I have been using nexus 5 for about three weeks and as much as I love the smoothness of this phone, I cant wait to have some money to exchange it with a samsung phone, at least a samsung s4.

I was using a samsung s3 before that phone has a broken power button (keep booting over time by itself). Below is a list of what i feel the pros and cons of the nexus 5 over samsung s3:
Pros:
really smooth,
superbly smooth,
battery can last me a whole day with sot of more than 4 hours.

Cons:
no sd card ( seriously, a bummer),
camera is really pathethic ( ois makes all my pictures taken qith it blurry, color reproduction is so much worst compared to s3 and the s3 was so much consistent in taking pictures),
no smart stay (cant stand that i have to keep touching the screen everytime i read something using it),
no notification toggle like the touchwhiz( i know i can find apps that let me do it but i like the touchwhiz one a lot, you can scroll to see most of your settings toggle or you can click a button just beside the setting button and see all your settings, really miss this feature),
The nav soft keys ( really hate it, fast switching cant exchange with the fact that it is taking some space of the screen. When you are using different locker, this pathethic bar cannot be hidden)
love the app drawer animation of touchwhiz compared to fly in app drawer of the normal google launcher)
Multi window (love the time when i can play youtube and browsing internet or reading email or replying email at the same time)
Resale value (i sold my broken s3 to an unknown person just like that when that person saw me that i wanted to sell my s3 to a second hand shop in the city. nobody wants to buy or swap with my nexus 5 these past two weeks. I went to a second hand store in the city and ask how much can i get with this if i want to trade in with another phone, i can get about £120 with s3 but only £100 with the nexus 5, wth!!)

My wife is using a note 3 and everyday i feel jelous of her note 3 features. Rarely lag and most of the time is as fast as my nexus 5.

Btw mine is a uk set wrapped by an ultra fit copper gold spigen case.

This post has been edited by zariel: Apr 15 2014, 01:58 PM

The only way that i think i can stay with this phone is by rooting and using custom roms. I do not have much choice at the moment. Got to stay with this phone. Let us wait and see what 4.4.3 can bring. I think i have been spoiled by the touchwhiz more than ive realized.

Forgot that the new proc is damned fast.

This post has been edited by zariel: Apr 15 2014, 02:07 PM

Yes, the only way that i can stay with this phone is by rooting and custom roms which i do from time to time with
s3. Been using that s3 for like 2 years and feel like ive been spoiled by it. Agree that diff person has diff needs. For those who really cant stand with a lag, this phone is damed fast and smooth.

Been using cm 11 before with my s3 and i thought the vanilla android has the same option like the cm11. But the thing is with vanilla android, you cannot choose which setting that you can put there. It also does not have the option to have other settings like the sound mode, nfc, wifi sharing, and screen rotation.

In the end ive got to install power toggles app to have those settings available on the notification bar but somehow youve got to retain an icon on your notification bar so that it doesnt kill off by android system.

This post has been edited by zariel: Apr 15 2014, 04:00 PM

I, like many others, like to read tech blogs and news. I know that the nexus line has many flaws but the ammount of nexus users praise the phone has somehow made me into buying this.

I agree that it is a solid device. At first i thought i can live without touchwhiz features. I thought soft keys is better than normal hardware keys. In the end it depends on you. I might be able to use the phone for a long period of time but i will always look out a way to get rid of it.

The nexus 5 is a solid device. Smooth and fast without lag. If google can add somemore feutures, it will become awesome.

I can see that it might not be too long before i go woth the custom roms.

This post has been edited by zariel: Apr 15 2014, 04:56 PM

quote=xxdesire,Apr 15 2014, 09:31 AM]
Different people, different preferences
I like the simplicity of AOSP, any additional features I want, I can flash different roms, install xposed (example).
Sure not many people may agree. That's why there are options for Android phones! And you can go test the phone/UI before even buying it, that's the point of demo units at shop/stores.

