Bit weird it not having LTE. Tablet looks nice, still no bloody apps for it.
Blimey im tempted to buy the Nexus 4 and cancel my contract.
Just can't figure out if I would actually save anything.
£36 for 24 months = £864 (thats with UNLTD texts/calls and 1gb of data)
Or buy it outright for £279 and spend around 10-15 on orange for a similar plan to mine.
For £280 that Nexus 4 is a bloody good price. I'd like to see some solid reviews first.
Only thing that is a slight negative for me is the design. For me I just don't find it that pleasing on the eye.
As tempting as it is, i'll stick with my 5. Too many compromises would need to be made for me to switch. But its nice.
Is what I've done for years (since they stopped doing the 12 month contracts. Like f**k i'm going to sign for 18/24 months)
Sim Only £15/£20 per month on a 30 day rolling contract.
Buy a unlocked/unbranded phone (nexus s) sell 6/8 months later for x amount, put that towards a new phone (galaxy nexus) so on so forth.
Plus now the nexus 4 is so much cheaper, it makes sense
Why I left apple for Phone/Tablet devices....
If I hadn't had iOS6 prior to the iPhone 5 announcement I'd probably have done the normal thing of selling before the keynote and buying the 5 as soon as it went on sale, but the fact that iOS6 was such a weak "update" meant that there was no way I was going to do the usual trick.
That coupled with the fact that I'd bought a Nexus 7 when they were released so that I could get a flavour of Jellybean to decide if I could live with it as an OS put the final nail in the coffin when I realised that Jellybean was good, most of the historical gripes about Android were gone. Final issue is the fragmentation of the platform and lack of updates....but that goes away with a Nexus device.
Theres still the issue of app support at a device level, very annoying. Yes android have the popular iOS equivalent apps in the store, but will they support my device? Who knows? (TomTom, Sky Player - Both good examples)
Until i know that everything will just work, theres no point in switching.
As for tablets, app selection is woeful. (At present, i have no doubt this will change eventually but for now the iPad is still king)
But these nexi (?) are a massive step in the right direction. They just need to sort the ecosystem out now.
Theres still the issue of app support at a device level, very annoying. Yes android have the popular iOS equivalent apps in the store, but will they support my device? Who knows? (TomTom, Sky Player - Both good examples)
Until i know that everything will just work, theres no point in switching.
As for tablets, app selection is woeful. (At present, i have no doubt this will change eventually but for now the iPad is still king)
But these nexi (?) are a massive step in the right direction. They just need to sort the ecosystem out now.
I agree, but like a lot of people I use the tablet almost exclusively for:
* Web Surfing
It's fairly rare that I use it for anything else, the wife is the same, she has hardly any apps installed on her iPad.
Thing is, Google appear to be getting serious now. Before it seemed almost a "hobby" project for them, something interesting to kill time. The fact that they're getting manufacturers to build them good looking, well designed, well engineered, well specced and fantastically priced "high end" devices means that they're serious now, gloves are off.
As I've said before, when your product is so far ahead of the competition it's easy to justify a premium price for a product, but when that difference comes down to the "meh" region it becomes much more difficult and troublesome to justify. While you're always going to get customers who are loyal to a brand, there's a lot of customers who are savvy and don't particularly care which brand it is, they just want a good ratio of price/performance.
I think google are out of the baby booties now and have stuck on the running shoes. Interesting times ahead I think.
However, Tom is also right. I hate that some manufacturers are still dragging their feet with Android apps. Admittedly there's only one App that springs to my mind and that's the official Denon Remote app. On iOS it supports the 2012 models (I have an AVR-1912) but on the Android version it only supports 2013 models. Why? I have no idea, but it's damn annoying. There is a great 3rd party app which does everything and supports the 2012 models but it still pissed me off because I like official apps (and the 3rd party ones are never as pretty!).
For the most part, I actually find *those* kind of applications (mostly) pointless. Things like Hi-Fi's come with remotes, and generally it's a case of "Pick up remote, press button" to do the functionality.
When you start involving a device like a phone/tablet, you then go to "Pick up device, Unlock Device, Find App, Launch App" before you're at a point where you're ready to do the action you wanted anyway! It's bizarre why you'd want to add extra time/effort/complexity if all you wanted to do was turn the volume up or switch inputs etc - it's far easier and quicker to use the normal remote control!
One exception to this (that I've found) is that I have found works a lot better is the TiVo App for the iPad which (up until recently) could be tricked into communicating with a Virginmedia TiVo, if you've ever used a VM TiVo you'll know how slow and ridiculously overly complex it is to use. The TiVo app actually presents all the information that you see on the screen in a super fast way, it's like a remote control on steroids. However, it's usability could just as easily be replicated on the box itself if it had a fast enough CPU and better thought out navigation/UI.
Most of these "remote control" apps are more a case of "because we can" rather than "because it's useful".
Disagree, I have two zones of speakers which means 50% of the time I'm not in the same room as the Denon. To use the original remote I would have to get up and go into the living room, do what I want to do, then come back, sit down and see if it had the desired effect or whether I need to change it again. With the app I can do it from anywhere.
Admittedly most people aren't like me so it makes no difference but in my world it does.
One exception to this (that I've found) is that I have found works a lot better is the TiVo App for the iPad which (up until recently) could be tricked into communicating with a Virginmedia TiVo, if you've ever used a VM TiVo you'll know how slow and ridiculously overly complex it is to use. The TiVo app actually presents all the information that you see on the screen in a super fast way, it's like a remote control on steroids. However, it's usability could just as easily be replicated on the box itself if it had a fast enough CPU and better thought out navigation/UI.
One question though, what do you use when you're in the room with the HiFi?
When you say up until recently, what do you mean exactly?
That's my only gripe about TiVo, it's so bloody slow to do stuff like viewing recorded shows etc.
Ah okay. The proxy thing makes perfect sense.
Silly question now... How does the app make things quicker? I'd assume the app still interacts with the TiVo box so I don't understand how it could be quicker. Perhaps the app interacts with something else there? (I'm sure the answer is obvious).
Who knows, thats the risk you take.
They don't sell well enough for them to be supported long term, but im not sure what google have said.
Still gets them now. Nexus S is 2 years old? Getting jelly bean soon?
I'm pissed off with T-Mobile's constant "coming soon" for Jelly Bean, so I think I'll flog my S3 and get a Nexus 4 when they're released. It's a nice phone though, but the N4 looks nicer.
Just flash the Official S3 JB ROM yourself via Odin. It's extremely easy, doesn't require any hacking or rooting and takes about 15 minutes. I've flashed the non-branded (BTU) version and it is nothing short of fantastic. JB really is Android at it's very best.
Link to instructions and I'll have a go