 03:54 PM.

McCookie

Yeah that works, thanks a lot ! I am yet to test SMS LED notifications since I have no SIM card yet.

chrlswltrs

As long as your other notifications are working with LightFlow SMS should also. I haven't had any issues

MartinS

Have you had the 4.2 update?

If so it should be right there with Camera/Video/Panoramic...

sean76

Again...Sorry for the 2nd time Question!

YouTube in HQ, how is it?

chrlswltrs

I don't use YouTube very much but the Videos look great. Glad the buttons disappear off the screen while watching videos also.

Personally I think videos look very good, but I don't watch a whole lot so I may not be the best judge. Eventually I will rent a movie from Google play to watch, but I haven't yet.

And don't worry about asking questions. I started this thread to answer questions because I know a lot of people are wondering about the phone while waiting.

chrlswltrs

I've updated the thread title. I've had the phone 4 days now and welcome questions! I know many members are still waiting on theirs (or still trying to decide) and want to try to provide as much information as I can.

I may not be able to answer all questions quickly as I work a lot, but I will try to get to them all.

strausd

Have you named yours yet?

Bob Loblaw1

They are all named Rachael