Initial thoughts

[rangergrrl]

So got this phone a few hours ago and have been pitting it up against my EVO 4g LTE. It is FAST and I like the stock android without all the bloatware. Also the Google Now is rather awesome. I've been asking it obvious stuff like " how do I get to Starbucks?" : ) and if fires up navigation within a couple seconds and I'm on my wayl

That said some initial things that I've noticed that aren't so great:

1). The camera lacks basic features like burst mode and easy toggling between settings. Everything is arranged in 2 menus near the shutter making it rather difficult to shift things on the fly. Picture quality is average but options for taking them are seriously lacking.

2). The sound- The speaker isn't very loud and the sound coming out is rather tinny sounding when pitted up against my old phone. I also paired up my Jaybird Freedom Sprint to see how it would sound with those. Same volume level set on the headset and the N5 is at a nominal sound level while the EVO4G just about blows out my ears. The quality of sound produced between the 2 devices with the headset paired becomes really obvious when playing the same song. This is likely due to the EVO having Beats Audio software while the N5 doesn't but still a huge difference with the winner being the EVO.


So initial impression is its pretty good but will I keep it? I'm not sure...my phone really isn't my phone...my phone is my kindle, my music, my tv, etc and the camera and the sound quality are kinda big deals for me. Maybe there is a camera app out there to install that will solve that...I can live with the sound but probably not the camera! That said I would love to be able to take this phone to Spain with me in a month!

 

[Rxpert83]

Camera settings are also accessible by tapping like you would to focus and holding. If you aren't familiar with stock android its got a bit of a learning curve for things like that.

As far as the sound, I'm happy with the volume so far. Much louder than my gnex. If youre the rooting type...there's also almost always sound mods to increase your volume or give you beats like the evo had.

 

[Deleted User]

Probably a hard comparison, but how would it compare in the applicable aspects to an iPhone 4?

 

[rangergrrl]

So got this phone a few hours ago and have been pitting it up against my EVO 4g LTE. It is FAST and I like the stock android without all the bloatware. Also the Google Now is rather awesome. I've been asking it obvious stuff like " how do I get to Starbucks?" : ) and if fires up navigation within a couple seconds and I'm on my wayl

That said some initial things that I've noticed that aren't so great:

1). The camera lacks basic features like burst mode and easy toggling between settings. Everything is arranged in 2 menus near the shutter making it rather difficult to shift things on the fly. Picture quality is average but options for taking them are seriously lacking.

2). The sound- The speaker isn't very loud and the sound coming out is rather tinny sounding when pitted up against my old phone. I also paired up my Jaybird Freedom Sprint to see how it would sound with those. Same volume level set on the headset and the N5 is at a nominal sound level while the EVO4G just about blows out my ears. The quality of sound produced between the 2 devices with the headset paired becomes really obvious when playing the same song. This is likely due to the EVO having Beats Audio software while the N5 doesn't but still a huge difference with the winner being the EVO.


So initial impression is its pretty good but will I keep it? I'm not sure...my phone really isn't my phone...my phone is my kindle, my music, my tv, etc and the camera and the sound quality are kinda big deals for me. Maybe there is a camera app out there to install that will solve that...I can live with the sound but probably not the camera! That said I would love to be able to take this phone to Spain with me in a month!

Update: After 2.5 days of my "typical" use(streaming music, movies, netflix, hulu, reading, surfing and taking pics I can now say....this phone is good....but it COULD have been great. The sound and volume levels are too low and the camera...what can I say...I haven't had a worse camera since my Touch Pro 2. It takes about 2-3 secs for auto focus to decide its ready and snap a pic. Consequently capturing all those "never miss a moments" as advertised is guaranteed to "always miss the moment" The photo editing, sphere and auto awesome are well..awesome but you have to GET the picture before you can use them and this just fails. The phone is blazingly fast and I love kitkat w/o the bloat of a carrier phone but sadly....its going back to Google today because while its good...it isn't good enough for me. I have a feeling that my HTC One once running kitkat will blow this phone away....