10 years later, the Nexus 4 still feels ahead of its time - XDA Developers

The LG Nexus 4 was the 4th introduction successful the Nexus series aft the Galaxy Nexus. It came astatine a clip erstwhile smartphone maturation was blowing up globally, and 4G LTE was opening to rotation retired successful galore nations worldwide. Every caller Android procreation brought faster processors, much RAM, much storage, and higher-resolution cameras with an intensive churn passim generations. But determination was much to the LG Nexus 4 than it conscionable being a slick, glittery powerhouse successful the aboriginal 2010s.

Why Nexus, and wherefore LG?

Google's Nexus programme started retired arsenic a mode to showcase each year's Android bundle mentation with a co-branded telephone created with 1 of its shaper partners. Nexus ran banal Android and got bundle updates first, making it the telephone of prime for Android nerds and bundle purists. But successful 2012, Google flipped the publication with Nexus tablets successful 2 sizes and a unsocial but yet abandoned streaming device, the Nexus Q.

Aside from that small alteration of pace, the Nexus marque was becoming much of a accepted tech marque alternatively of a yearly telephone merchandise for enthusiasts and app developers. That process began successful earnest with the Nexus 7 tablet successful 2012. For the time, it was reasonably powerful, boasting a 7-inch screen, an Nvidia Tegra processor geared towards graphics, and, astir importantly, an enticing terms tag starting astatine conscionable $199.

This inclination of making affordable devices continued with the Nexus 4 successful 2012, made successful concern with LG. The Nexus 4 sold for conscionable $299 successful the U.S. and £239 successful the U.K. That's little than fractional the terms of its predecessor, 2011's Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Even amended is that it featured, for the time, immoderate top-tier specifications. The lone notable absences were 4G LTE — which was inactive beauteous niche successful astir of the satellite — and the reasonably tiny 8GB of retention successful the basal model, though determination was besides a 16GB mentation with a somewhat higher terms tag.

If this strategy sounds familiar, Google did the aboriginal OnePlus strategy earlier OnePlus adjacent existed: apical specs, inexpensive price, and nonstop sales. The Nexus 4 was sold straight via Google's online store, with nary bearer involvement. Even simpler was that determination was conscionable 1 mentation of this telephone sold globally — with the exemplary fig LG-E960. This was bully for 3G connectivity connected immoderate HSPA web acknowledgment to its traveler-friendly penta-band radios. For a while, it had a hidden diagnostic that could unlock adjacent faster information speeds, too.

The Nexus 4 was a interruption from what Google had attempted with the erstwhile Galaxy Nexus, which was sold arsenic a 4G LTE exclusive connected Verizon successful the U.S. The Galaxy Nexus, oregon "GNex," arsenic it was affectionately known, was critically praised and a genuinely large telephone for the time, but it had been a income flop. Even Samsung itself described income arsenic "minuscule" successful tribunal statements during its ineligible combat with Apple, seemingly contributing conscionable $250 cardinal successful revenue. As a result, it was clip for a alteration of strategy.

Why did LG privation to enactment with Google?

As for why LG, oregon immoderate of the different large Android brands, wanted to marque a Nexus erstwhile you'd merchantability possibly a cardinal units if you were lucky, has a analyzable answer. There's a spot of "nerd credibility" of sorts, on with marque value, that came with making a Nexus, but chiefly it was astir boosting the company's narration with Google, which would hopefully pb to amended products. Back then, if you were a Nexus partner, you got to spot the caller mentation of Android arsenic Google was gathering it. That gave your engineers a headstart and perchance sped up bundle updates for your company's different phones.

The concern is present wholly antithetic if companies privation to physique a narration with Google successful 2022. There's evidently nary much Nexus brand, and each large telephone shaper gets privileged aboriginal entree to Android codification arsenic Google's gathering it — adjacent earlier the developer previews and nationalist betas. A decennary ago, determination were existent incentives, some nonstop and indirect, to making 1 of these Nexus devices.

From a root that XDA TV big Alex Dobie precocious spoke with, it besides seems similar LG was the lone shaper capable to nutrient the Nexus 4 astatine the terms Google wanted. Google decided beauteous aboriginal connected that it wanted to terms the telephone precise aggressively, which intelligibly influenced its choices. Interestingly, that's the aforesaid crushed Google chose LG to marque the Pixel 2 XL galore years later, arsenic opposed to the primitively planned HTC mentation of that phone.

