Nexus 4 - Did you get it yet?

[Tatsujin]

Purchased it on last Friday, said it would be here in 2-3 weeks. I got it today! Woot. Awesome phone! It uses a mini-Sim card which threw me off so I gotta get one of those from my carrier. So my dear brothers and sisters, tell me what good apps I should be going for! I got the MX Player so I believe I could play anime files on there (haven't tried it). My problem comes down to converting FLAC audio files to MP3 and putting them in this phone. Seems like there are some files that the phone cannot play. Why is that? What is the best format to convert it in to play on my device?

Ah ... this phone is damn, damn good. Very fast, snapping, lots of cool features and 2GB of RAM. Not to mention the extremely beautiful pictures it takes!

Edit -- So I went ahead and just copied the first video of Tonari no Kaibutsu (the 720p TV version from Commie) and played it on MX Player, it seems like its a little skippy. I'm guessing I should fall back on the 480p? I know the resolution won't matter since the screen size is extremely small. I was just testing this out. Or is there another media player that can play this without stutters?

[kitamesume]

i was just eyeing some phones a few hours ago, so lets discuss.
not to ruin the fun but lemme just drop a few comments, HTC J butterfly or Sony Xperia Z/ZL would've been a better candidate though, albeit more expensive.
the reason as to why to frown upon Nexus 4 is it's highly restrictive 16GB storage space limit(why oh why didn't they even try to push it to 64GB...).

(click to show/hide)

HTC J Butterfly
Manufacturer    HTC
Dimensions    143 mm (5.6 in) H
71 mm (2.8 in)W
9.1 mm (0.36 in) D[1]
Weight    140 g (4.9 oz) (HTC Droid DNA)[2]
Operating system    Android 4.1 Jelly Bean[3]
SoC    Snapdragon S4 Pro
CPU    Quad-core 1.5 GHz "Krait" APQ8064 processor[4]
Memory    2 GB RAM[3]
Storage    16 GB internal[3]
Removable storage    Expandable up to 32 GB with microSD (J Butterfly only)
Battery    2020 mAh[3]
Display    5 inch "Super LCD 3" display
1920×1080 pixels (441 ppi)[4]
Rear camera    8 MP, FullHD 1080p video recording at 30 FPS[3]
Front camera    2.1 MP, HD 720p video recording at 30 FPS[3]
Connectivity    Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, NFC, FeliCa, infrared[3]
Website    http://www.htc.com/jp/smartphones/htl21

Sony Xperia Z (Sony C6603) Brand    Sony
Manufacturer    Sony Mobile
Slogan    The Best of Sony in a Premium Smartphone [1]
Series    Xperia
Compatible networks    GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
HSPA+ 850/900/2100
LTE 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600
First released    February 9, 2013; 4 days ago
Availability by country    February 9, 2013; 4 days ago (Japan)
Type    Smartphone
Form factor    Slate
Dimensions    

139 mm (5.5 in) H
71 mm (2.8 in) W
7.9 mm (0.31 in) [2]
Weight    146 g (5.15 oz)
Operating system    Android 4.1 Jelly Bean [2]
SoC    Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064
CPU    1.5 GHz quad-core Krait
GPU    Adreno 320
Memory    2 GB RAM[2]
Storage    16 GB
Removable storage    up to 32 GB microSD/HC[1] card
Battery    2,400 mAh[3]
Data inputs    Multi-touch, capacitive touchscreen, proximity sensor[1]
Display    

5 in (130 mm) diagonal IPS
1920x1080 px (441 ppi)
Rear camera    

13.1 MP back-side illuminated sensor with LED flash
1080p video recording @ 30 frames/s
Front camera    2.2 MP[1]
Connectivity    

4G LTE(100 mbps)[1] GPS
GLONASS
Micro USB 2.0
Bluetooth 4.0
NFC
Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
DLNA
USB On-The-Go
MHL
Other    

Available in black, purple and white
IP55, IP57 (Dust-proof & Water-resistant)

Nexus 4

Nexus 4
Brand    Google/LG
Manufacturer    LG Electronics
Series    Google Nexus
Compatible networks    

GSM/EDGE/GPRS (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
3G UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSPA+ (850, 900, 1700, 1900, 2100 MHz)
HSDPA 42 Mbps
LTE band 4[1] (unofficially)
First released    November 13, 2012; 2 months ago
Availability by country    November 13, 2012 (Google Play)
Predecessor    Galaxy Nexus
Related    Optimus G
Nexus 7
Nexus 10
Type    Smartphone
Form factor    Slate
Dimensions    

133.9 mm (5.27 in) H
68.7 mm (2.70 in) W
9.1 mm (0.36 in) [2]
Weight    139 g (4.9 oz)
Operating system    Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean
SoC    Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064
CPU    1.5 GHz quad-core Krait
GPU    Adreno 320
Memory    2 GB RAM
Storage    8/16 GB (depending on version)
Battery    

