[HTC Desire S] ben_pyett:
N4

Hello (again) brain dump attempt from me to go into more depth........

Context

The N4 is my first opportunity at a non HTC phone in several years and it’s only my second Android phone, the DS being my first. You must consider that I’m bound to be slightly biased in my views here as I’m now the owner of the device although I’ve hopefully been reasonably constructive. Please don’t see this as DS bashing, but the DS is my only real reference point.

Build

As I previously mentioned in an earlier post the N4 build quality is fantastic – very impressed.

Size

It's far from being the one handed thumb control that I had previously with the DS. Although this is possible on the N4 if without bumpers, as Google correctly mentioned in the initial marketing for the device it does feel great (without bumpers) held in the hand, I've decided that for the first few weeks at least, I'm keeping my bumpers on, in order to monitor how many times I drop it and how it goes, the bumpers certainly detract from the look of the device and make holding it slightly more awkward (as they increase the size), making thumb/finger navigation even more of a stretch, perhaps the initial use of the bumpers will stretch my muscles/fingers enabling an easier transition to the larger device when and if they come off.

Speed

It is, what t is, super – just look at the specs! such a step up from the DS, although to me not obviously noticeably faster or slower than any of the other top end phones, like the One X, One XL or the SGS3, not that I’ve extensively compared these devices side by side, but just in overall responsiveness coming from the DS they’re all great. Not that the DS was slow by all means, but the speed is particularly noticed when browsing/loading and rendering complex websites here both the N4/SGS3 are incredible.

Screen

To be frankly honest I wish that I hadn't played with the Samsung now while waiting for the N4, as I was very seriously impressed with the sgs3 (i9305) on most counts, especially the screen which is an area so many ‘experts’ constantly criticise, I loved the screen of the sgs3 (throw your rocks now!), I found the colours – while very bright and unrealistic – wonderful and very easy to view – now enough about the sgs3. I personally find the screen on the N4 slightly dull and washed out when compared to the sgs3 with its super unnaturally bright colours. Although the N4’s screen is still significantly larger and sharper than that of the DS so a great step up. As I mentioned before, while the on on-screen buttons are truly great they annoyingly decrease the screen real estate, meaning one less row of home screen icons when compared to the sgs3!

Battery

So far my impression of the battery isn’t great but as I’ve been constantly fiddling and setting up it’s not surprising. I also stream internet radio when wandering around out of the house/office which uses a stupid amount of battery. The N4 appears to consume more battery than the DS did doing the same task. Hopefully this will be improved with further kernel and O/S development. Still early days for battery comments. I’ve spotted some obscenely high usage figures from Battery Monitor Widget, which I originally took to mean that it needed updating for the new Nexus devices, but I’ve since seen an N4 relevant update and still see the high numbers, but on the flip side I've also seen very low single digit figures when the N4 is sleeping.

Bugs - the major ones that I've witnessed/experiences are actually Jelly Bean (4.2/4.2.1) issues.

1) a significant WiFi issue (I reported it in the AOKP thread) happened twice - basically kills wifi on the device, until a reboot, there is a router workaround I believe to disabe CTS protection (or something) not quite read up on this yet. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=40065

2) slight intermittent stutter/delay on lock screen - it's only happened the once - although this was when I was showing my iPhone friend my new phone - Nexus fail for me as a result!

3) I’ve spotted the screen on random bug a few times. Where the screen lights up when locked without being touched, many people reported this on the DS I recall, never happened to me though.

Minor Niggles

Badly placed charge socket, at the bottom very different to DS.

I find the Led poor. It’s a very small light which is dim it’s also daftly placed at the bottom of the phone just below the buttons - where you hold it, which seems stupid!

By default there is no charging or battery full LEDs – again stupid emissions. You need to either use an additional application (such as Light flow) or hope that AOKP customisations will sort this, although so far AOKP LED configuration hasn’t worked for me yet. When compared to the amazingly bright, multi colour Samsung notification/charging LEDs the N4’s is certainly found lacking.

Many people have commented that the in call phone speaker isn’t loud enough, I personally don’t agree, but I think I’ve good hearing (for my age) so haven’t found it an issue.

Unfortunately once I added my work email and had to enable the accompanying Exchange security policies, which enforce a PIN/password lock screen, the new lock screen JB features are annoyingly disabled, while personally I don’t like personal content such as text messages/missed calls and upcoming appointments to be made easily accessible on my device, the removable of the easy access to the camera from the lock screen is a real shame.

The new JB quick settings which are actually short cuts just seem a job half done, thankfully stock only lasted a day on the phone and this and several other minor issues were all instantly taken care of by customs.

Development

Without stating the obvious the for a Nexus device, the development progress was instant and simple. Unlock, root etc available by many methods within days. The pace here is quite remarkable.

ROMs

I’m loving the AOKP customisation options, after monitoring the forums I choose AOKP over CM as it appears to be getting slightly more attention and I always loved the DS’s Tectas AOKP version when I ran it. AOKP is the only custom that I’ve tried and I can’t see myself moving for a while. It's actually what I'm on now, late last night flashed the 02-Dec-12 build and I'm very happy, still not quite had the time to fully customize the device. Lots of my initial criticisms were removed once I’ve installed AOKP, which apart from a few tiny non functioning customisation options, is amazingly stable!

I'm sure that I'll have more more so say....on this subject

waiting for my first lowveld N4 ROM ;)