LG Nexus 5 review: Back to the future

Google Now gets better

Google Now was first introduced back in Jelly Bean 4.1 and is definitely one of the most interesting aspects of the Android OS. Simply put, it's Google's version of a personal assistant. Google Now is in the same neck of the woods as Apple's Siri, but it learns constantly from your daily routines.

It's accessed by holding the home button (plus an upwards swipe), swiping to leftmost pane or just by saying "OK, Google". We found out that the Nexus 5 fires up Google Now on the first G of the command, so you can just say "OK, G" or "OK, Go" and that will be enough. For all it's worth, "OK, Jesus" and "OK, Grandpa" worked too.

Google Now gives you short overview of information it believes is relevant to you right now in the form of cards. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, so it offers you a re-route.

It can interpret a lot of things from your search history as well. If you've been searching for, let's say, your favorite football team, Google Now will prepare a card showing you the next match the team is playing and will provide you score updates once the game begins.

Google Now

Google Now, if you allow it, can scan your email for upcoming flights, deliveries or restaurant reservations and let you know when they are due. There are also numerous kinds of cards like birthdays (yours and those of your contacts) and what distance you've walked in a particular month. The last one could definitely feel creepy for some users, but it's easily turned off from the Google Now settings menu.

Google Now in action

Google has also integrated Voice Actions into Now. They can handle stuff like sending messages (SMS or email), initiating a voice call, asking for directions, taking a note or opening a site. Google Now can also launch apps, check and manage your calendar and look for nearby places of interest and stuff like movie openings in theaters.

Google has added lots of more customization on Google Now in Android 4.4 KitKat. You can now set your default transportation method, you favorite sports teams, company stocks you are following, places you are interested to visit and more. Once you add items you want to keep an eye on Google Now will do this instead of you. It will automatically inform you for various changes, news and updates.

Customizing Google Now behavior

The More section of the customization will update automatically with topics you can choose from once you've start using Google Now search capabilities.

You can now set reminders straight from Google Now's UI. Just hit the bottom left icon (the palm with a stretched index finger). There you can add reminders or just check all the past, ongoing or upcoming reminders.

Adding a reminder manually • A reminder

One big advantage of Google Now is that the voice typing functionality doesn't require an internet connection to work. You can enter text by speaking anywhere you can use the on-screen keyboard - be it the Messaging app or a note taking app - without the need for a data connection as long as you have pre-downloaded the needed language packs (and those only take about 20-25MB of your storage per pack).

Making voice typing available offline also made it faster as it's not dependent on your connection. What's even more impressive is that the transition hasn't cost it anything in terms of accuracy.

Synthetic benchmarks

Hardware-wise the LG-made Nexus 5 is pretty much the same as the company's G2 flagship aside from the slightly smaller screen. The Nexus 5 runs on the same top of the line Snapdragon 800 chipset with a 2.27GHz quad-core Krait 400 processor, Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM.

Android 4.4 KitKat brings Project Svelte UI optimizations, the successor of Project Butter. Svelte allows even smoother performance and in the meantime lowers the Android hardware requirements down to 512MB RAM, which would open the doors to the latest Android build to budget devices!

You'd expect the Nexus 5 to perform the same as the rest of the Snapdragon 800 gang, but as far as synthetic benchmarks are concerned you'd be wrong. Unlike Samsung, LG or HTC, Google had no interest in boosting benchmarking scores and performance and so the stock Android 4.4 KitKat offers no optimizations in this direction. As the charts below will show you, the Nexus 5 benchmark results are much lower than the other Snapdragon 800 devices - the reason is probably sitting some way between the lack of cheating and the fact that the benchmarking apps aren't properly optimized for KitKat just yet.

