You'll be lucky if there's anywhere near a decent LTE network in the UK before 2014.

Jon

I live in London so I think I would benefit a lot. It is not unusual for me to have internet problems in central London. Sometimes I can't even load a website in certains areas.

Regarding LTE Google said:

Fair enough I guess.

Doesn't seem to have stopped Apple doing it :p.

The reason for the spec of the Nexus 4 being the way it is actually pretty obvious : cost. LTE chips are more expensive than 3G chips and require more complicated antennae setups, so also increase cost of manufacture. 32/64GB of flash disk costs more than 16GB. A micro SD slot makes the design and manufacture more complicated - more cost. The Nexus 4 was designed to a price, not to a spec. That's why it costs £239 where as the cheapest iPhone 5 costs £529. Even if google were selling it, the iPhone 4 would cost about £400.

The problem is in fact not Google's, it's other people's perception that the Nexus phones are a flagship product. They may have been at the beginning, but they're not any longer. Google may still control the Android OS, but they lost control the Android ecosystem ages ago. Samsung now define what the cutting edge of Android tech looks like and Google either can't or have decided not to compete - so in effect they're now an Android also-ran.

The bigger question is this - we've now had two nexus phones since Google bought Motorola - and they were made (respectively) by Asus and LG. Just when are people going to start asking Google hard questions about the fact they spent 8 billion pounds on Motorola but apparently don't trust them to make a phone properly?

'I've got some magic patents I'd like to sell you...'

The Nexus line has never led the way in terms of hardware, it's about being a hero device for Android. Initially it was a dev phone, but these days it's mostly about getting OS updates direct from Google and having a vanilla version of Android.

That said, the Nexus devices are no slouch and the Nexus 4 has top-of-the-range specs. I expect the quad-core S4 outperforms the Apple A6. The screen is right up there with the iPhone 5 in terms of ppi and sports a superior native resolution. It's always been the case that one of the hardware partners led the way with handsets too - recently it might be Samsung, but before it was HTC. The HTC Hero and Desire spring to mind.

Google have said before that they dislike expandable memory because it impacts the performance of the phone - especially when you take into account the number of fake cards on the market. While 16GB may not suit everyone I imagine it suits most people, and going by Google's previous rollouts a larger version is around the corner.

I'd also wager that a large portion of the price difference between the handsets will be made up by the 'Apple tax'.

I agree with Linux. Nexus 4 has 2gb of ram, NFC, wireless charging and a screen with the same PPI (320) as iphone5 (326) so it definitely wasn't designed to cost. The reason that is has only 8/16gb of memory is that Google wants people to use cloud storage.

Samsung and HTC have to differentiate from each other and Google. They bring something different to a table, not better - not worse. Just different. Android user can choose if they want vanilla OS or add-ons and that suits me perfectly. I personally don't like to be told what I need or what I want. I can choose myself and I choose vanilla with no BS.

It appears the Nexus 4 might have sold out. I kept getting an error when trying to proceed to the checkout from 8am until finally at around 8:45 I couldn't add the device to my basket anymore.

I got an email from Google at 8.43am that they are available. I checked for 16gb version at 8.33am and it was sold out. 8gb one sold out around 8.50am. Apparently in Australia 16gb sold out in 22 minutes.

Wonder if Google will break their habit and actually say how many they've sold...

I thought the contracts for a Nexus 4 were taking the piss but then I looked at the O2 price price for it on PAYG. £399. How in the holy hell can they justify that!

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

I think the reason is the everybody (except Google) has to get their devices from LG themselves and they charge more I guess. I believe CPW's sister company in Spain flat out refused to sell N4s as they would strugle against Play Store's price.
So it seems the cheap N4s will be available only from Google.

Bad news regarding N4. Some of those that managed to order on Tuesday are getting emails they were put on backorder and their shipping date is now within three weeks. So I guess we'll see one more batch available for sale before Xmas and that's it for this year. I am holding out for 16gb version but I am sceptical.