Phones Nexus 4 owners/discussion thread.

[Peterg2]

I agree, twas a great post.

I have owned one from more or less the launch and heartily recommend it.

I am starting to think about the Nexus 4 again. The beauty is the low price and not being held hostage to Canadian punitive 3 year contracts. In the UK it is different I know, but here, apart from a 10% discount for byod, it really is not worth it to buy a phone outright.

I can't be bothered with selling phones on ebay or craigslist so to purchase a phone for circa $700 and then having it languish in a drawer a year later or so seems an awful waste.

 

[strausd]

The auto correct is great. As much as people hate auto correct on iOS, I use to love it. Kii is just as good for people who type with two hands and rely on auto correct.

Ya I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel iOS autocorrect is still better than Swiftkey.

I was looking at the reviews for Kii and people said that it kept resetting until you paid for the full version. So I am not quite as interested in trying it out now, but I may check it out later.

 

[mattopotamus]

Ya I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel iOS autocorrect is still better than Swiftkey.

I was looking at the reviews for Kii and people said that it kept resetting until you paid for the full version. So I am not quite as interested in trying it out now, but I may check it out later.

It only resets if you enable premium feature. The way it is stock works just fine though.

 

[strausd]

It only resets if you enable premium feature. The way it is stock works just fine though.

What are the premium features?

 

[mattopotamus]

What are the premium features?

Blacklist words and split keyboard. A few features that I really think very few people would actually use. Oh and making the numbers above the normal keyboard, like Samsung has with default. I actually like the long press better though.

 

[daneoni]

Probably a silly question but why won't Google/LG properly calibrate screen on the Nexus 4 to match sRGB more closely. Presumably its something that can be fixed in software so why not do it and release it as an update? Sad that such a lovely display is being nerfed by poor calibration. *sigh*

 

[strausd]

Blacklist words and split keyboard. A few features that I really think very few people would actually use. Oh and making the numbers above the normal keyboard, like Samsung has with default. I actually like the long press better though.

Tried it and the autocorrect in SwiftKey worked much better for me.

 

[Tinmania]

Tried it and the autocorrect in SwiftKey worked much better for me.

I tried Kii and thought it was horrible. Felt very much like a beta product. The lack of swype-like typing was also a negative. I would never pay for that in anything close to its current incarnation.

I did pay for SwiftKey but currently prefer Swype. For some reason SwiftKey is not working good for me when using the flow input method (like swype). I can type amazingly fast using swype.


Michael

 

[mattopotamus]

I tried Kii and thought it was horrible. Felt very much like a beta product. The lack of swype-like typing was also a negative. I would never pay for that in anything close to its current incarnation.

I did pay for SwiftKey but currently prefer Swype. For some reason SwiftKey is not working good for me when using the flow input method (like swype). I can type amazingly fast using swype.


Michael

Kii has swype..

 

[onthecouchagain]

Flow sucks big time compared to Swype.

Swiftkey, for tapping, rocks everything else.

 

[bmac4]

So I just got my nexus 4 today. Been doing some playing with it, and really do like it. Really good looking device. I am not the biggest fan of the LED because it is kind of small, and set on default does not flash often enough. I did know this before I bought it because I owned the galaxy nexus. The only real big disappointment is the battery, but again I new it before I bought it. I have the note 2 as well, so if I run out of battery I can just put my Sim in the note 2, and keep going. It looks like I am going to get about 12 hours out of the battery for today. Not sure if that is normal or not?

 

[mattopotamus]

So I just got my nexus 4 today. Been doing some playing with it, and really do like it. Really good looking device. I am not the biggest fan of the LED because it is kind of small, and set on default does not flash often enough. I did know this before I bought it because I owned the galaxy nexus. The only real big disappointment is the battery, but again I new it before I bought it. I have the note 2 as well, so if I run out of battery I can just put my Sim in the note 2, and keep going. It looks like I am going to get about 12 hours out of the battery for today. Not sure if that is normal or not?

That seems normal. I get about 15 give or take an hour with my usage.

 

[bmac4]

That seems normal. I get about 15 give or take an hour with my usage.

OK having the note 2 for a month a spoiled me on battery life.

 

[daneoni]

My battery usage today. Its not awesome but its not the worst i've come across.

4.7 inches is just borderline one-hand friendly...and that's because i have big-ish hands. I'm now pretty much convinced 4.3 inches is the sweet spot for a smartphone. 4.5 inches max. Anything higher and things start to get awkward/unwieldily.

