News & Reviews:   Google Nexus 4

After months of wondering what L starting dessert would be used for the next Android L, Google have finally and officially announced Android 5.0 Lollipop. Unlike previous updates, there are a number of huge upgrades to the mobile operating system and this includes a flatter Material Design look and feel and a new 64-bit compiler. Notifications are now floating in a Google Now-like card based system and they are both actionable as well as drop down. The 64-bit compiler will move from the previous Dalvik compiler to a more efficient ART compiler, which promises equal performance across all types of processors. The new ART compiler also promises nearly double the performance for some systems resulting in faster load times and performance along with support for larger than 3GB of RAM.

Traditionally, most Nexus products and devices usually don't get named according to their brand makers and often times they are either called the Google Nexus 4 only. This has always been the official stance except for when Samsung did the Nexus S. Recent reports in Korea have highlighted the fact that if LG had their way, they'd have named the recent Google Nexus 5 the Nexus G. While it isn't a big secret that LG did make the recent Google Nexus 5 device, Google said no, perhaps to avoid confusion with other similarly named Google products like the Motorola Moto G. LG is well known for their G series of devices like the LG G2, LG G Flex, LG G Pad and many other LG G products.

Ever wondered which smartphone would last the longest or have the longest battery life? Well, it isn't just you as some testers from UK have put the Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, HTC One, Apple iPhone 5, Google Nexus 4, BlackBerry Z10 and Nokia Lumia 920 through a number of battery tests for call time, internet usage and charging time. The results may shock you but do check out the results:

Right before Google I/O, quite a few people were expecting that the good folks at Google would be releasing Android 4.3 and a new Google device or device refresh. Turns out that everything else got updated and the device in question was basically a Samsung Galaxy S4 with stock Android. This has therefore started new rumours, one of which being that we may be seeing a refresh of the Google Nexus 7 tablet and that it may come with Android 4.3.

What they found out

The folks at iFixit just love tearing down smartphones and this was no different for the Samsung Galaxy S4 / S IV when it officially came out. After a brief tear down they discovered that the Samsung Galaxy S4 / S IV:

• has a removable battery
• has an iFixit score of 8 out of 10
• uses IR sensors near the screen to enable Air View and Air Gesture
• has one of the most sensitive screens around (can even use with gloves)
• has the same 4G LTE chip as Google Nexus 4