For months I’ve been eagerly awaiting the rumored Nexus 5 phone to decide whether or not I’ll be making the final jump to Android (I currently own a Nexus 7 tablet but still have an iPhone 4S). There have been many rumors over the last several months so I thought I’d create an article to summarize the majority of what’s being theorized. Keep in mind that Google has yet to even confirm that the device is being worked on so everything below is 100% complete speculation.
LAUNCH DATE OF OCTOBER 30th
The latest rumor about the Nexus 5 came just yesterday when AndroidSAS reported that the 30th of October has become the selected launch date for the device. It’s expected that Google will also launch an updated Nexus 10.
Apparently an early version of the rumored Nexus 5 – unbranded.
ANDROID 4.4 KITKAT
Google has been known for launching devices with the latest and greatest version of Android. With Android 4.4. KitKat being announced recently it seems highly like that the Nexus 5 will be the debut device for the OS. Although 4.4 has been kept under wraps, 9to5 posted apparent leaked photos showing redesigned phone and messaging apps.
SPECIFICATIONS
On September 28 2013 MYCE reported that they discovered a long file of Android Key Lime Pie (to be officially called KitKat) running on the alleged Nexus 5. The log was supposed 10MB containing more than 133,000 lines.
The log apparently showed some of the specifications of the device including a 5-inch (4.97inch) display (full HD resolution – 442ppi), a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. The phone this log was pulled from has an 8-megapixel rear facing camera and a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera. Also present was Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, GPS and of course the long-rumored LTE for North American bands.
A recent promotional video for Android 4.4 KitKat showed someone with an unknown Nexus device.
THE FEEL
A user named Weespeed on the MacRumours forum recently posted the image below and some early impressions of the device. Weespeed claimed that the rear cover has a similar feel to the new Nexus 7 tablet and does feel smaller than LG’s G2 smartphone. The user claimed that the display was just ‘Ok’ and didn’t impress them as much as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 ‘phablet’.
THE NAME
While rumors so far (ironically including this very post) have referred to the device as the Nexus 5, the official release name has been wildly debated. While clearly it appears Google is trying to increase the screen size on their new phone toward the 5 inch mark, as mentioned the latest spec rumors indicate that the display is actually 4.97 inches. Google did keep the Nexus 7 name when they updated their 7 inch tablet so the possibility remains Google could keep the name as Nexus 4.
PRICE POINT TO REMAIN SIMILAR
One of the Nexus 4’s biggest appeals was that for a relatively low price point users could purchase an unlocked contract-free Android smartphone. The rumor is that Google wants to continue to drive sales so they are hoping to keep the price low. With several new speculated features its expected that there will be an increase to the Nexus 4’s base $299 US price tag.
As mentioned everything seen here is all speculation at this point, but we want to know – are you interested in the Nexus 5?
