LG Nexus 5 Revisited: KitKat, Hardware, and Pure Android Value

Nexus in Context: Spec Wars, Cloud Ambitions, and Price Pressure

Google’s Nexus line has always been less about winning spec sheets and more about pushing Android and Google services, even if that meant subsidizing hardware. When the LG Nexus 5 landed, it arrived into a market already crowded with Snapdragon 800 phones, Nokia flagships on the same chip, and Apple touting its new 64‑bit A7.

Instead of trying to out-flex every rival, Google aimed to match flagship-class performance, premiere Android 4.4 KitKat, and sell it for roughly half what some competitors were asking. As with the Nexus 4, this was less a conventional product play and more a way to grow Google’s ecosystem: pure Android, fast OS updates, and a price designed to pull people into the cloud.

Design, Hardware, and Display

The Nexus 5 is built by LG and, under the skin, it closely mirrors LG’s own G2, just as the Nexus 4 mirrored the Optimus G. You get a Snapdragon 800 chipset with a 2.27GHz quad‑core Krait 400 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. On paper, that puts it squarely in 2013 flagship territory.

Physically, this is one of the more understated flagship designs of its era. The phone measures 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm and weighs 130g, basically matching the Samsung Galaxy S4’s footprint and weight while staying slightly thinner and lighter than the G2. The body is soft‑touch plastic with a matte finish similar to the 2013 Nexus 7, offering good grip and strong resistance to fingerprints.

Build quality is solid despite the absence of metal. The plastic shell doesn’t creak, and Gorilla Glass 3 protects the 5‑inch front. The back panel looks like a removable cover but isn’t; the 2,300mAh Li‑Ion battery is sealed. In testing, the phone managed an endurance rating of 40 hours, with Google rating it for up to 17 hours of 3G talk time. That’s notably below the G2’s 3,000mAh capacity, and the battery choice is one of the trade‑offs made to hit the size and weight targets.

The 5‑inch True HD IPS display runs at 1080p, giving a sharp 445ppi pixel density. Color balance is relatively natural with better accuracy than the G2, but contrast and saturation are lower, so you lose some of the punchier look seen on competing flagships. Brightness is high, reflectivity is low, and off‑axis contrast loss is minor. For users who prefer a more realistic image over oversaturated panels, this screen lands in a comfortable middle ground.

KitKat UI, Google Now, and Everyday Software

The Nexus 5 is the launch vehicle for Android 4.4 KitKat. Like the Jelly Bean updates before it, KitKat doesn’t radically change Android; it focuses on polishing the interface, smoothing performance, and tying the OS deeper into Google services.

The lockscreen keeps the dotted circle unlock icon and supports full‑screen, resizable widgets for things like Messages, Calendar, Gmail, Google Now, and more. Camera access is still a left swipe from the lockscreen. Once you’re in, the homescreen gets larger icons, a refreshed wallpaper, and a new core layout: the leftmost pane is now permanently reserved for Google Now unless you disable it.

Navigation sticks to the on‑screen trio of Back, Home, and Recent Apps. The dock is customizable with folders and shortcuts flanking the app drawer. Widgets have been pulled out of the app drawer; you now long‑press on an empty area of the homescreen to access widgets, wallpapers, and Google Now settings.

Quick toggles and notifications live in a familiar two‑layer shade, with a two‑finger swipe exposing controls for brightness, radios, location, and battery. Notifications are expandable with a swipe, and the top entry expands by default where supported. One persistent annoyance: the recent apps list still lacks a “close all” option.

Project Svelte, KitKat’s successor to Project Butter, optimizes Android to run smoothly even on devices with as little as 512MB of RAM. On the Nexus 5’s Snapdragon 800, the result is a very smooth, lag‑free UI. Apps open quickly, scrolling is clean, and overall responsiveness finally feels in line with what iOS users had been accustomed to.

Google Now is even more central here. You can launch it by holding Home and swiping up, swiping to the leftmost pane, or by using the “OK, Google” hotword. Voice activation is surprisingly forgiving—the phone triggered on variants like “OK, Go” and similar sounds. Now pulls data from your searches, emails, location, and habits to surface cards for commutes, sports scores, flights, deliveries, reservations, birthdays, and more.

Voice actions tie in for messaging, calls, navigation, note-taking, and app launching. Offline voice typing is supported once language packs (around 20–25MB each) are downloaded, improving speed without sacrificing accuracy. Customization is deeper in KitKat: you can specify default transport modes, teams, stocks, and places you care about, and Now will track and notify accordingly.

Performance, Storage Constraints, and Benchmarks

In real use, the Nexus 5 feels as fast as you’d expect from Snapdragon 800 hardware running a lean build of Android. Synthetic benchmarks, however, tell a more nuanced story. Without any benchmark “boosting” tricks, its scores often trail other Snapdragon 800 phones and in some cases line up closer to Snapdragon 600 devices.

