Nexus 5 exit review

Or, it is not a good idea to make a thing you’re likely to drop out of glass.

In 2015, I wrote a review after ten months of using the Nexus 5. As I wrote then, I had bought the Nexus 5 based on wireless networks supported, size, software hackability, input methods, software updates, storage size/options, and the camera in roughly that order; it was the most expensive phone I had bought to date, after I previously bought both my Blackberry Pearl 8100 and my Nexus One lightly used.

The big reason for writing the review in 2015 was my reaction to breaking the glass over the Nexus 5 screen. I continued to use the phone; a few more drops broke the glass on top left of the device but didn’t impact the screen greatly. In December 2016, I dropped it one last time trying to check directions while cycling. This time the liquid crystals in top left broke, and the touchscreen stopped responding. That does mean that the phone ultimately survived two years with cracked and weakened top glass, so that’s something.

After two and a half years, I still agree with most of my ten-month review: it did look nice; the screen was nice; reliability and durability of the all-glass front is not good. Size is too big for single-handed use and not suited for use on the go. The enclosed, non-field-replaceable battery didn’t end up being a problem in the end. I really liked wireless charging with Qi. I hardly ever used NFC.

It wasn’t critical, but I would have liked a bit more storage space, or upgradeable storage space. The camera was workable and automatic panorama stitching was neat. The keyboard was alright when using two-hands, not suitable for single-handed use, and not suitable for typing without looking down at the keyboard. It’s still silly to think that a phone has 2 GB of RAM.

By the way, when sitting idle with the screen off, a two-year-old Nexus 5 has a battery life of about a week.

Some changes from the older review: I have ran into some really annoying edge cases with MTP mounting and am wishing for direct USB mass storage mounting to make a return. The soft-touch finish has aged better than I thought it would, which makes the fragile glass front all the more annoying. The missing stickers from within the “Nexus” cut-out logo on the back are not a huge problem visually, though I still think they could have been omitted in the first place.

I wonder how much more durable the phone would have been if the plastic casing extended into the front face a tiny bit, instead of the front being edge-to-edge glass. The screen cracks propagated from the edges inwards, and I noticed my old Nexus One had many scratches on its front corners that didn’t impact the glass.

One other issue I have noticed is hairline cracks in side bezels around the SIM card slot on the right hand side, and around the volume rocker on the left hand side. These look like stress from falls and bumps breaking the thin side pieces at their narrowest.

Ultimately, two and a half years of use is shorter than I’d like, but I guess not terrible. It would probably feel a bit more acceptable if this was a $200 purchase, not a $400 one.

Perhaps my foremost problem was that I wanted the Nexus 5 to be a phone: a device to use single-handed, on the go, designed to account for the reality that it will sometimes be dropped. The Nexus 5 is not that kind of phone.