3.8 V 2100 mAh, 8 Wh
rechargable Lithium polymer non-removable battery
Talk time 15 hours
Maximum Standby Time 390 hours[3]
Data inputs    Multi-touch, capacitive touchscreen, proximity sensor
Display    

4.7 in (120 mm) diagonal IPS with Corning Gorilla Glass 2
1280×768 px (320 ppi)
Rear camera    

8 MP back-side illuminated sensor with LED flash
1080p video recording @ 30 frames/s
Front camera    

1.3 MP
720p video recording @ frames/s
Connectivity    

3.5 mm TRRS
GPS
GLONASS
Micro USB 2.0
Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP) [4]
Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP [5]
NFC
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (2.4/5 GHz)[6]
Qi Wireless Charging
Website    Nexus 4

ok now that thats out:

(click to show/hide)

Nexus 4's 1.5Ghz quad core krait should be able to handle 1080P Hi10P files at 25MB/minute(600MB per standard 24minute files).
(my phone can handle 10MB/minute 720P Hi10P and it merely has a dualcore A5 @ 1.2ghz which puts it at 3,768 score. QC-Krait @ 1.5Ghz has 19,800 score, now you can go figure ).
being able to decode 1080P isn't necessarily useless on a tiny screen since Nexus 4 has "Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP)" which you can use to output to a TV or monitor, but none the less the Nexus 4's screen has a resolution of 1280×768 and is able to output unscaled 720P. as for the resolution at that tiny screen, well you can read this article for that http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/

possibly the reason why your playback was skippy is that you haven't installed MX Player ARMv7 Neon decoder yet, or the processor's frequency isn't maxed out at the moment of playback.
and/or you haven't set the proper settings in MX Player, it should be -

(click to show/hide)

[under decoder settings]
H/W+ decoder [blank]
H/W+ decoder (local) [blank]
H/W+ decoder (network) [blank]
H/W+ decoder (10-bit) [blank]
correct aspect ratio [blank]
S/W decoder (local) [check]
S/W decoder (network) [check]
S/W audio [check]
CPU core limit [four]
color depth [16bit](set to 32bit if you think your phone can handle it, and your screen has the color capacity to do so)
Deinterlace [blank]

[under subtitle settings]
Enable subtitles [check]
Enable embedded subtitles [check]
H/W acceleration [blank]

notice that H/W decoding isn't being used, its because i noticed it once on my phone that not every encodes seems to be supported and it crashes MX Player plus the processor is plenty to software decode most of the files, otherwise you can play around with that.

MP3 shouldn't be an issue, thats weird, although which MP3 player are you using as that might be the culprit.

apps i suggest:
Airdroid (simply one of the most useful phone manager)
ALogCat (reads logs, its pretty much useless for most people though handy to have)
Battery+ (for battery indications, if you know a better app please share, i'm also searching for current(mA)charge rate indication app)
Camera ZOOM FX (got to say i've yet to see a better camera app out there)
ColorNote (sticky note, one of the easier to use out there)
CPU Identifier (its not only restricted to CPU-ID but can mostly identify the whole phone)
MX Player + MX Player ARMv7 Neon (SOP)
Opera Mobile (got no idea if firefox mobile is actually better than this, but opera's turbo works hell good)
Perfect Viewer (you know... manga viewer, can double as a picture viewer too)
poweramp (a good music player, quite good with playlist management as well)
quickpic (alternate picture/gallery viewer)
SetCPU (its a must, definitely a must)
Terminal (command-line ftw)
Titanium backup (should i say why?)

[Tatsujin]

Ah man this is tiring. The 480p version played fine for Fate Zero UTW TV edition episode 4. Angel Beats from UTW at 1080p played like a charm too but had a little stutters when they were fighting the angel towards the end of episode 1. My Little Monster episode 1 from Commie had the most stutters ... and it was only 720p. I did what you told me to do, now this link is saying if we convert the videos to whatever is that then they should play just fine.

WTB CCCP codecs and MPC on androids ... going to sleep now.

[zherok]

Not to derail, but I just got a Galaxy S3 recently. One of the first things I did was install MX Player and try this BD copy of Natsume Yuujinchou out. Ran perfectly fine. The NA S3 isn't that far removed from the Nexus 4 hardware-wise, so far as I know. You should definitely be getting better performance.

