I just received my Nexus 5, and thought I'd give some first impressions.

• The hardware is as plain as the reviews have said, but I have no problems with it. Frankly, I like the back of this phone more than any other phone I've used. Far more than the glass back of the Nexus 4 and it's miles better than the chintzy plastic backs of the Galaxy Nexus or even the solid-feeling plastic back of the HTC One.
• I don't really understand the ceramic buttons, but I guess they won't break... They're sharp as hell, though.
• The Verge was talking about a white grille on the earpiece, but mine is black. Maybe they changed it. Aside from the clear plastic of the flash (and the occasional blinking status LED), this entire phone is 100% solid black. I like it.
• The screen is enormous. When lined up next to my Nexus 4 with the top of the screens aligned, the Nexus 5 is at least 1/2" to 3/4" taller. The screen widths are actually about the same, oddly. The effect is that the phone doesn't FEEL much bigger in my hand, though it's thicker so that does add to it.
• The phone is FAST. Holy crap. I've already tried scrolling through a huge number of photos (in my Dropbox photo auto-backup), and the phone has zero stutter when panning past hundreds of photos. This phone is blazingly fast. It's absurd.
• Kitkat is a pretty nice visual improvement for Android. The transparent status and button bars are going to take some getting used to, but it's mostly in Google's stuff so far, so I'll ease into it
• Another thing I'll have to get used to is how they've added Google Now as basically what lives to the left of your main home screen. If you're looking at your primary launcher page, when you swipe to the right you no longer get another screen for icons and widgets, you get Google Now. This doesn't bother me too much because I tended to keep all my app icons on a single screen anyway, but I'm sure it'll throw a lot of people off.
• I can't possibly evaluate the much-maligned camera when I've had so little time with it. All I can say is that I've taken a photo with it and my Nexus 4, and maybe the reviewers are seeing a different software version, but all I know is that in low light the Nexus 5 kicks the Nexus 4's sorry behind. I've attached some photos to demonstrate. Both of these were taken with no changes to the camera settings from stock (I don't recall ever changing the Nexus 4's camera in the time I've been using it). The 5 is the light one, the 4 is the dark one. Neither photo is particularly stunning, but at least the Nexus 5 is able to take a photo that lets you see what's going on in it. Heck, the Nexus 4 not only did a terrible job with the light levels, but the photo is still noisy as hell. The Nexus 5, as I said, isn't much better, but at least you can tell that this is a photo of a chair!
• I'm getting a little bit of the magic that Moto X users experience with the voice commands. It makes me wish/hope that the Nexus 5 were capable of the always-listening function. At the moment it's ONLY on your launcher home screen. You can't even do it in your search results window. I'm not sure why they didn't at least let you do it if the phone was turned on, or turned on and unlocked. That would have been great. Maybe they'll still do it.
• 4.4 is white. The icons in the status bar are white, the background for folders is now white, even the line on the stock keyboard's "Swype" gesture is white. The whole thing is a lot lighter. I think it still needs a little work, though. It comes off a little too plain, but it's not offensive or anything. It's just a little...plain.

That's about all I can think of for now. I've really only had about 30 minutes to play with this thing. I'm really excited but I can't base my final opinion on it from the amount of time I've had to play with it. Still, I can already tell that I won't regret the purchase. I do think it's an improvement on the Nexus 4. I don't know if it's enough to make anyone with a Nexus 4 upgrade, but I don't think you'll be sorry if you did. I'm not. If you Have anything older than a Nexus 4, then there's no question that this is an improvement.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like there are lots of reasons NOT to update my Galaxy Nexus to 4.4 if/when it ever becomes available: the GoogleNow invasion, the bright backgrounds (battery drain on OLED displays), etc.

The N5 sounds like a nice device, though!

Cheers

It won't be officially coming to the Galaxy Nexus. There is a petition circulating asking Google to change their mind.


Choose a new launcher from the Play Store that doesn't have this integration. The AOSP launcher for 4.4 is nearly identical to 4.3's stock launcher. The launcher that ships with the Nexus 5 is not part of AOSP. It's a Google launcher that will apparently be coming to the Play Store if you would like to install it on your non-Nexus device.


Choose a dark background or plain black?


It is. I was using my backup Galaxy Nexus the past 4 weeks while waiting for the Nexus 5 to be released. Those two devices are worlds apart.

Absolutely agree. This isn't like a two-generation span of the iPhone. The Galaxy Nexus is way behind what the Nexus 5 has going on.

How do you like your phone, Rob? After using mine for a day, I'm pretty much in love, but that could still be the "new gadget" phase.

I was using an Xperia ZL most recently before the Nexus 5. That's also a 5" phone, but it felt so much slimmer. I really preferred the physical design of the Xperia. The Nexus 5 feels much lighter, however. The screen on the Nexus is better when viewed at an angle.

