After months of leaks and rumors, it was starting to feel like this day would never come. But it did. The Nexus 5 is real. And it’s awesome. And it’s an absolutely ridiculous value compared to rival smartphones. Google on Thursday finally made the Nexus 5 official and we think just about every Android enthusiast out there will agree that it was worth the wait. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, of course, considering we’ve seen the Nexus 5 pictured about a dozen times and the specs have leaked a dozen more. But all that is behind us now, Android fans… the Nexus 5 is finally here.
Precisely in line with the latest round of leaks, the new Nexus 5 smartphone is an absolute beast. The latest pure Google phone features a 4.95-inch full HD 1080p display, a quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, an 8-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, either 16GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0.
It also sports Google’s new Android 4.4 KitKat operating system, of course, and unlike its predecessor the Nexus 4, it includes a 4G LTE radio.
Beyond the cutting-edge specs and the sleek styling, there’s a third star in this already impressive show: the price. Google’s new hero phone starts at just $349 for the 16GB model without a service contract of any kind. To put that in perspective, the HTC One starts at $599.99 with no service contract, Apple’s iPhone 5s starts at $649 and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 starts at $724.99.
BGR called the Nexus 4 one of the best Android smartphones of all time when it first launched, so we definitely have high hopes for its successor. And from the look of things, Google’s new Nexus phone will not disappoint.
Google’s Nexus 5 smartphone is available for purchase from the Google Play store beginning immediately and AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will each support the new device. Now, we can only hope that the company learned from last year’s Nexus 4 launch and built enough units to meet the inevitable rush of demand.
UPDATE: Initial stock of the black 16GB model appears to be sold out, and new orders will ship “by November 8.” All other models still show shipping times of 1-2 business days.
UPDATE 2: The 16GB white model is now completely sold out and there is no indication of when it will be restocked. The Google Play site only says, “We are out of inventory. Please check back soon.”
UPDATE 3: Launch inventory of the 16GB Nexus 5 is now completely sold out in both colors. New orders for 32GB models in either color now ship by November 8th.