LG was nary alien to smartphones, but its aboriginal Android efforts hadn't had anyplace adjacent the occurrence of section rival Samsung's Galaxy S line. So, the concern with Google could've besides been seen arsenic a mode to rise its illustration successful the smartphone world. Nexus 4 coincided with — and was loosely based connected — the LG Optimus G, which was the telephone that kicked disconnected the LG G-series that stuck astir astir until the extremity of LG's smartphone-making days.

The Nexus had wireless charging retired of the box, which was beauteous caller for 2012.

The Optimus G shared galore of the aforesaid interior specs and 1 of the Nexus 4's cardinal plan elements: the crystal reflective signifier connected its solid back. Pretty overmuch each telephone has a solid backmost today, but backmost then, it was inactive beauteous antithetic to instrumentality solid connected the backmost of an Android phone. The crystal reflective signifier took vantage of the material's slick quality to populate the backmost sheet with a shimmering prima tract of tiny notches. Stick a macro lens successful beforehand of this, and you tin spot the tiny lines connected the underside of the solid that gave it this unsocial look.

The different happening astir glass, dissimilar metal, is it lets you bash wireless charging. This was thing other that was beauteous caller for 2012. Some of Samsung's phones, similar the Galaxy S3 and S4, could complaint implicit the Qi modular but lone with the summation of ugly, bulky aftermarket artillery doors. The Nexus had it retired of the box.

Rubber does not property well

Honestly, the physique prime of this telephone inactive holds up adjacent successful 2022. Sure, you person to woody with 2012-era apical and bottommost bezels, but the reflective trim looks sharp, and it's hard not to admit the tiny touches similar the curved edges of the glass.

What decidedly doesn't clasp up is the rubberized grip astir the sides. Here's the happening astir phones with rubbery bits aft a decade: They commencement to decompose. Yeah, older Nexus 4 devices are somewhat rotting owed to a process called rubber reversion, wherever the worldly reverts to its natural, much viscous form. It's non-reversible, too. You tin scrape disconnected the sticky layers of rubber, but eventually, the full happening volition revert. As you tin imagine, this gets beauteous gross — a texture and consistency determination betwixt blu-tac and chewing gum. Even worse, it's a nightmare for picking up dust, hair, and different particles.

With capable time, this volition hap to immoderate rubber gadget. Somehow though, successful the lawsuit of the Nexus 4, there's a solution. There are marque caller achromatic Nexus 4 backs inactive occasionally disposable connected eBay, and Dobie picked 1 up. The quality with the achromatic 1 is the broadside walls are made of plain aged matte polycarbonate — oregon integrative — truthful there's nary rubber reversion to interest about.

The Nexus 4 is besides shockingly casual to repair. Basically, the lone things holding the backmost connected are 2 Torx T5 screws and immoderate integrative clips, which you tin jimmy unfastened beauteous easily. So the process to swap the backmost connected an old, gross, and decomposing achromatic Nexus 4 is rather simple.

The achromatic Nexus 4 launched overmuch aboriginal into the phone's lifespan, truthful they were uncommon backmost successful the time and adjacent much truthful now. There are besides 2 tiny but important additions betwixt the archetypal November 2012 backmost sheet and much caller achromatic versions. Tiny nubs were added to aboriginal Nexus 4 smartphones to code a communal problem. Because the backmost of this instrumentality was solid and determination was nary camera bump, putting it connected a level aboveground meant determination was small to nary friction to clasp it successful place. As a result, galore aboriginal Nexus 4 owners complained of phones dilatory sliding disconnected tables and countertops. And, due to the fact that this telephone was clad successful solid connected some sides, specified a autumn was astir definite to beryllium fatal if the Nexus landed connected a hard surface.

The Nexus besides boasted a precise generous 2GB of RAM and, much importantly, the latest Snapdragon S4 Pro — the archetypal quad-core spot from Qualcomm. All of this made the Nexus 4 the fastest Android telephone you could bargain successful precocious 2012. It perfectly flew connected Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. This made it a uniquely almighty telephone considering its terms and brings america backmost to the aforementioned forward-thinking strategy.

There were a fewer hardware compromises, though. Battery beingness was middling astatine best, and the show had a precise mean 720p LCD panel, which was beauteous dim astir of the clip and lacked the punch of Samsung's OLED. The colors connected the Nexus 4's show weren't anyplace adjacent arsenic vibrant arsenic the Galaxy Nexus's HD SuperAMOLED.

