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178 of 192 people found the following review helpful.
overpriced through this dealer
By Joanna A. Konarzewski
The Nexus4 is priced at $349 for 16GB through Google's site. [...] The phones are ALL made un-locked (there is no locked version because there is no carrier associated). My husband put in his SIM card from his iphone and after about 20min it recognized his new device.The phones are amazing. Very happy - but I just wanted to bring it to anyone looking at this listing, how overpriced this store is listing them.We simply waited for the opportunity to get on backorder - and then three weeks after that we received our phones. It doesn't hurt to wait sometimes. The phone is worth it, and so is the money you will save.
131 of 141 people found the following review helpful.
One Phone to rule them all :-)
By Shashank Dabral
*** UPDATE ***********************************************************************************************************Bought mine from google play and just to drive the point, this phone is much cheaper when bought via google directly. There maybe some wait (a couple of weeks) while buying via google play, but the wait saves you a hundred dollars or more. Its your pick!**********************************************************************************************************Ever since the concept of smartphones came out, there has been a talk of this so called 'convergence'; Wherein you own one device which can practically do everything under the sun. With the Nexus-4, I think the so called convergence is here, well almost. The only thing that is still lacking is the camera, since I don't see it replacing my DSLR (or even a really good point & shoot). Of course, this shouldn't be taken as a negative point for the phone since I don't think there isn't any other phone which could do the same (The IOS religious fanatics would disagree, but I don't think the Iphone camera comes close to DSLR quality either). Apart from that, the phone does perform rather well in all the other departments. Jellybean is the best Android flavor so far, the UI is great, the experience is smooth and apps in the google play store are abundant. Battery life is decent, engine horse power is phenomenal (Thanks to Qcom) and the Network data speeds are great. A brief summary of points follows:a) LTE or Not! : The phone doesn't support LTE, but supports HSPA+ which some (T-mobile) still tout as 4G. If you are on T-mobile, getting the phone is a no brainer, since you will get the best speeds that their network can provide. AT&T is a different story, AT&T supports both HSPA+ and 4g LTE. It has been stated by multiple reviewers that AT&T's LTE is much faster than their HSPA+ network (this makes logical sense since for AT&T LTE is the latest buzzword and they probably want to promote it over HSPA+). The other fact is that AT&T's HSPA+ is slower than T-mobile's HSPA+ network and it is suggested that T-mobile's HSPA+ may be comparable to AT&T's LTE. To keep it short, this phone will give you the best experience on T-mobile although you should be able to get decent speeds on AT&T as well. (The phone won't work on Verizon or other CDMA networks).b) Cost of the phone: I purchased mine from google where it retails for a standard price of $350 (plus taxes and shipping). Some people may compare this price to the contract price of an iphone (or other android smart phones), but that's not a fair comparison. Most contracts factor in the cost of the phone in the plan and by rough estimates an average customer pays around 20$/month for getting the phone subsidized. Multiply this by 24 for a 2 year contract and you are paying 480$ over a 2 year cycle and that's over & above the initial downpayment of 200$. That's a total price of 680$!! T-mobile for sure gives you a discount if you opt out of the phone and other carriers may have similar plans. The other thing which adds to your monthly payments is the tax on wireless plans. In the great state of Texas the monthly tax for cell phone plans comes to 17%. So if you have a monthly plan which is higher in cost, you also end up paying higher tax on it. (Compare this with 8% sales tax that you pay when you buy the device up front. Even if you assume that the total cost of the device to the customer is the same, whether purchased via contract or by full downpayment, the contract options leads to a higher tax on the buyer. Ofcourse, the contract plans never really disclose the full picture so you never get to do the maths).c) Connecting to a TV: The Nexus 4 doesn't have a mini HDMI, what it does have is a micro usb which supports slimport. You can buy a slimport HDMI adapter for under 30$ and connect your Nexus 4 to your TV (In contrast to the Nexus 7 tablet which purportedly doesn't support slimport). The other emerging standard is 'Miracast' which would enable one to wirelessly stream the display to a Miracast enabled TV. (Don't worry if you have an older generation TV, the market will be soon be seeing a flood of Miracast adapters which can convert an old TV into Miracast compliant using the HDMI port).Once the connection to TV is sorted out, I think the phone can work as a good replacement to a gaming console or a streaming device. You can play high quality games (and the games on google play are much cheaper than their console brethren)or watch movies/tv on Netflix.The only drawback, there won't be Amazon prime instant videos on this. You can watch Amazon instant videos using the browser of the phone, but Amazon doesn't allow instant videos to be displayed in HD on Android devices. (It does allow that on IOS