Google Nexus 4 Review - Google's new Flagship
by Brian Klug on November 13, 2012 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- LG
- Android
- Mobile
- APQ8064
- Nexus 4
- Android 4.2
- MDM9215
The display on the Nexus 4 is another shared component between the Optimus G, and is a 4.7-inch IPS WXGA (1280x768) LCD, which is of course home to an RGB stripe and in-cell touch, or as LG calls it, "zerogap" touch. LG Display unsurprisingly knows how to make LCD displays, and the Nexus 4 display looks subjectively very good. At 320 PPI I can’t see any pixels, and don’t think we need to get into the whole visual acuity discussion again, it’s very good on the Nexus 4. The added width over straight 720p is something I noted was actually very refreshing on the Optimus G when playing with that device in Korea. Most apps scale appropriately and take advantage of it without any issue, and the extra width definitely is noticeable in Chrome, Plume, and all my daily drivers.
The Nexus 4 display goes very bright, at 466 nits, and achieves a contrast ratio of 1352:1 at that maximum brightness setting. This is a huge step over the barely 200 nits that the Galaxy Nexus could eek out.
| CalMAN Display Comparison | |||||||||
| Metric | iPhone 5 | iPhone 4S | HTC One X | Samsung Galaxy S 3 | Samsung Galaxy Note 2 | Google Nexus 4 | |||
| Grayscale 200nits Avg dE2000 | 3.564 | 6.162 | 6.609 | 4.578 | 5.867 | 7.686 | |||
| CCT Avg (K) | 6925 | 7171 | 5944 | 6809 | 7109 | 8506 | |||
| Saturation Sweep Avg dE2000 | 3.591 | 8.787 | 5.066 | 5.460 | 7.986 | 8.517 | |||
| GMB ColorChecker Avg dE2000 | 4.747 | 6.328 | 6.963 | 7.322 | 8.185 | 7.531 | |||
I’ve mentioned that Google continues to struggle at calibrating their displays. The truth is that everyone except for Apple, HTC, and occasionally Samsung, struggle at calibrating mobile displays. This continues to be the case with the Nexus 4, and the result is that accuracy could be better. I’m convinced the results that we’re getting out of the Nexus 4 basically represent no attempt at calibrating the display, and as a result the numbers suffer.
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jwwpua - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Now THAT would be a great way to compare phones. I love the idea of using a hi-speed camera to compare real world tasks.funky247 - Thursday, November 15, 2012 - link
Genius.thesavvymage - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
For those reading, it went up on Google Play at 8:35 pacific, 25 mins ahead of time.BenSkywalker - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
So we know a whole bunch about how the browser performs, and a lot of how Imagination Technologies press demo performs, any chance at some point you may decide to bench the CPU *at all* and perhaps run at least a single meaningful GPU bench?tuxRoller - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Can we plus one this fella above?I've really been looking forward to a thorough review of the krait architecture (including the new adreno 300 series) but there doesnt appear to be much interest on the AT side to do this.
Reiterating, I'd love to see the same kind of in depth the testing and analysis that was given to Swift. Qualcomm, like apple, is pretty secretive about their products. Performing some targeted tests would go a long ways towards giving us a better picture of the Arm landscape.
madmilk - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
The thermal throttling configuration is very aggressive. According to Nexus 4's thermald.conf, throttling is entirely based on battery temperature, with anything below 36 C giving the full 1.5GHz on the CPU and 400MHz on the GPU. By 39 C, the CPU is only running at 1.2GHz and GPU at 200MHz, which reflects the non-freezer results.shaggles - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Seriously, with reviews like this I don't have to look anywhere else for tech reviews. Best review I have read in a long time (and the first I read on Anandtech).Great in depth analysis that points out flaws and benefits in a well balanced manner. Great!
I'll be getting this sexy phone!
abhicherath - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I mean seriously, look at that.In addition to being the best value proposition on the market...
Google's outdone themselves, again.
chrnochime - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
So does the glass back make this phone as brittle as the iphone4/4S?Rits - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
RTFR