 

[LSUtigers03]

My battery usage today. Its not awesome but its not the worst i've come across.

4.7 inches is just borderline one-hand friendly...and that's because i have big-ish hands. I'm now pretty much convinced 4.3 inches is the sweet spot for a smartphone. 4.5 inches max. Anything higher and things start to get awkward/unwieldily.

4 hours of screen time and 19 hours total is more than acceptable for me. My N4 will be delivered this week and I wouldn't hate battery life like that. Are you running a custom rom or kernel ?

 

[daneoni]

4 hours of screen time and 19 hours total is more than acceptable for me. My N4 will be delivered this week and I wouldn't hate battery life like that. Are you running a custom rom or kernel ?

Stock 4.2.2.

 

[torana355]

Tried it and the autocorrect in SwiftKey worked much better for me.

You have to give it time for kii to learn your typing habits, you have to do the same with Swiftkey... Kii is 10x better then swiftkey once it learns your style, it also has a better implementation of gesture (swipe) typing.

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I tried Kii and thought it was horrible. Felt very much like a beta product. The lack of swype-like typing was also a negative. I would never pay for that in anything close to its current incarnation.

I did pay for SwiftKey but currently prefer Swype. For some reason SwiftKey is not working good for me when using the flow input method (like swype). I can type amazingly fast using swype.


Michael

Kii has swipe, shows how much you actually used it

 

[strausd]

You have to give it time for kii to learn your typing habits, you have to do the same with Swiftkey... Kii is 10x better then swiftkey once it learns your style, it also has a better implementation of gesture (swipe) typing.

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Kii has swipe, shows how much you actually used it

I'm gonna try and give it another chance, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[mattopotamus]

plus kii has emoji's

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OK having the note 2 for a month a spoiled me on battery life.

Once you have the note 2 all other battery life seems bad. Then again, why do I really need 60% left after an entire day? I always get to a charge by the end of the day.

 

[daveathall]

Then again, why do I really need 60% left after an entire day? I always get to a charge by the end of the day.

I agree entirely with this, I'm never that far away from some sort of power that I feel worried about the battery life of my Nexus 4, I'm not a power user and tbh, get plenty of standby time.

Screen on time for this is just over 2 hours.

 

[bmac4]

plus kii has emoji's

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Once you have the note 2 all other battery life seems bad. Then again, why do I really need 60% left after an entire day? I always get to a charge by the end of the day.

After I stop playing with my new nexus 4 I think it will go up. Still not really worried about cause I do I have my note 2 when the nexus dies.

 

[LSUtigers03]

plus kii has emoji's

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Once you have the note 2 all other battery life seems bad. Then again, why do I really need 60% left after an entire day? I always get to a charge by the end of the day.

I feel the same way. I charge my phone every night. It doesn't matter how much battery I have left.

 

[Tinmania]

Kii has swype..

Then it wasn't easy to find or it didn't work on my Note 2 during the 20 minutes of aggravation I endured trying it out.

Was also odd to me that they called swype-like texting gesturing. To me gestures perform actions. But in any case turning it on did not enable swype-like texting.

So far for me swype is the best at swype.



Michael

 

[tonie]

Then it wasn't easy to find or it didn't work on my Note 2 during the 20 minutes of aggravation I endured trying it out.

Was also odd to me that they called swype-like texting gesturing. To me gestures perform actions. But in any case turning it on did not enable swype-like texting.

So far for me swype is the best at swype.



Michael

I thought it was easy to locate the feature. I think you gave up to easy or didn't even bother.

 

[Tinmania]

Flow sucks big time compared to Swype.

Swiftkey, for tapping, rocks everything else.

Yes, for tapping Swiftkey is my favorite. I wish flow was better because I don't really like switching keyboards--so swype ends up being my default (even though it doesn't seem like Nuance cares much about it anymore ).



Michael

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Kii has swipe, shows how much you actually used it

If I use something for around 20 minutes and can't get their version of swype to even turn on, not to mention the extra-long time for the keyboard to appear--on top of the insulting notifications about premium features counting down to reset--I can safely say it is not for me.



Michael

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I thought it was easy to locate the feature. I think you gave up to easy or didn't even bother.

The description for the app says it has "Swype like gesture input." I turned that on. It didn't swype. Went back and turned anything on that had gesture in it. Still didn't work. Why should I hunt for it? It seemed slow anyway.

Contrast to Swiftkey, where the very first item in its settings screen is SwiftKey Flow.



Mike