or custom devices which support the amazon app or on the kindle fire). I guess that's just Amazon's marketing strategy.d) Camera: The camera is decent, comes with an led flash, but isn't something that would blow my mind away.Overall, it's a very good phone at an amazing price point. No wonder it's sold out on google and selling at a premium on Amazon. I will continue updating the review as I spend more time with the phone. Do check back later and if you find the review helpful, please vote on the helpful review button. (It gives me the much needed encouragement to take time off from my busy work schedule and write lengthy reviews)***Update***I have had this phone for a few days now and I'm quite satisfied. There are a couple of points to note though, the phone does have a tendency to slip out of one's hands (it maybe the larger size and slippery surfaces), so a protective case is necessary. I use the SF Matte Black - Rearth Ringke SLIM for LG Google Nexus 4 Soft Feeling Premium Hard Case - ECO Package [Revised Version] case. It's a hard back case with a soft feel and covers the back and the sides. It's slim enough to be unnoticeable, however unlike the google certified nexus 4 bumper, this one does cover the beautiful back of the phone. It's also slightly loose around the volume button, but at half the cost of the google nexus 4 bumper and available without delay, its not a bad deal.Camera Quality: People have commented on comparing the camera quality of this vis-a-vis the iphone-5. I haven't had time to do tests myself, but on doing some research online, it is suggested that the Iphone5 camera is perhaps slightly better than the one on this. This is particularly more for color tint and saturation than for the actual sharpness of the image. I believe this is nothing that cannot be fixed by future software updates.***Update-2 : Feb/2013 **The camera app is noticeably buggy. In some cases I have seen that the blue camera button refuses to work till you exit the camera app and restart it again. I've also had the flash freeze while it's on. Issues are not that frequent and easily resolvable, but this now appears to be a genuine bug on Android Jelly Bean. I hope google has a fix soon, it can be a source of potential embarrassment when it hits as you are trying to show it off to the iphone cult!Some other points which I've noticed which are plus points for the Nexus 4: a) Wireless charging support; No official charger is out there yet, but some models which support the nexus 4 exist. It's much more convenient to just place the phone on a charging mat/surface rather than plugging it in. b) NFC tags: The phone supports NFC. There isn't much commercial use of it till now (NFC payments hasn't really kicked in), but there are some nice things you can do with NFC tags. For around 15$ you can buy a set of 15 tags which can then be customized such that the Nexus performs a specific action when it's near them. (For instance you can program and stick a tag in your car, such that when you enter the car, the bluetooth and gps is automatically turned on and the wifi is turned off. Helps in extending battery life by switching the appropriate antennas at the right time). More on these later, when I actually get to try them out.**** Update-3: 20/Feb/2013 **With the latest upgrade of JellyBean, the camera bug seems to be resolved. I haven't seen it in a while now.
53 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
Got mine from Google
By W. Burkhouse
I bought my Nexus 4 from Google for $350. It tool about three hours of retrying on there web page. When I ordered it said it would ship in two to three weeks but it was on my door step in two.My last phone was an IPhone 4 on AT&T. I just shut it down removed the SIM, inserted the SIM in the Nexus 4 and started it. That was all there was to it, no calls to support or fiddling with setting, it just worked. The screen is great and the GUI is super smooth. I did find I had to buy two apps. Air Play by Double Twist allows the phone to wirelessly sync play lists with Itunes on my iMAC. HD Widgets allows the creation nice custom widgets to manage bluetooth, Wifi and ringer settings. I have had this phone for almost two weeks and the more I use the phone the more I like it. It is much easier to manage my apps and track down which is doing what in the background. At first I thought the battery might be an issue but that seems to be getting better, I got rid of Yahoo Weather and that helped a lot, it pounds the network and GPS constantly. Signal strength is at least and good as the IPhone 4 with WiFi and 3G and way better with bluetooth. The phone works well and there have been no issues with hearing or being heard. The camer works well and takes nice pictures but i don't thing it is as good as the IPhone 4s or 5. The flash is much more powerful then the one on my IPhone 4.The stock phone is a bit slippery and there are very few cases available thus far. I tried a soft TPU case which fit fine but felt crappy so when the Google Nexus 4 bumper came back in stock I got one of those. The bumper from Google is way nicer than I expected. It has a real metal band around the outside and the buttons work and feel even better than the stock phone buttons. The bumper makes the phone very easy to hold on to and has metal around the USB and headphone jacks that make plugs easier to find without looking without preventing any plug I have tried from being fully inserting.I have no regrets about switching and have no plan to go back.
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If you plan to Use Straight Talk with this phone...
Cheap but the touch screen sucks.
