iPhone vs Nexus, who wins?
Many people are considering passing from iOS to Android and viceversa and the question is: is it better an iPhone or a Nexus?
Below, a complete and detailed review that could clear out your doubts.
Enjoy!
Thanks Luca for the cool review! 🙂
Having started out my touchpad experience with an iPhone 3, I was always one of those guys who viewed other smartphones with the wrong assumption they would offer less of a user experience, no matter how many reviewers and specialized mags positively reviewed the item, or the popularity certain products became in the hands of non biased end users who really enjoyed their device, without nurturing my very own obsessions about how just iphones ruled the world in respect of the competition.
With the recession looming and need to save some money becoming more and more pressing every day, I found my conscience kicking when on the italian Apple store, the iphone 5s 64gb with which I wanted to replace my good old running but too small screened 4s was priced at around 950 euros (almost as much as a macbook air) I just yelled a big WTF!
So being used in having (or thinking of having) the best of the best with Apple, and its products, I wanted a cellphone which could offer just the same end-user experience as my predecessor, something I could use for work and for leisure.
So googling around phrases like “best smartphone 2013” or Best smartphone under 600, (then updating the numbers with, 500, 400 and ultimately 300) I came just right about the perfect timing at the perfect place, google play store was finally shipping Nexus 5 smarphones also in Italy! and with a starting price of 350 euros!, I really couldn’t say no, considering the fact I used more and more ofter my gmail than my @icloud.com email, considering I used gdrive, and google Reader, (now using feedly) and so forth….
I ended up ordering the 16gb device, I installed google play music transfer directly onto my mac, shifted my 6000+ songs from itunes, synchronized emails, accounts, calendars, with the usual social media and got going….and the experience was great! Mainly for the following reasons:
1. it gives you a more all round experience then with your iphone, the google service package is just more complete, you get more free things for the same amount of space storage, you can look an app you like from any computer and have it download on your phone instead of having itunes or the phone in your hand and doing it from only those 2 channels. (although sometimes your nexus tells you “couldn’t download, please retry”)
2. It cross references telephone numbers from the indexed addresses and names via the search engine, so you always know who is calling you, and this is really a treat, since you are never left wondering, or not picking up the phone and thinking if you should call them back or not. Or in case they are just scam or ads.
3. Photo synchronization instead of being done via the terrible iphoto (somebody please make the program lighter, more immediate to respond, because it’s becoming a mammoth) it’s done via google plus, and again, I just need to type in my google account to be able to see them, free of charge, without the need of buying extra gigs of space as I did in iCloud.
Now onto what I didn’t like:
1. I still prefer the built quality of metal in respect of plastic, it just feels more sturdy, the bottons even if they are in ceramic on the nexus 5, just feel flimsy in respect to the ones on the iphone,
2. The camera is quicker, although the sensor on my iphone4s doesn’t have an aperture equal to the one of the nexus 5, photos are easier to take, you don’t need a perfectly steady hand, movement photos are precise and not blurry, focus is much faster on an iphone, even after the nexus 4.4.2 Kitkat upgrade.
3. Battery could use some improvement, I had to buy an emergency charger, and I suggest you buying one with more than 2000 mA but this is because with the bigger screen and all the packed services you end up looking at your phone more, and therefore using it more.
4. Although the android experience is more complex and more computer like feeling, I kinda liked the fact that I enjoyed my iphone because it was a phone, not a computer that also phoned, it gave me a sense of security and stability the android experience does not give me, with more errors in their apps, the numerous versions of a same app depending on which store you buy if from (i tried aptoide.com, btw, is it legal?) I liked having only one app store and downloading apps only from a reliable and fixed source.
So an iPhone or a Nexus? The end story, if I had 900 euros to spend on a phone, I would still stick to the iPhone, but with the lessons I learned from the Nexus experience and that is, to crunch up all the services Google has to offer and mainly use those, which are complete and all round, quicker more immediate, less prone to synchronization errors and less dependent from programs like iTunes (which I’ve grown to hate, but not as much as iphoto now that I think about it).
One last thing I’m planning on doing on my iPhone to enhance the experience using it, is to jailbreak it for the first time in the 6 years I’ve been on an iOS device, to see if it can “match up” to the android experience, and see how it works.
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