Single‑core and Linpack results are underwhelming relative to its peers, while multi‑core tests like Geekbench 3 paint a better but still not class‑leading picture. Compound benchmarks such as AnTuTu and Quadrant show results comparable to previous‑gen flagships. Graphics tests are more in line with expectations: in 1080p off‑screen GLBenchmark 2.5/2.7 and Epic Citadel, the Adreno 330 GPU keeps pace with other Snapdragon 800 devices like the Galaxy Note 3 and Xperia Z1.

JavaScript performance via Chrome—historically a weak spot for stock Android—turns out surprisingly competitive, with scores matching high‑end rivals. BrowserMark 2 results put the Nexus 5 among the best web performers tested.

Storage is non‑expandable, and Google deliberately skipped an 8GB variant to avoid making the phone unusable in real terms. Even so, the lack of microSD remains a clear limitation for anyone with large local media libraries or heavy offline app and game usage, especially once you factor in OS overhead.

Camera, Photos, and 4.4.2 Fixes

On paper, the rear camera looks modest but focused on fundamentals: 8MP resolution, optical image stabilization, and a larger 1/3.2″ sensor with 1.4µm pixels (up from the Nexus 4’s 1/4.0″ sensor and 1.12µm pixels). An LED flash sits beneath the heavily accentuated circular glass cover, which protrudes slightly and is therefore more prone to scratches.

The camera UI, inherited from the Google Play Edition Galaxy S4 and HTC One on Android 4.3, replaces the old settings ring with a semi‑circular quick settings arc. A long‑press on the viewfinder brings up controls for HDR, exposure, photo size, white balance, timer, geotagging, scene modes, flash, and front/rear switching. It’s functional but not especially intuitive. One ergonomic oddity: the preview is 16:9 while the actual capture is 4:3, making precise framing trickier.

Still image quality is a noticeable improvement over the Nexus 4 but still lands in the “average” range for 8MP shooters. Detail is solid in the center but softer toward the left edge; noise is higher than ideal. White balance is the most obvious weakness, frequently skewing too warm or too cold.

HDR+ is one of the more useful additions. It preserves highlight detail without crushing shadows, avoids obvious smearing, and maintains contrast reasonably well, though the maximum resolution drops slightly from 3264×2448 to 3200×2368. Macro performance is a relative strength, with close focusing, sharp subjects, and pleasantly blurred backgrounds.

Video capture tops out at 1080p30 with an average bitrate around 17Mbps. Frame rate hovers near 29fps, and audio is mono at 96Kbps/48kHz despite the presence of two microphones. There’s no 4K, no 1080p60, and no 120fps slow‑motion mode. Footage is smooth with accurate color but only average detail and occasionally over‑active autofocus.

Android 4.4.2 brings a series of incremental but real improvements to the camera pipeline. White balance becomes more accurate by dialing back green saturation, exposure times shorten to better protect highlights, and the noise reduction/sharpening balance shifts toward slightly stronger noise reduction and milder sharpening. The net effect: cleaner images with marginally less fine detail and fewer sharpening artifacts.

Low‑light shooting benefits the most. With 4.4.2, the camera uses significantly shorter exposures in normal (flash‑off) mode and compensates with higher ISO, reducing handshake blur at the cost of some detail. Flash shots show more neutral whites, and night mode delivers better overall processing. Autofocus, originally sluggish, becomes faster and less intrusive after the 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 updates.

These are refinements rather than transformations; the camera moves from borderline to adequate, not to flagship‑leading. For most non‑enthusiast users, though, it’s no longer a deal‑breaker.

Audio, Connectivity, and Browsing

The Nexus 5’s audio story is mixed. Loudspeaker output scores “Below Average” in standardized tests, so ringtones and media can be easy to miss in noisy environments. Output quality via the 3.5mm jack, on the other hand, is clean and comparable to the LG G2, but overall volume is on the low side even with headphones.

Connectivity is comprehensive for its time. The phone supports quad‑band GSM/EDGE, penta‑band 3G, and for the first time in the Nexus family, LTE (with separate band sets for North America and global markets). Wi‑Fi covers 802.11a/b/g/n and ac on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, Bluetooth is 4.0, and NFC is present for tap‑to‑share features.

USB OTG support exists but is deliberately limited. Keyboards and mice work, but external storage such as USB sticks and card readers are blocked without third‑party workarounds, suggesting a software-level restriction. Wireless display mirroring is available via Miracast.

Chrome is the sole preinstalled browser, carrying over its minimalist UI with swipeable tab management and full sync to the desktop version for tabs, bookmarks, and passwords via your Google account. It offers fine‑grained control over content loading, including the ability to disable images on mobile data to save bandwidth. The major omission is Flash support, which is no longer available.

Comms, Productivity, and Media Apps

Telephony is handled by an updated Phone app in KitKat. The dialer mixes a search bar, your most recent call, and frequently dialed contacts. It supports smart dialing by name or number and also searches nearby businesses directly from the same field, surfacing results like the closest Subway with tap‑to‑call.

