Conclusion 

In the end we simply could not find any major shortcomings. Bear in mind that we compared the Nexus 4 to much pricier high-end flagship smartphones, but we are talking about a smartphone with a US $299/$349 (€299/€349) price tag and all those minor drawbacks are quickly forgotten.

The bad part of the story is if you are aiming for that impressive price tag you have to accept some compromises, but after we take everything into account, we must say LG and Google could have done a lot. They pinched a few pennies, but didn't ruin the phone. The camera might be important to someone but it will never replace a handheld point and shoot digital camera, and we don’t even want to talk about bridge or DSLR cameras. However, the cheaper 8GB version isn't for everyone. If you tend to have a lot of apps or music on your smartphone, even the 16GB version will become cramped in no time. Many smartphones are currently shipping with 32GB of internal storage, and to be honest we don't understand Google's decision to stay at 16GB. Many were hoping for a mid-life update and a 32GB version, but it never materialized.

Performance is decent and it can hold its own against many pricier smartphones. The best part of the story is that you get all the latest and future updates (at least for the time being) as soon as Google releases them, so rocking a Nexus sounds like a good idea if you can't live without the latest software.

Another drawback was the availability issue which LG and Google have thankfully overcome. The Nexus 4 is now widely available, at least there where you can actually buy it. In Europe, it is limited to certain countries on Google Play Store including Germany, Spain and France where you can buy it for €299 for the 8GB version and €349 for the 16GB one. In retail/e-tail is a completely different story as the cheapest 16GB go for around €388 to €399, so around €50 premium over Google Play Store. In case you are wondering, the 8GB version is not even available in retail/e-tail. 

The Nexus 4 is definitely a big win for Google and continues the trend started with Google Nexus 7, which is still the best performance-per-buck tablet. The Nexus 4 is just more of the same, it offers stunning value for money and it is the perfect choice for consumers who don't want to be locked into a two-year carrier contract.

We would like to thank LG Electronics for providing the sample.