To the shock of many of my friends I have bought a Google Nexus 5 device. I have made the switch from iPhone after over 4 years on the iOS platform. Astonishingly the Nexus 5, which is Google’s own phone (which runs pure vanilla android) is only £299 for the 16GB version. I actually bought mine on ebay from somebody in the local area, for £255. It was a week old, but I couldn’t tell it had ever been used. A bargain if ever there was one!

So first impressions? It’s a difficult one to summarise. The two platforms are really very similar. Android people will tell you the platform is much more open, and that you can do what you want. iOS people will tell  you that Android is fragmented, and buggy, and that iOS is much more polished. There is truth in all of that.

I think, bottom line, Android is not superior to iOS. They are very similar, but comparing many dual platform apps reveals that they usually look better on iOS. The entire android OS is functional, but lacks the spit and polish of iOS for sure. Yes the Google services are great, and they are deeply integrated ,but all those services are available for iOS. Apple has some great iOS services such as facetime, iMessage, find my friends etc, and these are NOT available for Android. Android has a bit more freedom for sure, but there isn’t much in it. Like for like, both platforms share pretty much the same features. The big annoyance with iOS for me is the inability to change the default mail app, or browser. Sure you can install your own (Chrome, Gmail etc) but you can never really set it as the default for handling tasks such as sending photos or opening links. That is inexcusable.

I will miss iMessage, as all my friends and family use it, with few exceptions. Luckily many of those friends also use WhatsApp. One annoying early observation; once you remove your SIM from your iPhone, your number remains enrolled in “iMessage” on Apples severs, despite turning it off, so at the time of writing, which is day 4 of using the nexus, all my iOS friends are still seeing failed messages as their devices are trying (and failing) to deliver messages via iMessage rather than reverting to SMS. VERY annoying, and far from ideal.

In terms of hardware, this Nexus is impressive. The build quality is cheaper than an Apple device as you would expect. The speakers and camera are average, but it is suitable. It’s not cheap and nasty, but its not premium. That said, it is nearly half the price of the iPhone 5S, and twice the size. The screen is the most impressive feature, obviously, and that main reason I made the switch. Using the iPhone again, even after a few days, and it feels like a toy. This screen will be hard to go back from. Apple NEED to give the consumer a choice of screen size, currently they only produce phones in one (tiny) size. I suspect this will change come Autumn, but I also suspect the phone will be £600. Double the Nexus. I’d obviously strongly consider it, but it is a lot of cash.

For now, I am sat on a train to London, and plan to test out the Nexus over the next few days. Currently tethering, which works well, and I didn’t have to turn the feature on and off 5 times to make it visible to the laptop !