I don't like that the Nexus doesn't have a removable battery, but neither did the Xperia. I've had my Nexus since Monday morning and yesterday was the first full day with the phone. Its battery was still in the 60% range when I put it on the charger last night. That's from 7:30AM to about 12:30AM. If it keeps up like that, battery life seems better than the Xperia.

I'm not a fan of this new launcher, but I don't hate the Google Now integration. I don't like that it goes back to the pre-ICS method of adding widgets by long-pressing on a blank area of your homescreen. That's not a big deal when your phone has a menu key. I have four homescreens full. I have to leave a 1x1 section of one of them empty so I can switch wallpaper or add a widget.

The icon size on this launcher is absolutely out of control. They could have added another row and column of icons with such a high-res display. Instead they just made everything jumbo-sized.

Other than those two things, the new launcher and Google-fication is OK with me. If 3rd party launchers come out with a similar style, but fit more icons on the screen, I may take a look at those.

I hate that the signal meters don't change color based on connection to Google. That was an incredibly useful feature, especially when traveling with an unknown SIM on unknown carriers. They really screwed that one up. There's no reason they had to remove that feature. Even if they made the meters dim slightly when no connection, that would be fine.

The phone itself is just a slab. Nothing stands out about it other than the giant protruding camera module on the back. I don't know what they were thinking by not recessing the camera. I have this case mostly to protect the glass over the camera lens from scratching when placed on a flat surface. The camera itself seems far superior to the Nexus 4, which isn't saying a whole lot. However, it is more than acceptable. It's just not crazy-good. The camera app sucks as usual.

The micro USB port is upside down from every other phone I have ever handled. I would love to know the reason because it just seems senseless. I have a qi charger, so it's not a big deal. Just an oddity.

It may sound like I'm doing a lot of bitching, but these are little things. On the whole, the phone is excellent (especially for the price). It has an awesome screen, it's hands-down the fastest phone I've ever seen, the battery lasts longer than I anticipated, and the camera is good. The Kitkat/Nexus launcher is a departure, but I don't mind it. I use a lot of Google services, so it works for me. Overall, I don't wish I had any other phone at this moment. The Nexus 5 hits the sweet spot for price, features, wireless bands, and performance.

Thanks for the summary, Rob! I can't say I disagree with most of that, and I think my feelings line up with yours. I have a few comments, though:


Quick tip: long-press the dots that signify which screen you're on.


Haha! Yeah, they really are pretty enormous, aren't they? Weirdly it doesn't bother me too much. I might not entirely understand what you mean about 3rd party launchers. I used to use a launcher that could let me choose however many columns and rows (within reason) I wanted on my home screens. I had something like 5-6 columns and about 8 rows. It even adjusted the sizes of widgets, which was nice because you could really fine-tune widget sizes. I liked Zeam Launcher a lot because it was simple and lightweight.


Yeah, that's starting to bother me. It's annoying that when the phone is resting on a flat surface, pressing on one corner makes it rock back and forth. That's a weird design choice. I would guess that's down to the OIS camera module being kind of deep. Maybe?

I think I'm seeing similar battery life to you. It sounds like they've made some great improvements in Kitkat in this department, including some sort of improvement in how the OS handles music streaming.

Question, vaguely related to the Nexus 5...

Vixy just got a Nexus 5 and is very excited about it. It came fully unlocked with no SIM card.

She was expecting that she would simply take the T-Mobile SIM out of her current Samsung Galaxy S phone, and plug it into the Nexus 5. Alas, the SIM cards are different form factors.

We are planning a jaunt to the T-mobile kiosk at the mall today to get the SIMs rejiggered for her new phone.

My question is: Never having done this particular trick before, how likely are we to be successful when we talk to the drones at the booth? Is there anything in particular we need to watch out for? Are there special magic words I can say which will get them to successfully complete our task without staring at us blankly?

"Hi, I'm a T-Mobile customer, and I want a new SIM" is all it should take.

Excellent, thanks!

Wow, over here anything other than "I'd like to take out a new contract" is usually met with a response of "Ring customer services" from the store drones. My old carrier (Orange/EE) insisted their store stock of nano SIMs on iPhone 5 launch day last year were for new customers only and I should ring up and request one to be delivered by post. Going off contract with an unlocked phone is the best thing I ever did.

.."to replace my existing SIM".

That should be the "default" anyway, but..

Which was exactly my fear. :-)

If you're unsuccessful in person, I've seen T-Mo SIM cards hanging on the wall at the neighborhood Walgreens pharmacy for $10/ea. They offered regular and micro-SIMs. Micro is the proper size. Or, you could do it yourself.

Not so much fun: I just got the two new Nexus 5 phones. One for me and one for my wife. You'd think Google would make setup simpler than it is. You enter all your credentials and it promptly starts installing all your apps, which is good, but it doesn't really restore your old phone, like where you put the apps, and what your notification settings were. No, you have to do all of that again from scratch. And every app has its own damn notification settings, so weeks later you're getting some noise from some app that you forgot to silence.

