Google Announces New Nexus Smartphone and Tablets

TheBoat writes In with news that not even a hurricane can keep the Google product announcements away. "Surprise, surprise. It looks like Hurricane Sandy can't hold Google down, as the company has just gone ahead and unveiled the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet even though its press conference was canceled. Nexus 4 specs include a 4.7-inch True HD IPS Plus display with 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution, an 8-megapixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM and Android 4.2. The phone starts at a shockingly affordable $299 without any contract or subsidies, and it will launch in the United States on November 3rd. The Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet sports a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel display with a pixel density of 300 PPI, a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos chipset, 2GB of RAM, NFC and a 5-megapixel camera. Pricing starts at $399 with 16GB of storage and tops out at $499 for the 32GB model, and both will launch on November 3rd alongside the Nexus 4. Both devices will be available through the Google Play store."

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Anonymous Coward]

Pentile is a specific design type (ie IPS), retina is a marketing term for high resolution.

Re:No Strings Attached?

[ThatsMyNick]

Nope, it is optional. You cannot use the play store without associating the phone with the Google Account though. You could use Amazon App Store, which has most apps. You could side load apps (just copy them to the system apps folder), if you have the apk and you are rooted (I dont know of a reliable site, where you can get the apk file from though)

Re:No Strings Attached?

[Nerdfest]

I don't think you need to be rooted to install APK files ... just drop them on the phone and run them.

Re:No Strings Attached?

[Beavertank]

You'll need a google account if you want to use the Google Play Store (the app market from google) but you can install the Amazon Appstore (which uses an amazon account) instead if you prefer. Otherwise no, you don't have to have a google account to use the phone. Because it's a Nexus device you should be able to unlock the bootloader in a simple process (usually as simple as checking a box in settings and rebooting) then you can flash it with any custom ROM you want. So if you don't trust the default ROM not to phone home you can use a community created one instead (and also since it's a Nexus device a community for producing these custom ROMs should grow quite fast once it's in people's hands).

Still no microSD?

[Daetrin]

All the leaks seemed to indicate the Nexus 4 would have no microSD slot, and none of the news this morning seems to contradict that. I'd pick one up in an instant if not for that fault.

My ancient Nexus One has an 8 GB microSD card in it, and that filled up ages ago. So getting the 8 GB Nexus 4 would be a non-starter, and i don't expect it would take me long to fill up the 16 GB version either. I don't care what Google says, streaming everything off the cloud is not an option. I'm happy with T-Mobile for the price i'm paying, but they don't have the best coverage. (And from what i understand other carriers that have better coverage have stricter limits on data usage instead.)

Re:No Strings Attached?

[HTMLSpinnr]

There's a bit missing in those details. $299 buys the 8GB version, and $349 buys the 16GB version. There is no 32GB version, and a CDMA/LTE version was not announced - these are solely Pentaband HSPA+ devices for now. Or... you can ultimately pay more and go T-Mobile subsidized if you can't handle that much out of pocket at once with $199 out of pocket and $20/mo in subsidies for at least 20 months (Value plan, or $20 more/mo for the plan in general over Value for 2 years if Classic plan).

Re:Still no microSD?

[LodCrappo]

out of curiosity, what did you fill up 8gb with? I went for the 16gb version of the nexus 7 and after 2 months and literally hundreds of apps have only 2gb used, thinking I should have saved the $50 and got the 8gb version.

A better link.

[Tomun]

http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/nexus-best-of-google-now-in-three-sizes.html [blogspot.co.uk]

Hurricane Sandy can't hold Google down

[Anonymous Coward]

No one on the west coast gives a fuck about this non-story.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Quila]

And Apple "Retina" displays are also IPS. Pentile basically means you can forget the resolution number they give. It's probably not going to look as clear as an iPad even though the resolution specs are higher.

Nexus 10 needs better designers

[JDG1980]

They managed to cram some awesome hardware into the Nexus 10. 2560x1600 at a $399 price point is very, very good.

But the physical design of the tablet – there's no way to sugarcoat this – is butt-ugly. Why did they have to make the bezel so huge? And asymmetrical? (I suppose that latter factor may have been a precaution against being sued by Apple.) Even though the hardware inside is great, the exterior just looks cheap. It looks like what you'd find on a $99 Archos tablet. Samsung's other designs are much more elegant than this.

I'm not at all impressed by the lack of a SD card slot. I loathe the "cloud" (and since this is a Wi-Fi-only device, it's not a viable solution anyway), and I'm not going to spend an extra $100 for 16GB extra of flash memory that cost the vendor under $10. Admittedly, this doesn't make Google/Samsung any worse than Apple on this front, but I had hoped they might actually do better.

Also, is there a physical home button? I can't tell from the photos. A tablet needs at least that one physical button.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's retina displays are also a "lottery". They are not all from the same manufacturer. The lower quality ones have IR (image retention, kind of like short term (a few minutes) screen burn in). The samsung displays are superior to the lg ones, here is a 350+ page thread from fanboys as proof https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848?start=255&tstart=0

Re:No Strings Attached?