[kitamesume]

My Little Monsters [Commie] 3.75GB @ 285MB avg per file...
weird, i'll try grabbing it and play it on my phone, if it plays nice then maybe its your phone?

edit: well i can play it like how i can manage 720P Hi10P @ 240MB/24min file, as usual its quite laggy but watchable, although omg the decode is artifacting like crazy! weeeird.
anyway, since your phone is theoretically 5.5times faster than mine, it puzzles me as to why yours is lagging =/

[mgz]

Purchased it on last Friday, said it would be here in 2-3 weeks. I got it today! Woot. Awesome phone! It uses a mini-Sim card which threw me off so I gotta get one of those from my carrier. So my dear brothers and sisters, tell me what good apps I should be going for! I got the MX Player so I believe I could play anime files on there (haven't tried it). My problem comes down to converting FLAC audio files to MP3 and putting them in this phone. Seems like there are some files that the phone cannot play. Why is that? What is the best format to convert it in to play on my device?

Ah ... this phone is damn, damn good. Very fast, snapping, lots of cool features and 2GB of RAM. Not to mention the extremely beautiful pictures it takes!

Edit -- So I went ahead and just copied the first video of Tonari no Kaibutsu (the 720p TV version from Commie) and played it on MX Player, it seems like its a little skippy. I'm guessing I should fall back on the 480p? I know the resolution won't matter since the screen size is extremely small. I was just testing this out. Or is there another media player that can play this without stutters?

splurge and purchase poweramp if you listen to a lot of music on your phone pretty much the best audioplayer app out there

[rostheferret]

I expect I'll get one when I get a better look at my finances. I'm off work with a broken shoulder and the sick pay sucks, which kinda puts a hold on scraping the pennies together. For music, I seriously doubt it has the hardware to make decent use of FLAC files anyway. I plan on using the google music app for it though - already got my collection uploaded - as it has space for 20K songs and from the looks of it, you can just tell it which albums you want to keep stored on the device. Saves me having to try and pick and choose pieces of my collection, and I still got my old MP3 player just in case. As for video, personally, I'd stick to 480p, just because the only downside to the phone is it doesn't have a decent sized HDD, and you know the reason for that is so they can push cloud computing on you.

If you take a look at any anime streaming apps, lemme know

[bloody000]

I thought they're all gone! Ordered a 16GB one to replaced my agingancient iPhone 4.

[mrdkreka]

i was just eyeing some phones a few hours ago, so lets discuss.
not to ruin the fun but lemme just drop a few comments, HTC J butterfly or Sony Xperia Z/ZL would've been a better candidate though, albeit more expensive.
the reason as to why to frown upon Nexus 4 is it's highly restrictive 16GB storage space limit(why oh why didn't they even try to push it to 64GB...).

Sure hardware wise those two are better, and I'm also quite interesed in the Xperia Z/ZL, but at least for me and many other it is software>hardware, however if sony makes the next nexus it is win-win situation.

possibly the reason why your playback was skippy is that you haven't installed MX Player ARMv7 Neon decoder yet, or the processor's frequency isn't maxed out at the moment of playback.

Unfortunately mx-player at the moment doesn't handle 10-bit well, and will in pretty much every case only use 2 of the cores when decoding 10-bit using S/W. If I remember correctly Rock player is able to use all 4 cores, but it doesn't have full subs support like mx-player, so you can try that one to see if it does it better.


Airdroid (simply one of the most useful phone manager) +1
Battery+ (for battery indications, if you know a better app please share) I would recommend battery reborn
ColorNote (sticky note, one of the easier to use out there) I prefer Evernote, since it sync and is cross platform
Opera Mobile I think for nexus 4 chrome beta might be the best browser, or doplhin jetpack, depending what you are after
quickpic (alternate picture/gallery viewer) if you use google+/picasa/webalbum, the standard one is best IMO, since you can easily trough the gallery app access your online pictures with it.
Titanium backup (should i say why?) please do, since I'm wondering why you didn't recommend Carbon, that both have a good UI and works without root

I would also recommend

• DashClock Widget (Really good lock screen widget, done by a Google engineer) also download this extension to it if you want battery stats like what kita want
• Foobar2000 controller (really awesome if you use foobar)
• Pocket
• Nova laucnher (If you want to make more changes to your home screen than the default one

[zherok]

For music, I seriously doubt it has the hardware to make decent use of FLAC files anyway.

The lack of any removeable media, mostly. No reason it shouldn't be able to play them though.

[Tri_Edge]

(my phone can handle 10MB/minute 720P Hi10P and it merely has a dualcore A5 @ 1.2ghz which puts it at 3,768 score. QC-Krait @ 1.5Ghz has 19,800 score, now you can go figure ).

What benchmark is that? you'll have to forgive me, as I am not very savvy when it comes to benchmarks.

