Nexus 4

So, thoughts on the Nexus 4? It may be the device to finally replace my Desire HD. It’s only missing three things from my current upgrade needs:

  • 4G Support: Mitigated by the phone being cheap enough that I can return to a one year upgrade cycle rather than two years. In that time I expect the UK 4G market to mature a bit.
  • Expandable storage: Cloud music is all well and good, but I spend most of my time listening to mobile music when commuting on the tube. I was really hoping for a 64 gig SD card to dedicate to music. OTOH, I can forgive this both for the same reason as above (will likely upgrade in one year) and my iPod touch is still going strong after ~3 years so will last a little longer.
  • More than 16GB internal storage: If we’re getting movies in the UK and / or I want to cache music locally then I did want a bit more than this. I like to have the option to carry as much as possible. It’s not the approach everyone takes, just mine.

Now, I was almost ready to let the last issue go as well and prepare to pre-order, but I can’t help but think about the Nexus 7 suddenly being released as a larger version barely 3 months after initial release. Fool me once …

Upgrade cycles are every 6 months or less. I see no problem with the Nexus 7 refresh.

Maybe, but when it’s just a capacity upgrade and to a level that it was reasonably surprising wasn’t included at the start (32gb isn’t exactly large) then you can see why that might make customers wary of grabbing the current top spec Nexus 4 straight away.

It is a reference device. It does not need lots of RAM…

I don’t think Google considers Nexus line refence devices any longer. They sell them on Google Play and not on the developers page.

Nexus 4 is an amazing device and it’s incredibly cheap. The lack of 4G and extendable memory is not a problem for me. You could consider buying LG Optimus G which is basically the same device with 4G and more memory. It should be in the same price range.