Nexus 4 review

Google and LG have worked together to bring to market a fantastic offering. We showed it to two friends who are both Apple fans. The kind of people who shower in holy water if they're exposed to Android. Both of them were smitten.

The fact of the matter is that this is a handset with world class specs – yet it's at a price you'd expect to get a budget phone for. Sure, there are a few things that could have been done better, but the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

We liked

The Nexus 4 is beautifully designed with a stunning display and rocking the latest version of Android. It has more connectivity than a BT Telephone Exchange and even excels in the simple matter of making telephone calls.

The fact that it comes running with Android as Google intended it will please the purists, but the OS has come on leaps and bounds since its early incarnations, so no longer is it a daunting prospect for first time users.

The screen is great, the power under the hood is more than enough and it feels every inch a top-end handset - that is until you look at the price tag and get one of the most pleasant surprises known to man, value for money.

We disliked

You're probably thinking now, why on earth would I NOT want this handset? And it's difficult to say as there are very few failings with the Nexus 4, but it's by no means perfect.

It's not the lightest of handsets, and it is slightly crippled by the lack of removable storage. Plus, the lack of LTE makes it far from future-proof and we don't understand why Google has given exclusivity deals to carriers in some countries.

The camera is good, but it doesn't excel itself and the photo sphere feature needs more work before its true potentially can be fully realised.

Final verdict

Giving a handset on TechRadar a full five star rating is almost impossible. You could have the best phone in the world that can solve famine, pick the kids up from school and decipher Mandarin Chinese in a millisecond.

But it's not just about specs – value plays a huge part to play. A five star rating is reserved for a phone that we would say you should go out and buy pronto. Right now. Immediately.

The Nexus 4 comes SO close to that, it's unreal. This phone has some of the best specs around but it's not just great value, it's fantastic value. Almost too good to be true.

Had it not been crippled by silly things like a paltry memory allowance and not-quite-there camera, we'd have recommended it immediately and given it a five star rating. Alas, it's fallen just short of that.

But make no mistake – this is the best Nexus handset so far by a long shot. We love it and can't recommend it highly enough. It could seriously be a contender for our best smartphone of 2012. If you're due a new phone, you should check the Google Nexus 4 out without delay.