Nexus 5 review

The Nexus 5 smartphone has landed - packing Android KitKat 4.4, high-end components including a full HD display and a tantalising 299 SIM-free starting price.

LG continues with the manufacturing duties, and the firm has made several changes to the internals and the design of the handset.

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14/03/2016: Google has developed an offline speech recognition system that is claimed to be faster and more accurate that ones that connect to the internet. The new technology has been tested on a Nexus 5.

According to 9to5Google, tests showed the speech recognition software to be seven times faster than software connected to the internet and only had a 13.5 per cent error rate. It was deployed and tested on a two-year-old Nexus 5 with a quad-core 2.26GHz processor and 2GB RAM.

It managed to achieve all this in an app 20.3MB in size. Google went into more detail about the technology in a research paper.

Goodbye Glass

The fifth generation smartphone has a 4.95in full HD display made from Gorilla Glass 3. This is bigger than the 4.7in 720p screen on its predecessor. However, the Nexus 5 manages to be 9g lighter, than its predecessor with a weight of 130g.

The biggest difference to the design is the removal of the glass back. LG has switched to a toughened polycarbonate shell. This change in material is welcome as the speckled glass-backed on the Nexus 4 was difficult to grip and prone to scratching/cracking.

Nexus 4 (with glass) on the left and Nexus 5 (with polycarbonate) on the right

Google has no doubt pushed for a consistent design across its Nexus range. The Nexus 5 has identical branding to the Nexus 7 2013 tablet, despite being manufactured by LG and Asus, respectively.

The rear camera on the Nexus protrudes from back of the device so this means it cannot rest flat on a surface. This is a minor annoyance, but not quite as pronounced as the bulge on the Nokia Lumia 1020.

The loudspeaker has been moved to the bottom, which makes a huge difference. On the Nexus 4, the speaker was on the rear and sound alerts were directed into a table or straight into your leg (when in your pocket), making them hard to hear.

The ear speaker now has a circular design, and is pronounced on the white model. You might find the white, rounded speaker on a black bezel resembles a pulsating white notification light when glancing at the device and might fool you into thinking you have a message.

It's early days but we are concerned that the white model may be prone to staining. It is worth noting that the colour choice affects the rear of the device. If you opt for a white model the front bezel will still be black, creating a two-tone design, again reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia series. The Nexus 5 is also available in black.

The one thing we miss is the rubberised sides as the handset does feel slippery without them. But overall, the Nexus 5 looks like a premium device and has a solid construction.

Have a break, have a KitKat (4.4)

The Nexus 5 is the first smartphone to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat. This OS brings a wealth of enhancements and is optimised to work best on this handset.

You get the feeling Android programmers had the beautiful Nexus 5 screen in mind when designing KitKat. Visual flourishes like the transparent on-screen menu buttons and full screen album art on the lockscreen take full advantage of the 4.95in. Some of the most useful business features include:

• Enhanced Caller ID - when you receive a call from a number you don't have saved as a contact, Google will attempt to identify the caller based on local listings sourced from Google Maps. It hasn't helped us to identify half a dozen nuisance calls we've received though.
• OK Google' - Exclusive to English users for now, the Nexus 5 is always listening for the voice command 'OK Google' when on the home screen or within Google Now. This allows you to carry out hands-free searching or tell the device to play music. Speech recognition still requires work, and it's not practical for use in public environments.
• Revamped email - the default e-mail app has finally been updated and now resembles the Gmail app. It features the slide-out UI and gestures for archiving and deleting e-mails. But it's missing the 'fit to screen' mode which was added to the Gmail app a year ago so there's work to be done.