Nexus 5: Google launches Android 'Kitkat' smartphone
Google has just announced the release of its latest flagship Android smartphone, the 5in Nexus 5 that comes running the next iteration of Android 4.4 “Kitkat”.
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With a 5in full HD screen and high-end specifications, the Nexus 5 offers a premium Android experience with a more affordable price tag, starting at £299, than other flagship Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, as well as Apple's iPhone 5S.
Based on the underlying hardware of one of LG’s current Android smartphones, the LG G2, the Nexus 5 features, a top-of-the-line 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of built-in storage, which should perform well for both multi-tasking and graphically intensive gaming.
"For KitKat, we partnered with LG to develop Nexus 5 – the slimmest and fastest Nexus phone ever made," said Google in a blogpost.
The Nexus 5 also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video chatting, as well as wireless charging and Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0 for communication with low-power accessories like the Fitbit One and a plethora of other fitness gadgets.
"The advanced new lens on Nexus 5 captures more light for brighter night and sharper action shots. And with optical image stabilisation, you no longer have to worry about shaky hands and blurry pictures," Google said.
The Nexus 5 is the first smartphone to run Google’s latest iteration of Android – version 4.4 “Kitkat” – which continues the refinement of the mobile operating system becoming more colourful and flatter, similar to Apple’s latest revision of iOS.
Google Now, Google’s context-sensitive digital assistant, has also been given greater prominence in the new software, after the new "Hummingbird" algorithm update made Google's core search better at answering longer, more complex and spoken queries.
As Google intended
The Nexus 5, as the excellent Nexus 4 was before it, is the result of a continuing partnership between Korean phone manufacturer LG and Google, which sees high-end phone hardware paired with an unmodified Android experience, often referred to as being “as Google intended”, without the usual customisations phone manufacturers typically make to the perfectly usable operating system.
"Its design is simple and refined to showcase the 5” Full HD display. Nexus 5 also keeps you connected at blazing speeds with 4G/LTE and ultra fast Wi-Fi," said Google.
The Nexus 5 is available starting today from £299/$349 for the 16GB and faces stiff competition from the Samsung Galaxy S4, which won critical praise, as well as the likes of the HTC One, Sony Xperia Z1 and the iPhone 5S.