[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mintvilla:
no, the poster backs up what i said, you are much much more likely to accidently hit the buttons on the GS3 than you are on the N4. Granted this is because the buttons are on the bezel which again is terrible. Now you can have buttons and a bezel, but then the phone would be bigger, (note) or the screen smaller (nexus s)

to be honest they are on screen buttons, you could say that about any part of the phone? if your accidently hitting buttons on the screen, then you could accidently hit anywhere on the screen, therefore the reply button is terrible on the gmail app since i could accidently hit that?

the buttons are not where you would naturally hold the phone (like they are on the GS3) and therefore they are not accidently pressed.

---------- Post added at 10:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:05 PM ----------

Look i know i wont change your mind, and youve given your opinions, and they are your opinions and thats cool, but since you have written quite a long post, and i came from a GS3 and a GS2 before that and have been rockin the nexus 4 since the 14th of November, i will go through all of your well thought out posts and give you my opinions on them.

It requires a certain level of software to be loaded for them to be functional. It's nice to have capacitive or hard buttons working like on the SGS2 for like 3 button combos or whatever

I'll be honest i don't quite understand this point? the software is built into android, if the app had been updated past honeycomb, there will be no menu button functions and the overflow option appears, if the app hasnt been updated to googles latest guidelines, then the 3 dots will appear at the bottom to give you a menu button.

It takes away screen space. The 4.65" GNex is effectively 4.4" And while some apps "hide them" the icons are hidden and replaced with less obtrusive circle dots. But the bar itself is still taking up space. They can be hidden say in like video, but then that's the only time you get a full screen experience

I would say it adds screen real estate, google doesnt want to make a note size phone, by having on screen buttons it means in certain apps you get a 4.7 inch screen, and the rest of time you get a 4.5 inch screen. While its obvious not everyone likes larger sized phones, i think its fair to say the 4-4.5 inch is the most popular size. so we could have a 4.4 inch screen with capacitive buttons, or a 4.7 inch screen with on screen buttons. And no you can not put the buttons on the bezel, if you watch the verge interview on the Nexus 7, mattias Durate goes on at great length that you need a bezel to rest your hands.

It's an effective bezel. People complain capacitive buttons take bottom bezel space. Ok great, but now your soft buttons aren't usable screen space too so it's an effective bezel. Samsung could've built a 4.4" phone with soft buttons at the bottom and it would've looked just like a Gnex. Not sure what Google accomplished. In phones like the S3, they minimized bezel and kept the bottom buttons as close as they could to the bottom of the phone. If you did that with a screen, your soft keys would still act like the buttons in the S3. No advantage

Yes Samsung did the stupid thing and put buttons on the Bezel, I dont know if youve owned one, or know someone who has, but if you dont. go into a store, turn the screen into landscape and try and hold the phone without hitting the menu button.... it is impossible to hold it for more than 5 mins without hitting it, without trying to hit it, and well if your playing a game, you dont think about holding your hands in an exact position so that to not touch the buttons, honestly its a horrible, i understand why Samsung did this, they didnt want to make the phone too big but wanted a 4.8inch screen. Then theres the whole, "this is a nexus device" and therefore needs to follow googles guidelines.... google doesnt want to use the menu button anymore, but that leads to app incompatibility, so you cant do the samsung route and use the menu button anyway.... yyou could go down the HTC route and have that bottom bar appear for the menu button when it needs it but then you are still loosing real estate and wasting space at the bottom to have buttons without them being on the bezel.

In moving to 3 buttons Google discarded the menu button. So apps bring it back. SOmetimes its on the top. Sometimes its on the bottom, awkwardly inserted between the task switcher and the edge. You get 3 sexy buttons spaced out evenly with 1 jammed in there. WTF is the point. And if most apps require menu functionality, why do you insist on them wasting that space in the app itself? THe inconsistency of having it on the top or bottom is annoying. You might as well bring back the 4 button layout

Hmm i do agree with out to a certain point, it is annoying having the menu button in different places, though to be fair google has to bare in mind that app developers will eventually update their app to the latest guidelines and you should see less and less of the menu on the screen at the bottom. Now google doesnt control this, they leave the option up to the devs, its their app so they must decide what they think is best for their app, i hate the menu button being on the top right for chrome, its the farthest point away from my thumb since i generally hold the phone in my left hand, however address bars have to be at the top of the phone, like it is in normal web browsers, therefore the logical place for chrome is to have it at the top next to the address bar. The menu button would look pretty odd by it self at the bottom of the app wouldnt it? so again yes its app specific but thats because not all apps are the same, some don't even need a menu button at all but with capacitive buttons you would only know this by pressing the button to see if anything happens.... then press it again to make sure the phone registered your press.... with the nexus4 if i dont see the three dots on the overflow bar or the nav buttons, i know there is no menu actions.

Furthermore by removing the search button, Google removed in app search. Long press home should still be used as the task switcher like on legacy phones. It's far more useful. By pushing Google Now, they made Long press home all for Google Now. A dedicated search button can be used for long press Google Now/Voice Search, and tap for in app search. It's useful in apps like Maps or Yelp to hit search and bring up the text input in app. With phones this big now, if I'm busy with my hands at the bottom with the 3 buttons, I don't want to shift my hand and stretch my thumb to hit the top just to invoke the text field, and to bring it back down to start typing again

Pretty much agree with this, while i dont mind having the search bar at the top of the phone, i shouldnt be made to... and likewise you cant use this in apps like gmail etc. I do disagree with having multitask by long pressing home, i know like 30 people with androids (most of them old school ones) about 2 people knew that long pressing the home was the multitask button... its much better having a dedicated button... however i dont see why the need to get rid of the search button, they could just have 4 on screen buttons, so this isnt really so much of a software button thing, since the HTC one x has capacitive buttons but also doesnt have a search button, same as the GS2/GS3 etc

There really is no advantage of soft buttons except for video watching, and having maximum space

Well there is more, since its also the gallery app for photos... also means when you rotate the screen the buttons will follow you so they are the right way up, and always on the right hand side which gives you a constant experience, it also makes the phone future proof as if google wants to add any buttons or the look of the buttons or whatever then this will be able to do, if you have the nexus s then this obviosuly doesnt fit well into where android is at now since it has hardware buttons. Also on every device that had software buttons whether they be phones or tablets, the buttons are in the same order which again gives a consistant experience, the same can not be said about hardware buttons where every manufacture had a different layout, which was a common critism of android back in the froyo days, if memory serves me even the nexus one and nexus s had a different order to the buttons.

You can still use HTC's Incredible S strategy with an actual LCD for the capacitive buttons so that the icons rotate when you rotate your screen

Ok fairenough but how many phones do that?

Some people say with the GNex, it's harder to mispress buttons because in the S3 the buttons are too close to the edge of the phone. The GNex's soft buttons allow a fat bezel to distance from your palm. Okay, so if Samsung just added a 1cm bezel before the buttons at the bottom, then it could've accomplished the same thing

Yes they could of done, but the GS3 and Nexus 4 are basically the same size, 1cm is quite abit of extra height, the GS3 is 13.6 cm tall, the note2 is 15.1 cm tall so that extra 1 cm would make it nearly the same height as the note ( hence why they didnt do it)

These are ofcourse just my opinions, on your opinions, people buy their phones on what suits them best, this isnt me just defending my purchase, i did come from the GS3, and all the time i wished i had onscreen buttons, i hated the home button and i hated always hitting the menu button while playing games, i love the onscreen buttons and think its a great idea..... also the phone looks mint when the screen is off and its entirely black, no buttons no logos no nothing.