 "Will its battery let the Nexus 5 down in India?")
Google’s latest Android flagship, the Nexus 5 has been receiving rave reviews from many. In fact, most tech publications have gone ahead and called it the Android phone to buy this season and, as expected, the customers are lapping it up in a jiffy. Most markets report that the 16 GB (cheaper) variant of the phone is sold out. With the phone set to enter the Indian market in a matter of days it wouldn’t be a surprise if the phone found many buyers out here as well. After all what can trip up full-HD, quad-core phone from Google that sports an aggressive price tag (Rs 28,999 for the 16GB and Rs 32,999 for the 32GB)? There is potentially one thing, the phone’s battery.
The best Android phone around?
For all its awesome specs the Nexus 5 comes across as rather deficient in the battery department. The 2,300 mAh battery powering the smartphone is smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S4’s 2600 mAh pack or even the 3000 mAh unit that powers the Sony Xperia Z1 and even the Nexus 5’s spiritual predecessor the LG G2. A phone’s battery life has a lot to do with the software too and with Android KitKat Google has made it clear that the direction the OS is taking is towards power and performance optimisation. But how does the battery perform in the real world?
The phone score the lowest in a battery test by tech site The Verge. As a result they concluded by saying that “Depending on how you use it, battery life seems to fall somewhere between “bad” and “okay,” and neither of those is something to get excited about.” Tech Radar deemed the battery unpredictable with battery life for similar usage varying from 6 hours on one day to 11 hours the next. This unpredictability would mean that you’d never be confident about leaving your place without an extra battery pack or a portable charger or battery pack. In the tests by Engadget the Nexus 5’s battery barely crawled past the 12 hour mark. All of this makes us wonder why Google didn’t shove a 3000 mAh battery into this smartphone and make it the one phone to rule them all.
Nexus 5: Is the battery good enough?
We all know that a phone’s battery becomes unreliable as time goes by and frequent charging becomes inescapable. Compounding the problem is the fact that the Nexus 5’s battery cannot be removed, given its sealed back. For a market like India that struggles to keep its power lines buzzing, a phone with an unreliable battery off the bat does not come across as the best buy. So will the Nexus 5’s dodgy battery make Indian customers think twice before picking it up? We’ll have to wait and watch.
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