Google Nexus 5 Review

The Nexus 5 made stock Android a mainstream choice rather than a developer's hobby. LG built it around the 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 and 2GB of RAM from its own far pricier G2, and Google sold it unlocked from the Play Store for $349, roughly half what a Galaxy S4 or HTC One cost off contract. The 4.95-inch 1080p IPS panel was sharp and accurate if a little dim, the soft-touch plastic was plain, and it had Qi wireless charging and LTE, which the Nexus 4 had conspicuously lacked. It launched Android 4.4 KitKat with the Google Now Launcher and a lighter memory footprint, and it got Lollipop in November 2014 and Marshmallow in October 2015 within days or weeks of each going final, which was the whole point of owning one.

What the price cost you was obvious from the first charge. The 2300mAh battery managed a day of light use and no more, with screen-on time near three hours. The single bottom speaker was thin and quiet. The 8-megapixel Sony IMX179 camera had optical stabilisation, but the app was so slow at launch that Google shipped Android 4.4.1 within weeks to fix the shutter lag, and it was that same update that introduced HDR+, the burst-merging mode that would later define the Pixel.

Later in life a number of units developed a power button that pressed itself, rebooting the phone at random. The last major version was 6.0.1 in December 2015, with security patches until October 2016: two years and two versions after launch, the standard Nexus deal, and it still felt short.