We are now half way through the first month of 2014 and this is a good time to take a look at devices that arrived on the shelves towards the latter half of last year, which are selling well this year. One of the latest handsets to arrive last year was the LG Nexus 5 and this is worthy of consideration by anyone considering a new handset this year, but there are some top contenders out there.
Price cuts happened as always in December of last year and there are still sales in January. Price drops have included the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Nexus 5 and the LG G2, but which comes out on top?
The Nexus 5 was based on the LG G2 with both handsets having a Snapdragon 800 quad core processor along with the Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. the displays are HD and Samsung launched their device in three different variations, all with 2GB of RAM. There is the Exynos Octa core and this has Power VR SGX 544MP3, a Snapdragon 600 quad core 1.9GHz and the LTE version which has the Snapdragon 800 quad core.
While the resolution remains the same at 1080 x 1920 the diagonal differs and this means that the ppi does too. The Nexus 5 is the smallest as it has 445ppi with the 4.95-inch display. The Samsung Galaxy S4 offer 441ppi with the 4.95-inch display, while there is a display of 5.2 inches with the LG G2 and 424ppi. The LG has the IPS+ display while Samsung chose to go with the Super AMOLED.
Samsung protected their display with Gorilla Glass 3 and LG chose Gorilla Glass 2.
There is no support for SD card expansion with the LG G2 so this cannot be boosted up past the 16GB or 32GB internal memory. The Samsung Galaxy S4 can be expanded by another 64GB.
There is a camera of 13MP on both the LG G2 and the Samsung Galaxy S4, this offers great colour reproduction and photos in low light. Samsung did omit to put in OIS which is a let-down.
The camera of the Nexus 5 and LG G2 both have the same sensor along with OIS and this is an 8 megapixel. The sensor is able to capture 30fps at 1080p on the Nexus 5 and this is 6-fps at 1080p on the LG G2.
The winner for battery life is the LG G2 thanks to the 3,000mAh battery. The Samsung Galaxy S4 offers a battery of 2,600mAh while the Nexus 5 is about average at 2,300mAh.
For software the Nexus 5 is ahead thanks to it offering pure Android which is in the form of KitKat 4.4.
There have been some issues with the sound on the Nexus 5 but Google have offered updates. The updates made improvements to Google Now too.
Jelly Bean 4.2.2 is found on the Nexus 5 and recently the Samsung Galaxy S4 received the update to Jelly Bean 4.3, at least in some regions. Both of the devices are in line to be updated to KitKat 4.4. Samsung installed TouchWiz and LG have the Optimus UI.
When considering a new handset the price tag will be taken into account. The Nexus 5 comes out on top with the $350 price tag and this is without a contract. The LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy S4 are priced higher. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and LG G2 are more readily available as there has been stock issues with the LG Nexus 5. Retailers may have the handset but it costs more.
