The Nexus 5 takes the very best that Google has to offer and wraps it in a dull, plastic shell. It gives us the sweet nectar that is stock Android but presents it to us in a generic body that doesn't feel special. The phone is excellent and can easily hold its own against Samsung's Galaxy S4, Apple's iPhones, and all of Nokia's Lumias, but there's little here that we haven't already seen in other high-end smartphones. If it weren't for the software, the Nexus 5 would be just another Android phone.
Mundane hardware
IMAGE: Michael HomnickThe Nexus 5.
As someone who's toted an iPhone 5 around for the past year, I have to say that using the Nexus 5 was a breath of fresh air. The Nexus 5's 4.95-inch 1920-by-1080-pixel display looks crystal clear and puts the 4-inch display on the iPhone to shame. Text is clear, colors pop, and the screen is readable even in bright sunlight.
There's one caveat, though: The screen isn't very bright. On anything other than the highest brightness settings, the Nexus 5's display looks dark and unimpressive. Though turning on auto-brightness will save some battery life, it'll also make the screen appear dull and ordinary. If you pick up a Nexus 5, I recommend cranking the screen brightness up to max and disabling the auto-brightness to get the most from the phone's high-resolution display.
The rest of the phone's hardware isn't especially noteworthy. It feels solid enough to survive a few falls out of your pocket, but the design doesn't stand out compared to that of the HTC One or the iPhone. Even Nokia's colorful Lumias have more personality, as the Nexus 5's plain black (or white) color scheme makes it as faceless as countless other Android phones. In many ways, LG could have taken the chassis it used for the G2, shaved off a few bits here and there, and carved "NEXUS" into the back to produce this model.
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