

Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0 - ansy
http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/15/exclusive-google-nexus-4g-detailed-720p-display-4g-lte-android-4-0/

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jonknee
Higher-res screen than a net book, comprable CPU, always-on high speed
internet and it fits in your pocket... The future is impressive.

~~~
cube13
If the battery lasts longer than 5 minutes. Sure, you could underclock the
device to save battery, but what's the use of all that power in a mobile
device if you can't use that power while mobile?

This is becoming a huge problem for the smartphone market. The phones are
getting more and more powerful, but the batteries aren't keeping up. iPhones
last about a day, maybe 2 with moderate use, and Android devices are all over
the place, with some lasting for quite a while, but others lasting only a
handful of hours before needing a charge.

~~~
estel
I haven't really found a correlation between power and battery usage though:
battery life hasn't really improved for a few years, but phones have gotten
massively more powerful in that time. They only really need to last through
the day.

~~~
buster
Also, i think it's more the display, UMTS and WLAN chips that draw most power.

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rudyfink
In my current experience (EVO) the GPS and cellular data radios are absolute
beasts at drawing power.

-If only my cellular phone radio is turned on I get several days out of a full charge.

-If cellular data and GPS are enabled, my battery life tends to drop down to hours and the phone becomes physically hot (about three hours).

-Cellular data by itself probably cuts my battery life by half or more if left on constantly (about a day and a half).

-Bluetooth has a almost imperceptible effect on battery life (four or five days).

-Wi-Fi by itself probably drops the life by about a quarter or third (about two days).

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kyleslattery
Interesting how Google has been removing the hardware buttons in favor of
software buttons onscreen. I've always like having at least a home button to
always be able to exit an app, even if the UI is frozen.

~~~
generalk
The three extra physical buttons beyond Home are my favorite Android features!

\- Menu: It's nice having a go-to place to find options or additional
functions. With the iPhone, it's however the app author decided to design his
software. With Android, hit menu, it's probably there.

\- Search: Again, having a context-sensitive search button is a big win. It
pulls up the URL Bar in the browser, the Search screen in the Market, and the
voice commands on the home screen.

\- Back: This is the really big win. Having a constant way to have the phone
go back to wherever you were previously is huge, especially given Android's
"intent" system. Twitter -> Browser -> Mail Client -> Incoming SMS, and to get
back to Twitter I just hit the back button until I'm there.

I'm not sure I could even use an Android phone at this point that didn't have
the hardware back button.

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Symmetry
I think the idea is that the OS will always have software equivalents of those
4 buttons on the bottom of the screen, so you'll always be able to do the
things you mentioned. You won't get nice tactile cues, though, which makes me
like the hardware buttons.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
On phones like the Nexus One and Nexus S, the "hardware keys" are raelly just
an extension of the touch screen, so the phone uses "haptic feedback" to
vibrate the phone when you trigger those keys. I actually like it even better
than the hardware keys on my old G1 or on any of my friends' phones since
then.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
Extension in that they are "smooth", but physically, they are separate pieces
of hardware (the light intensity of each can be set independently for
instance).

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usaar333
Phone names are getting confusing. I have a Nexus S 4G, which is significantly
inferior to this Nexus 4G. O_o

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zitterbewegung
No mention of NFC? I guess we could assume its going to be in the phone I
hope?

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tfh
nfc is already in the nexus s. So i guess it's in.

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abeppu
I bought the nexus s in part because of it's nfc hardware. I thought that cool
new nfc applications were imminent. Six months later, I still haven't been
able to use it for anything interesting. The next google phone may have nfc
hardware, but until systems reposing on that hardware are rolled out, it makes
sense that neither the OP nor potential consumers should really care.

~~~
jonknee
<http://www.google.com/wallet/>

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swah
I wish the laptop market was having this amount of innovation.

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rdin
Hopefully this will address some of the issues with the Nexus S, particularly:

-No dual ATT/Tmobile HSPA support

-Lack of MicroSIM

~~~
cstuder
How is the lack of MicroSIM an issue? As far as I know there's no functional
difference apart from the size.

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rdin
Wooops- meant MicroSD! =S

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grandalf
No mention of the 1 hour battery life in the article. Features are great but
so far Google has a horrible track record of caring about the overall user
experience of the phone (toward which battery life is a very significant
factor).

I'd like to see Google make a battery life claim that is on par with the
iPhone and have it come true.

~~~
fragsworth
My Nexus S lasts several days with regular use, so I don't know what you're
talking about.

You probably installed a bad app on your phone that was draining its battery,
and mis-attributed the problem to the device.

~~~
grandalf
My experience was with an Evo 4G. I tried closing / uninstalling all the apps,
and I mostly just used the standard Google and HTC apps.

I sold the Evo and got an iPhone 4 and now I never have to think about the
battery. During the few weeks I had the Evo I was caught a few times with a
dead phone when I'd been planning on using the GPS to navigate somewhere at
the end of the day. Not fun.

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mdwrigh2
Google had very little to do with creating the Evo beyond providing the OS.
The hardware (screen, battery, etc.) were all HTC.

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nextparadigms
Kind of disappointing it's not Tegra 3, but at least I hope it's the dual core
Qualcomm Krait at 1.5 Ghz built on 28nm process and Adreno 300, rather than
OMAP 4.

Everything else about it is exactly what I've been hoping for: HD resolution,
4.5" screen, no buttons, 4G.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
4.5" seems a tad excessive to me. I'll follow you to 4.0", and you can
probably talk me into 4.3... but 4.5? Getting a little to close to Dell Streak
territory in my opinion.

~~~
andrewjshults
If they follow the HTC Evo design (basically non-existant borders) and drop
the dedicated button area I could see them being able to squeeze a 4.5" screen
into an almost the same sized package. It's thicker than an iPhone but the
surface area really isn't much more.

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robinduckett
I'll be in my bunk.

