The Newest Nexus in the Family

We just got the Nexus 5 (32 GB) that I ordered on the Play Store for my wife, and not surprisingly I'm considerably more excited about it than she is.  That's not to say she's not extremely happy about her new phone, which is replacing an HTC Amaze (ruby) that just went belly up.  It's just that I'm really starting to love our collection of Google Nexus devices.

There's my Nexus 4 (mako) on the top right, the Nexus 7 (2nd gen, flo) on the bottom, and the Nexus 5 (hammerhead) on the left.  Coming soon: Nexus 6.

We've owned a plethora of other mobile devices, including an HTC Touch Cruise, myTouch 3G (aka magic), myTouch 4G (glacier), HTC Amaze (ruby), and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (p4wifi), which were all misconceived on some level.  The best of these devices was the myTouch 4G, which survives to this day.  The Galaxy Tab was great for a while, but the flash memory is flawed and with no TRIM support (this device should have been codenamed glacier).  The Touch Cruise ran Windows Mobile - enough said.  The two myTouch devices were actually quite good, aside from HTC Sense occasionally crashing.  The myTouch 4G just kept on giving, with a 4.4.4 Evervolv ROM from xda-developers and a stable overclocking to 1.5 GHz.  The Amaze became very unstable, and despite many factory resets and several half-baked ROMs later, went to the phone junk yard (a drawer in the garage).

The Google Nexus devices put the others to shame.  The LG-made devices are particularly good.
My only gripes with the N4 came when Kit Kat messed up the bluetooth drivers briefly (evidently fixed in 4.4.4).  The Asus-built Nexus 7 is great too, just with a somewhat quirky touch screen (but I don't have screen protector to help tame it a bit).  The Nexus 5 is the LG D820, and it seems pretty solid too.

In terms of price, I'm a little baffled at the very high end phones (LG G3, HTC One M8, etc.).  Perhaps this sounds like flamebait, but I don't know how you could justify paying $180 more for the LG G3, although I was very tempted.  It's just a handheld device, not a 60" TV.  It shouldn't be $580+, especially when the Nexus 5 sets a pretty high bar for $349.  The OnePlus One is the only one that seems to have a competitive price, with superb performance to boot (someone please send me an invite).

I'm ready to complete the set with the Nexus 6 this Fall (maybe).  In the meantime, xda-developers will provide plenty of ROMilicious entertainment.

UPDATE:  The Nexus 6 is announced and coming out soon and at $699 and 6", I'm glad we got the Nexus 5.