As usual our first test is all about single-core performance. The Nexus 5 scores are quite similar to the Krait 300 CPU on the Snapdragon 600 platform, rather than those of its Snapdragon siblings. The Linpack results are even worse.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  99
• LG G2
  99
• Sony Xperia Z1
  115
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  115
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• HTC One Max
  131
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• HTC Butterfly S
  135
• LG Nexus 5
  146
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• HTC One mini
  293
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• Meizu MX3
  307
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  1081
• LG G2
  1054
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1034
• Sony Xperia Z1
  1004
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One Max
  723
• HTC Butterfly S
  669
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• LG Nexus 5
  393
• HTC One mini
  320
• Meizu MX3
  289
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

The Nexus 5 bounced back on the Geekbench 3 cross-platform benchmark, but it didn't quite manage to match the best.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Nexus 5 Lollipop
  2743
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• HTC One Max
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• LG Optimus G
  1623
• Meizu MX3
  1579
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• HTC Butterfly
  1257
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887

Moving on to compound benchmarks, AnTuTu and Quadrant. In AnTuTu Nexus 5 scored similar results to the previous generation Snapdragon 600 devices, while the Quadrant score was downright poor.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z1
  30850
• LG G2
  30243
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  29185
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  27613
• HTC One
  26389
• HTC One Max
  26348
• LG Nexus 5
  25097
• Meizu MX3
  24391
• LG Nexus 4
  17006

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• HTC Butterfly S
  13130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One Max
  11914
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• LG Nexus 5
  8844
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• Meizu MX3
  6116
• HTC One mini
  6048
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567

Now let's look at the GPU benchmarks. We ran GLBenchmark 2.5 and 2.7 in 1080p off-screen mode, which is also the native screen resolution for the current crop of Android flagships. The Nexus 5 matched the Snapdragon 800 competition on this test.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  68
• Sony Xperia Z1
  60
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  60
• LG Nexus 5
  57
• Apple iPhone 5s
  56
• LG G2
  54
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• HTC Butterfly S
  42
• Meizu MX3
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One Max
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One mini
  15
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• LG Nexus 5
  23
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Apple iPhone 5s
  23
• Nexus 5 Lollipop
  22
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• HTC Butterfly S
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• HTC One Max
  14
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Meizu MX3
  13
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

The Adreno 330 on the Nexus 5 did pretty well on the Epic Citadel, too. Its score is very close to Galaxy Note 3 and Xperia Z1.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Meizu MX3
  58.8
• Sony Xperia Z1
  54.9
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• LG Nexus 5
  49.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  47.7
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC One Max
  34.9
• HTC Butterfly
  29.6

Finally, we come to JavaScript, which is a known Achilles heel of stock Android and its Chrome browser. Surprisingly, the Nexus 5 did a lot better than we expected, scoring the same as Sony's Xperia Z1 Chrome browser.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  403
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  587
• Apple iPhone 5
  694
• Apple iPhone 5c
  704
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• LG Nexus 5
  827
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• Meizu MX3
  1085
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One Max
  1295
• LG Optimus G
  1293
• HTC One mini
  1375
• LG Nexus 4
  1379
• HTC Butterfly
  1397
• Oppo R819
  1423

The last benchmark we did was the BrowserMark 2, which tests the overall browsing performance. Google's Nexus 5 turned out to be among the best devices we've tested so far.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  3549
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3041
• Apple iPhone 5
  2825
• Apple iPhone 5c
  2799
• LG Nexus 5
  2745
• LG G2
  2718
• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2398
• HTC Butterfly S
  2378
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One Max
  2243
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• Meizu MX3
  1832
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

The stock Android 4.4 KitKat with its Project Svelte ran perfectly smooth on the Nexus 5. Even though the flagship scores lower than the competition on the benchmarks, the Nexus 5 is still among the smoothest and lag-free Android smartphone we've seen to date.

Everything is blazing fast, scrolling and app launch is really fast and fluid, the overall UI speed has been bumped too. It took Google a while to achieve what Apple has done with the iOS, but it is finally here - the lag-free, fast and buttery smooth Android OS is becoming the norm now.