[/quote]

Nah.. You will not notice the difference when you test the demo unit untill you have used it at least a week or so.. I have tried the cm 11 for maybe a month and i satisfied with the less features of vanilla android but i didnt know that the vanilla android has much less features than the cm version.

Custom roms is the way to go if i want more out of this device.

I still believe that google can do more especially with the camera app and other less significant options but might be a deal breaker to some people without they realize untill they use it.

I do agree with the clean simple ui and fast response of the phone. Seriously no lag at all.

I did list some of the features that i like to be in the next nexus line. But if you ask me about next google update for this phone (guess you cannot change the hardware):

- i would like a separate sync for calendar and email for the email apps. You can do that with the samsung email app. Guess the blackberry can do that too.
- change vibration intensity
- ability to hide soft keys or other means of of hiding it such as another option to use swipe at the edge of the screen to access home button instead of to swipe at the edge to bring up the soft keys
- option to choose different apps for the locker just like the current setting to change to different launcher. Option to have no soft keys for the lock screen.
- better camera app
- choose more power toggle to be added in the notification bar. Please add screen rotation, sound mode, and wifi hot spot toggle.
- notificationn led settings. Add charging led please.
- smart stay
- Many other people can add such as the shake to change music song.

Notice that these are very small things that i think google can add in no time but probably not all people need. But its a very small and i guess it should be there without the need of a request.

First of all, as much as I respect the developers, I am still not going to use a custom rom as my daily driver. I used my phone to do bank transactions a lot. Some of the apps require a phone that is not rooted. iianm, you cannot use google wallet with custom rom. Furthermore, I dont like to know that there are people who temper with my phone through kernals or roms. I know they are good people but I trust google more than the devs although that devs might be one of the google workers.

Secondly, yes, you can get some of the features from apps that are available in the app store. But some of them take a large amount of ram. I do not like the feeling that I have two apps for calendar (google calendar preinstalled and another calendar app that can satisfy my need). After all, the things that I required are very small but I prefer to have them if I have the option.

In addition, one of the reason why you choose this phone is to minimize the bloatware and if i cannot use the preinstalled email app, the app is a bloatware.

Dont get me wrong, the current available apps are really great and smooth and fast.

Now some people might have different choice and need and the above are just my opinions and wishlist. I also realized that this phone is really cheap compared to other high end phone.

Just like some of you have said, this is the wrong phone for me, and I think it probably is. But if google can just add these small things, I would be really happy.

one of the reasons why i dont go with the custom roms at the moment is because that I want to use several bank applications. they require non-rooted device. but if things dont change, i might go with the custom roms.

but what samsung does is too much.. who wants to have two app stores in one single phone? two music players, two on everything? that is why i went to choose nexus 5.

but now i realized that soft keys is not my cup of tea and no new phone comes with hardware buttons besides samsung (not sure with LG G2 or G3, need to test it, knock knock seems like a very useful feature), thus I probably have got to go with the new s5 or s4 after I got the money (which probably takes another 4-6 months, got other commitments) unless other people want to swap with my nexus.

BTW, how is the battery performs with official CM 11?

dont have much choice, samsung is the only player that is suitable for me at the moment although that when I chose nexus 5, I thought I can get the best of both worlds (such as quick security patch, really minimal UI, less bloatwares). never knew that lack of some of the key features has irritated me (such as the soft keys although at first I felt I can get along with the soft keys).

guys, the nexus 5 is good as I mentioned many times. the apps are good, fast and stable just what I have suspected. just few things that irritates me like the soft keys, lack of sd card, and poor camera. the camera is not consistent and many times giving me blurry pictures.

maybe i have to hold on with this phone for many months before I go and buy new samsung (which comes with a lot of preloaded unused apps although that some of them is important). maybe after I get used of the soft keys, I might like it, lol...

greenify, might look at it later.. thanks..


This post has been edited by zariel: Apr 15 2014, 09:33 PM

Tested the new camera app... slightly better in terms of consistency. No more unwanted blur...

but now im back using a samung s3... got another s3 and it was my wife s3 before she bought her note 3... keeping the nexus 5 to see what google can bring with android 4.5...