[kitamesume]

Airdroid (simply one of the most useful phone manager) +1
Battery+ (for battery indications, if you know a better app please share) I would recommend battery reborn
ColorNote (sticky note, one of the easier to use out there) I prefer Evernote, since it sync and is cross platform
Opera Mobile I think for nexus 4 chrome beta might be the best browser, or doplhin jetpack, depending what you are after
quickpic (alternate picture/gallery viewer) if you use google+/picasa/webalbum, the standard one is best IMO, since you can easily trough the gallery app access your online pictures with it.
Titanium backup (should i say why?) please do, since I'm wondering why you didn't recommend Carbon, that both have a good UI and works without root

good points, i'm looking at the few apps you mentioned.
Titanium backup's advantage is when you're rooted, haven't checked carbon but titanium backup has force uninstall even touching the untouchable apps like system apps, since the Nexus4 is a "free-root" phone then yeah, although if carbon is better... well you do the procedure "ditch this and take it up a notch".

(my phone can handle 10MB/minute 720P Hi10P and it merely has a dualcore A5 @ 1.2ghz which puts it at 3,768 score. QC-Krait @ 1.5Ghz has 19,800 score, now you can go figure ).

What benchmark is that? you'll have to forgive me, as I am not very savvy when it comes to benchmarks.

DMIPS Benchmark - works well as base assessment on what the hardware's processing capacity.

[bloody000]

For music, I seriously doubt it has the hardware to make decent use of FLAC files anyway.

The lack of any removeable media, mostly. No reason it shouldn't be able to play them though.

Phone-quality analog output, mid-range IEM/boomy closed headphones and noisy enviorments make FLAC pointless in most situations, unless you can't be bothered to transcode.

[zherok]

Phone-quality analog output, mid-range IEM/boomy closed headphones and noisy enviorments make FLAC pointless in most situations, unless you can't be bothered to transcode.

Wasn't arguing in favor of it, just saying it should be able to play them. I don't really have a lot of FLAC music.

More a concern with the high end anime that uses it, I'd argue. Much more of a pain in the ass to convert. Thankfully not super common in 720p...

For fun, got Tenshi's ridiculously large release of Ao no Exorcist to work (in 720p), but 10-bit ANE Bakemonogatari in 1080p was choppy as fuck.

[dakarv]

I see google have realised that they also need to know where everyone is and what everyone is saying on the phone to completely control the world

stage 2 is an economic phase using their advanced knowledge of market trends to influence economies and governments

stage 3 involves some sort of mind control/zombification, will probably effect people with a google device pushed against their heads half the day first

[JoonasTo]

Kind of off-topic but why would you go for 1080p videos on a 768p screen? Seems waste of battery to me.

[kitamesume]

Kind of off-topic but why would you go for 1080p videos on a 768p screen? Seems waste of battery to me.

 

being able to decode 1080P isn't necessarily useless on a tiny screen since Nexus 4 has "Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP)" which you can use to output to a TV or monitor, but none the less the Nexus 4's screen has a resolution of 1280×768 and is able to output unscaled 720P. as for the resolution at that tiny screen, well you can read this article for that http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/

edit: rather than being a waste of battery its a waste of precious 16GB of free space, nexus4 doesn't have the luxury of expanding it's storage space.

[Tatsujin]

Kind of off-topic but why would you go for 1080p videos on a 768p screen? Seems waste of battery to me.

 

being able to decode 1080P isn't necessarily useless on a tiny screen since Nexus 4 has "Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP)" which you can use to output to a TV or monitor, but none the less the Nexus 4's screen has a resolution of 1280×768 and is able to output unscaled 720P. as for the resolution at that tiny screen, well you can read this article for that http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/

edit: rather than being a waste of battery its a waste of precious 16GB of free space, nexus4 doesn't have the luxury of expanding it's storage space.

Which does suck certainly for the storage feature.

Played Guilty Crown 720p BD from Doki without problems. No stutters. So now it's really just the ... encode? on My Little Monster.

[rostheferret]

Phone died today.

Ordered. Found a cheap unlimited data plan that looks like will get a 20Mb connection. HDD size sorted, just stream everything

[kitamesume]

(click to show/hide)

Kind of off-topic but why would you go for 1080p videos on a 768p screen? Seems waste of battery to me.

 

being able to decode 1080P isn't necessarily useless on a tiny screen since Nexus 4 has "Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP)" which you can use to output to a TV or monitor, but none the less the Nexus 4's screen has a resolution of 1280×768 and is able to output unscaled 720P. as for the resolution at that tiny screen, well you can read this article for that http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/

edit: rather than being a waste of battery its a waste of precious 16GB of free space, nexus4 doesn't have the luxury of expanding it's storage space.

Which does suck certainly for the storage feature.

Played Guilty Crown 720p BD from Doki without problems. No stutters. So now it's really just the ... encode? on My Little Monster.

looks like it, i tried playing it on my PC too and CPU usage spikes to over 30%, for a 720P thats quite weird, only 1080P and only Hi10P high bitrate encodes does that to my PC.