[Theodores]

LG got it right with the original Nexus 4, although battery life was a problem for all phones in that era. That phone had everything in a small form factor and it also came with a glass back that enabled the phone to fall off a perfectly level service, which was rectified with a little rubber piece.

The Nexus 4 should have lofted LG into the big league and the Nexus 4 owner should have graduated to a LG flagship. But this didn't happen, in part because people stayed with Google and moved on to what would become the Pixel series.

The problem with smartphones is that they are ultimately 'hand rectangles' and the average customer only needs adequate rather than super-deluxe. For a while it was possible to compete on features, battery life and mega-pixels, for people to queue outside phone retailers to be first with the new status-symbol-gadget. But times changed as the tech matured.

Most people couldn't care less about their phone specifications, so long as it works. Getting the latest and greatest phone makes as much sense as on insisting on the latest model of hand basin or the most hi-tech garden trowel. Who cares apart from reviewers or people with little going on in their lives.

[cwillu]

> it also came with a glass back that enabled the phone to fall off a perfectly level service

I used to put mine on my wallet, and it took ages to figure out why I kept dropping it: the moment you set it down, it would start sliding _incredibly_ slowly.

[bombela]

The almost imperceptible sliding took me w while to find out too. My phone was always on the floor any time I wasn't watching it. And if it vibrated, it was all of a sudden in a hurry to plung off tables. Active obsolescence I am telling ya!

Every morning I had to wakeup fast enough before the vibrating alarm would have it jump off my bedside table.

Of course the back cracked quickly with the constant falling. It eventually met its demise during a bike accident. I landed on a tiny rock that pushed through my pocket, exploded the glass, and ultimately broke the charging circuitry. You could see the hole through the front glass! And it was still playing music. At least until the battery died.

[wolvoleo]

I think the nexus 5 was better. Except the ceramic letters that fell off. It had real 4G (on the Nexus 4 it was unofficial) and was a lot faster