In‑call audio quality is strong, with clear voices and reliable signal retention. A secondary microphone on top assists with active noise cancellation, but stereo audio recording is disabled by default, requiring tweaks outside the stock configuration.

Messaging shifts over to an upgraded Hangouts app that merges SMS/MMS with Google’s chat service. Conversations are threaded, SMS threads are labeled as such, and a single interface handles both traditional texts and Hangouts chats. It mimics the unified approach of iOS’s Messages/iMessage, though finding your SMS inside Hangouts takes a short adjustment period.

Email is split between Gmail and a generic Email app, which now look and behave similarly. Both support multiple accounts, but a unified inbox is limited to the default Email client. Sender avatars are color‑coded based on initials, and you can swipe left/right to move between messages.

The stock Google keyboard remains a strong default option, with large keys, gesture typing (Swype‑style input), inline correction, and integrated offline voice input. Typos are underlined in red with one‑tap suggestions, and selection tools use drag handles for precision.

Media handling in KitKat is more fragmented than on some OEM skins. Photos, the refreshed gallery app, has Camera and Highlights tabs plus shortcuts for Search, Settings, and Movie creation. You can quickly assemble movies from selected clips and stills, add music and themes, and export with minimal effort.

Highlights pulls in Picasa and Google+ photos, integrating cloud uploads while keeping them private until explicitly shared. A hidden side pane lets you switch accounts, jump to Albums, Videos, tagged photos, and deleted photos. Auto Awesome creates collages or GIFs from similar photos and offers a one‑tap save if you like the result.

The older ICS‑era Gallery app still ships alongside Photos, organizing images by Albums, Locations, Times, People, and Tags. It supports making online albums available offline and includes a more capable image editor with adjustments for light, effects, color styles, sharpening, straightening, and face-specific tweaks.

Video playback is barebones. There’s no dedicated video app; playback runs through Photos/Gallery, and native support is essentially limited to MP4 up to 1080p. Subtitles are not supported, and users wanting broader codec coverage or subtitle handling will need third‑party players. DLNA-style streaming and Miracast screen mirroring are available for pushing content to compatible TVs.

Google Play Music serves as the main audio player and front-end for Google’s cloud music service. The Listen Now feature attempts to infer your listening habits to suggest what to play next. You can upload your own music to the cloud, stream it, or pin it for offline playback. An equalizer with presets and a custom profile is included, along with bass boost and 3D effects when headphones are connected.

Tools, Maps, Play Store, and the Bigger Picture

On the utility side, the Nexus 5 includes Google’s standard suite. The Calendar app offers daily, weekly, monthly, and agenda views, supports multiple online calendars, multiple reminders per event, and color-coded entries for better organization.

Google Keep has evolved from a basic note app into a more flexible tool. Notes sync via your Google account and can include images and voice memos, plus color-coding for quick visual grouping. Old notes can be archived with a swipe, and a resizable widget gives scrollable access and shortcuts from the homescreen.

Google Drive is preinstalled, providing access to documents, spreadsheets, forms, and folders stored in Google’s cloud, with 15GB of shared storage. You can create documents and spreadsheets, scan photos into PDFs, and collaborate in real time with other users. Quickoffice complements this by creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and by scanning local storage for supported files.

Clock, Calculator, and other basics get modernized UIs but familiar functionality. The Clock app includes world time, multiple alarms with labels and repeat patterns, a stopwatch, and a timer. The calculator exposes scientific functions via a side swipe.

Location services are handled by a GPS receiver with GLONASS support. Cold-start locks can take around a minute, but A‑GPS and network-based positioning substantially reduce that. Google Maps remains central, with voice-guided navigation where available, 3D buildings in major cities, Street View, route planning, POI search, and partial offline caching for selected areas. Cached maps have limits on size, and full address search is not available offline.

The Google Play Store on KitKat uses a side-swipable menu for access to your account, My Apps, and wishlists. Content is split into categories and ranking lists such as top paid, top free, top grossing, and trending. App pages include descriptions, changelogs, download counts, ratings, screenshots, and often demo videos.

Strategically, the Nexus 5 continues Google’s pattern: offer near-flagship hardware and the latest Android build at a price that undercuts most competitors, especially via the Play Store Devices section. Hardware compromises—non-expandable storage, sealed battery, middling camera, and limited speaker loudness—are the trade-offs that make the price work.

Compared to contemporaries like LG’s own G2, Sony’s Xperia Z1, Samsung’s Galaxy S4, HTC’s One, and Motorola’s Moto X, the Nexus 5 rarely wins on raw hardware or feature count. The G2 offers a bigger battery and better camera; the Z1 ups design, camera, and expandable storage; the S4 and One bring richer media features and, in Google Play Editions, optional stock-like software; the Moto X adds thoughtful always-on interactions.

Where the Nexus 5 differentiates itself is in pure Android, guaranteed and fast OS updates, and value—assuming you can buy it at Google’s own pricing. Outside the Play Store channel, markups quickly erode that advantage.

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