Cameras and the debut of Photosphere

We've travel rather acold successful conscionable a decade. In 2012, Android phones didn't person the larger sensors, the computational photography tricks, oregon the optical stabilization that today's flagships trust on. However, adjacent by the standards of the time, the 8MP shooter of the Nexus 4 produced dull-looking shots with mediocre dynamic range, truthful it was advisable to hop into the caller HDR mode if you wanted much usable snaps.

One caller summation that did crook a fewer heads (and was genuinely awesome for the time) was Photosphere. New and exclusive to the Nexus 4 (though shipped connected each Google telephone since), this bundle fto you make your ain 360-degree photograph by scanning the satellite astir you 1 tile astatine a time. Then, akin to panorama mode, it would stitch the images unneurotic into a sphere of photos. This decidedly works champion with distant terrains compared to scenes with a batch of worldly successful the foreground.

However, Android fans would person to hold different procreation for the Nexus 5 to bring the archetypal iteration of HDR+ — the exertion that birthed the Google Pixel camera revolution. Aside from Photo Sphere, imaging connected the Nexus 4 seemed similar a spot of an afterthought.

Jelly Bean, KitKat, and Lollipop

Android 4.2, which the Nexus shipped with, wasn't a immense update. Earlier successful 2012, Google had launched Android 4.1 (called Jelly Bean), which was really a large woody since it brought large show improvements. Google went to warfare connected the lag and frame-dropping that plagued galore Android phones. 4.2 further tightened things up and added a mates of caller features.

The astir absorbing diagnostic added was 1 that was unceremoniously dumped a fewer years later: Lock surface widgets.

We're conscionable present getting this connected iOS with Apple's always-on show connected the iPhone 14 Pro, but Android was doing it a decennary ago, albeit successful a somewhat antithetic way. Lock surface widgets connected the Nexus 4 gave you a clump of other widget panels connected your fastener screen. You could adhd regular Android widgets here, and they'd grow to capable the full-screen country oregon declaration up to the apical if they were connected your superior fastener screen. The implementation wasn't cleanable due to the fact that not each widget was designed to acceptable specified a ample space. There were immoderate large examples similar DashClock, which populated this abstraction with utile info similar emails, artillery levels, and upwind successful a mode that's shockingly rather akin to however you whitethorn person your iPhone 14 Pro configured a decennary later.

The astir absorbing diagnostic added was 1 that was unceremoniously dumped a fewer years aft Jelly Bean: Lock surface widgets.

There was a catch, though. If you utilized a signifier oregon PIN connected your phone, fastener surface widgets wouldn't enactment — for beauteous evident reasons. Since we were inactive years distant from biometric information connected Android, this was a hard prime betwixt information and convenience. It's apt that this had thing to bash however the diagnostic didn't past long.

The Nexus 4's lifespan straddled the large alteration from the Android 4 to Android 5 plan connection — from Holo to Material Design. When Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, launched successful 2011, it introduced the sci-fi-looking Holo aesthetic with salient bluish accents throughout. This was dialed backmost successful the much neutral-looking Android 4.4 KitKat earlier being wholly overhauled with 5.0 Lollipop.

The origins of the existent Google and Android plan connection tin beryllium traced backmost to Material Design 1.0 successful 2013. It was built astir the conception of integer paper, a magical integer canvas that could grow arsenic needed, with extent and shadows and a punchy, much vibrant colour palette. The Nexus 4 was 1 of the fewer phones of this epoch to beryllium updated with the afloat Material Design look and feel.

Back then, though, phones were fortunate to get 1 twelvemonth of level updates, fto unsocial the luxury of 2 that Nexus phones delivered. And so, the Nexus 4 received its past update successful the signifier of Android 5.1.1 successful April 2015.

Secret 4G functionality

On paper, the Nexus 4 was a 3G-only device, and you'd expect arsenic overmuch successful 2012, particularly for the price. But it turned retired that, with immoderate hacking, you could pat into hidden 4G LTE capabilities.

This was archetypal discovered backmost successful November 2012 by immoderate users connected the XDA forums, and it turned it was reasonably elemental to enable. Enter Android's hidden "INFO" paper by entering a codification successful the dialer, prime LTE lone arsenic your vigor option, and past alteration your APN — basically, the configuration info that your telephone sends to your carrier.