Coming up next, the part I've been dreading: calling Verizon to see if I can get out of my contract with them a month early without paying the ETF.

Tony
Galaxy S is a mini SIM
Nexus 5 is a micro SIM
http://www.thechinacellphone.com/micro_sim_template.pdf

Worked perfectly and for free for me without a visit to anyone (for a Galaxy S III a year ago...)

Yeah one of my pet peeves doing a re-install on Android. Try it on an iPhone and almost everything is identical to what it was apart from a few things like Spotify cached songs. Almost to the point of wondering was there any point in the reinstall if having problems. If upgrading then you worry if that might be the cause of whatever issues you might be having.

Sometimes a clean start is a good thing.

If you really want to keep a lot of settings I would recommend Titanium Backup. It's a few dollars but probably worth it. It does need root access though.

I've used Titanium Backup in the past, but it's sometimes wonky. The last time I tried to use it, migrating from stock-ish Android 4.2 to CyanogenMod's decidedly non-stock Android 4.3 build, it totally failed and I had to wipe and reinstall everything from scratch.

Shonky, that is hilarious and awesome. I'll show Vixy that, but I'm sure she'd rather not risk it. Still, that's a hack that I personally would be totally willing to do.

Shonky, does that guy have an 8.5x11 size version? :-)

You can buy punches that'll trim down your SIM card for you. Basically the same deal.

Awesome.

Now I wonder if we go to the T-mobile store, if they'll just pull a puncher out from under the desk. :-)

Update on trying to leave Verizon early:

My contract ends December 15. There's no way they're going to waive the ETF. It's just not going to happen. Instead, it looks like the solution is:

- Port my wife's phone number to T-Mobile (her old phone is no longer subject to ETF)

- Call Verizon and reactivate that old phone with a new number

- Have Verizon swap the phone numbers (my phone number, which I want to port to T-Mobile is now on my wife's old phone; the phone number I don't care about is now on my Android phone)

- Now I can port my number over to T-Mobile

After all this mess, I'm left with a family plan with only a single line on it, and a requirement to stick around to December 15. I can then ask Verizon to put me on a cheaper plan that still preserves the unlimited data. Finally, I can sell my old plan via the "assumption of liability" mechanism, which appears to have a street value these days of $200 or more.

Of course, for the hour I just spent on the phone with Verizon to figure this out, it's not really clear I'm coming out ahead in this deal...

I ended up trimming down SIMs for both my iPhone 4 and 5 while waiting for a proper SIM to arrive in the post.

I ordered a Nexus 5 after getting a bit tired of the crappy GPS on my otherwise-awesome JiaYu G3.

Pretty pleased with the Nexus, nice and fast, screen is nice, although the sun has been absent so I haven't used it in direct sunlight yet.

The camera is so-so from the few photos I have taken so far. Not amazing but "good enough" for the price.

I just need a few accessories now - ideally a Qi charger for the bedside table, a mount (with Qi) for the car, and a slim bumper case so it doesn't slide around on tables, and to give a bit of protection should I drop it.

edit: The GPS/GLONASS receiver is excellent, I am very pleased with its performance. I am approx 2-3 feet from a window and it has an 8-sat lock, and achieved it under 15 seconds. The G3 was terrible, even outside it took minutes to get a fix, if at all.

One day you guys will come into the modern age of metric.

As for risk, you can look at it this way:

If you're going to make the trip to the store, you might as well have a go. If the SIM is wrecked you still have to go to the store. Err on the side of caution - i.e. cut bigger to start.

They will definitely not trim your SIM. They will replace it. Sometimes here it will cost you $20-30. In Australia at least you just go and get a new SIM and the old one is cancelled. The new one is then activated on your account. Takes minutes here.

I bought this sim cutter. It's not incredible, but I figured it'd be fine for a few casual uses. I used it to cut down a sim for an iPhone and it worked great (although I still had to use the included sandpaper to make some fine adjustments). Comes with sim adapters so that you can then put the cut-down sim back in a full size slot if you need to.

The SIM cutters have been around for a while, but what really stuns me is the cutters for the nano SIMs that the iPhone uses. Apparently you can cut down a micro SIM to a nano SIM, which seems crazy because at that point you're actually snipping off some of the contact portion.

Been there, done that at work, using the template and a good pair of scissors. The actual chip is smaller than the metal contacts, all under the center contact and bonds from the chip to the inner parts of the surrounding contacts.

I trimmed mine using a surgical scalpel and judging the size by eye, although cutting a bit larger and trimming it down to fit in the carrier.

Yes. The cutter I linked above cuts down to a nano sim and then I used the included micro adapter to put it in the iPhone 4. It does cut a little of the contact area, but leaves plenty.