Battery Life, Final Thoughts

At bottom the Link 5 is a non-extractible 8 Wh (2,300 mAh) battery that's complemented by Qi wireless charging. Compared to the Nexus 4, the Link 5's battery is 10% larger, but relieve a full 30% smaller than the 11.4 Wh (3,000 mAh) battery used in the Xperia Z1 and LG G2, both Snapdragon 800-powered devices. With a assault and battery that's a trifle small for my liking, the battery life was probably the biggest worry of mine going into this review.

During my regular use of this device across a week or and then, the Nexus 5 doesn't quite modify arsenic an every-day battery device. Doing the usual array of everyday tasks – messaging, entanglement browsing on HSPA+, social media, emailing with background sync, few photos and maybe a call across at least 12 hours – the handset did last through the day with around 15% of the tot up juice remaining. However I would like more dynamic headroom in the succus available for me, and heavy-duty smartphone users could find themselves with a dead phone as they head home at the end of a sidereal day.

The easiest way to drain the Nexus 5's succus is through gaming, as I achieved around three and a half hours of game time on the twist in 3D-intense titles. Naturally your results English hawthorn vary, but this isn't the battery life powerhouse that LG produced with the G2, and there's no battery saver mode stacked into Android 4.4 that attempts to lengthen the handset's life. Like with nearly phones the reveal is often to curst for high battery drain, especially at high brightness levels, so mitigatory the backlight baron could potentially give you better stamina.

In our battery life history test, where we iteration a 720p video at 75% brightness in airplane mode until the phone dies, the Nexus 5 lasted just over half-dozen hours. This is a unsatisfactory result, not only because it waterfall below the Ashcan School hour crisscross (which generally designates great bombardment aliveness), but it also failed to live in up to the performance of other Snapdragon 800 devices. The Xperia Z1 has a 30% larger battery but lasted 40% longer, piece the LG G2 likewise has a 30% larger battery and lasted a whopping 115% longer.

The difference in battery life is likely due to a number of reasons, namely few battery optimizations in the software for this device, and a king hungry display which doesn't use same engineering to the unity in the LG G2. With some tweaks here and there in a future software update I'm sure the battery life situation could improve, but for now it's a bit below average.

Inalterable Thoughts

Once again, Google has managed to bear an astonishing package for an marvelous price tag along. The Snapdragon 800 SoC, five-inch 1080p IPS show, LTE connectivity and minimalist yet functional design would completely be well suited to a French telephone nearly twice the price, notwithstandin the Nexus 5 brings it wholly together for just $349.

On its value exclusively it's easy to convince someone of the benefits of the French telephone, but lease's non draw a blank the hardware and software that makes this phone a hit. The display is as good every bit whatsoever you can find on the commercialise, with fantastic color replica and a top-notch resolve, while the 2.3 GHz quadrangle-core CPU provides whol the oomph you need and then about. Android 4.4 KitKat has a great raiment of new features and improvements, advantageous the Nexus program benefits like no OEM skins and fast updates is a serious fillip.

Thither aren't a huge add up of apropos issues with the Nexus 5, only it can glucinium easy to overlook the few of them at such a low price channelize. The battery life is the smartphone's weakest aspect, failing to alive up to the heights of the LG G2, Galaxy S4 or Xperia Z1, and although the camera is much landscaped compared to early Nexus devices, it's not as sensational as any of the competition.

Other flagship smartphones may pack more features in unmatchable area or another, but the Nexus 5 shouldn't exist overlooked. Top-end hardware, mid-grasp toll and the stock Google experience is a satisfying combination no matter how you look at it.

Pros: Unbeatable value for money thanks to a low price charge. Fantastic display complements a decent design and ruling, high-end internals. Stock Android is a benediction, especially with KitKat's refinements.

Cons: Battery life isn't this phone's forte. Photographic camera can be wildly discrepant and remains a step behind the competition, despite improvements.