A deep-dive by the legendary Anandtech later showed the telephone supported 4G connected astatine slightest 3 vigor bands, with capable tinkering, pointing to imaginable AT&T LTE enactment successful the U.S.

This (apparently unintended) diagnostic was rapidly pulled from the Nexus' firmware by Google, not slightest due to the fact that the telephone wasn't certified to usage LTE successful immoderate country, meaning it was technically amerciable to use. There was a batch of back-and-forth astatine the clip implicit the imaginable crushed for this vestigial 4G capableness being near down successful the Nexus 4. The Snapdragon S4 Pro spot supported LTE, and LG's ain Optimus G was a full-blown 4G phone. So, it's imaginable it was easier for Google and LG to conscionable see each the indispensable hardware and permission it disabled successful the software.

Whatever the case, the information that the hardware technically supported it allowed brave Nexus 4 owners to proceed adding 4G backmost into the telephone via customized vigor firmware each the mode done until Android Lollipop.

Pretty overmuch everyone loved the Nexus 4

The Nexus 4 was critically praised for its precocious performance, debased price, and cleanable banal Android OS. However, the camera was an afterthought, and the deficiency of official 4G LTE was a turn-off for galore successful the U.S., wherever LTE had been a happening for astir 2 years already. Nevertheless, request for the Nexus 4 was huge. Google's online store crumbled nether the launch-day demand, and proviso issues made the telephone hard to travel by until the aboriginal portion of 2013. The reason, according to interviews with LG execs astatine the time, was that Google had acceptable Nexus 4 accumulation levels to lucifer the income of the erstwhile Nexus — the poorly-selling Galaxy Nexus. Demand for the Nexus 4 was astir 10 times higher.

All of this led to LG scrambling to ramp up accumulation portion section executives simultaneously apologized to customers and pointed the digit astatine Google.

The Nexus 4 isn't dormant yet, and it tin tally Android 11

Since this telephone is simply a Nexus, unlocking the bootloader was easy, and determination was nary shortage of customized ROMs to instrumentality the telephone acold beyond its authoritative resting spot with Android 5.1.1.

Like galore older Android phones, however, determination were a fewer other hoops to leap through. First, you needed to repartition the telephone to marque country for newer, larger versions of Android, which mostly progressive redistributing your interior retention truthful that the country reserved for the OS is larger.

Fortunately, radical implicit connected the XDA forums person made this process beauteous easy. It's fundamentally the aforesaid arsenic flashing customized firmware. After repartitioning, the Nexus 4 is acceptable to occurrence up Android 11 done LineageOS 18.1.

Demand for the Nexus 4 was huge, with Google's online store crumbling nether the launch-day demand.

Surprisingly, this two-year-old OS works amazingly good connected this 10-year-old phone. It's arguably a spot little creaseless than, say, KitKat oregon Lollipop, but what you suffer successful performance, you summation in-app compatibility. It's decidedly much usable than galore different phones of this epoch connected modern versions of Android.

Where the Nexus 4 hits a roadblock is with its constricted interior storage, particularly the 8GB version. Repartitioning gives you much abstraction for the OS but takes distant from the retention disposable for apps and different data. As such, installing Google apps is simply a no-go, which earnestly hampers what you tin bash with the phone. Still, arsenic a tech demo, it's awesome to person a comparatively up-to-date mentation of Android moving connected hardware from a decennary ago. The Nexus 4 would inactive enactment perfectly good for things similar precise basal gaming, web browsing, oregon euphony playback.

The Nexus 4 has held up truly well

Of each the phones of 2012, the Nexus 4 has astir apt held up the best, acknowledgment to the efforts of the customized ROM community. Other than the rubber reversion, the hardware inactive looks and feels decent today, particularly considering however inexpensive it was astatine launch. The Nexus 4 besides kickstarted an thought of powerful, affordable Nexus smartphones that yet would instrumentality astir for different procreation oregon so. The Nexus 5 successful 2013 brought a bigger and amended screen, higher-end specs, and a amended camera for $50 more. Google soon returned to much accepted flagship pricing with the Nexus 6 and 6P.

The smartphones successful the 2020s are overmuch much complex, with things similar 5G, 120Hz screens, and aggregate cameras pushing up the measure of materials. But the Nexus 4 is the benignant of telephone that could lone truly beryllium successful the mid-2010s — the glory days erstwhile you truly could get the precise champion Android specs for nether $300. In galore ways, it defined that epoch of smartphones and signaled what was to come.