[brian.swetland]

This is correct. Just check the "unknown sources" option under settings and you can install apps from pretty much anywhere (web, email, etc) -- the system will show what permissions the app needs and obtain permission to install it (or not) from the user.

What PenTile means

[tepples]

The common RGBG version of PenTile [wikipedia.org] has green pixels on the pixel centers and red and blue between pairs of pixels. So you get only half the effective horizontal resolution for any border between black, red, blue, or magenta objects or between green, yellow, cyan, or white objects.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that they don't know how to do it; it's that they choose not to.

Jeff Atwood gives a good commentary on why they choose not to here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/06/font-rendering-respecting-the-pixel-grid.html

Re:me like!

[Enderandrew]

I don't think any of the major US wireless carriers offer discounted monthly rates for buying your phone outright. You might as well reap the price of discounted phones if your bill is the same rate.

In Europe, you have the option of a contract subsidizing your phone, or no contract and a cheaper rate, but buying an expensive phone outright upfront.

Reliable site for APKs

[tepples]

I dont know of a reliable site, where you can get the apk file from though

Ideally, the publisher of a Free, free, freemium, or ad-supported application would distribute an APK on the application's web site, usable by anybody who has turned on "Unknown sources". A reliable site will use HTTPS with a well-known CA or HTTPS + DANE (public key fingerprints in DNSSEC).

Re:me like!

[amRadioHed]

T-Mobile does, unless that changed recently. I still have the cheaper non-subsidised plan.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Quila]

I thought all current Apple Retina displays used IPS. The iPad does, the iPhone does, the iPod Touch does, and I'm pretty sure the MacBooks do.

Re:No Strings Attached?

[guises]

With my Nexus 7 there was no option to boot the first time without first setting up a Google account. I don't think this is such a big deal, I set up a separate throwaway account with each of my devices, but that annoyed me.

I'm also a little annoyed that I got my Nexus 7 just a month ago... Would certainly have waited for one of these here Nexus 4's.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize they're cheaper to produce... but that's probably because the result is cheaper looking. Just do it the standard way and save us from the misery of the pentile display.

None of the Nexus devices have a Pentile display - the Nexus 4, 7, and 10 all have regular RGB subpixels.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[kllrnohj]

The tablet is a Pentile display.

Nope, RGB subpixels - standard LCD layout. It is *NOT* pentile. Hence the "RGB Real Stripe", which is Samsung marketing for "we didn't fuck with it"

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[Solandri]

Whether or not pentile sucks depends on the PPI. If the PPI is too low, then you can see the individual sub-pixels and pentile (RGBG) sucks relative to RGB. But if the PPI is high enough, then you cannot see the individual sub-pixels and RGBG is indistinguishable from RGB while using fewer sub-pixels. The reason is a quirk in the human visual system - our eyes' resolution in green is much better than in red and especially blue [nfggames.com].

Pretty much every recorded image we see takes advantage of this. Nearly all digital cameras use a Bayer filter (RGBG overlay), so the images they capture have half the red and blue resolution as they do green. Unless you flip certain JPEG options, a JPEG image you create from a pure RGB scan will do the same thing - reduce the red and blue information that's stored relative to green. Same for MPEG and NTSC. Basically, nearly all the recorded images you've ever encountered in your life were brought to you in RGBG. That you never noticed is proof that it's indistinguishable.

It's only displays which were typically RGB, but that was because there were no "pixels" on CRTs, and LCDs typically had low PPI. Once the display's PPI becomes high enough, RGB becomes a waste. When the G sub-pixels in an RGB array are dense enough to surpass the the threshold of visual acuity, the R and B sub-pixels are far too dense and way past that point. That is, you have way more R and B sub-pixels than are actually needed. If you're at this point, then an RGBG display like pentile with the same pixel density (but lower sub-pixel density) will create an image that's indistinguishable from RGB but using fewer sub-pixels.

Re:No Strings Attached?

[guises]

Yes, that's what I got. If you click "no", it prompts you to create an account. There's no way to continue without either signing in with an existing account or creating a new one. That's a particular problem if you don't have a Wifi network to connect through - you pretty well can't use your device at all without connecting to Google at least once.

(That isn't completely true - you can root your tablet and install a third party ROM without connecting to Google, but that's kinda outside the spirit of the question.)

Re:Booyah!!

[asdf7890]

There is a rather useful search engine run by a company you may heard off, that helpfully directed me to the official specs when I made an appropriate enquiry: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_4_8gb [google.com]

The dimensions are listed there, to the precision of 0.1mm (no word on the accuracy though).

Re:No Strings Attached?

[AmiMoJo]

You can of course just make a Google account for that device, using a disposable email address to sign up and never entering any personal info. You don't need credit card details or anything like that.

Re:Ugh, Pentile displays

[rsborg]

Apple's retina displays are also a "lottery". They are not all from the same manufacturer.

Just to be clear, the "retina" issues identified above are all related to the Mac Book Pro (retina) not the iPad.