Google drops Nexus 4 price to $199

The Nexus 4 may be nearly a year old but it's still one incredible smartphone for anyone looking for a (more than) decent device. Now, it gets even better, as Google has decided to drop its price from $299 to $199! If you were struggling to decide whether the N4 was a good deal compared with the more recent Chinese devices offering Full HD screens for an identical amount, now Google has again the upper hand.

In the UK and Euro area, de prices are £159 and 199€ for the 8GB model and  199£ / 249€ for the 16GB model ($249 in the US).

Sadly this refresh din't address the issue that the Nexus 4 is still only available at a small number of countries, with the rest of the world having to resort to forwarding services (or bug friends to buy it and sent it). And it also makes the disproportional price bump for the storage even more apparent. Considering the N4 has no microSD slot for memory expansion it's highly recommended to choose the 16GB model - and the extra $50 you have to pay for it (25% of the total price!) is hard to justify when you consider the actual cost for such a chip is just a few bucks!

Anyway... you'll be getting a Nexus, entitled to have the latest Android version without having to worry about it.

The only bad news are for those that were hoping to sell their Nexus 4 in the coming weeks to recoup some money in order to buy the upcoming Nexus smartphone - that should pop up by October or November. With the Nexus 4 now at $199... how much will you be willing to pay for a year old Nexus 4 in second hand? Not much indeed...

Nexus 4 really has 4G after All?

When the new Nexus 4 was announced, a lot of people felt cheated for not being a 4G/LTE phone. However, when it actually came out, the first teardowns revealed that it had in fact a 4G/LTE chip inside even though it wasn't announced.

The question was: maybe this was due to some licensing agreement, and maybe the 4G firmware wasn't in place... But, some users are reporting they've been able to enable the 4G mode in the Nexus 4 by accessing the test menus: *#*#4636#*. And then changing the setting "Set preferred network type" from WCDMA to "LTE/GSM/CDMA auto (PRL)" - and after it reconnects to the network (if it reconnects) check your data speeds to see if it's really in the 4G LTE broadband range.)

But, don't keep your hopes up. For now, the only successful reports have been arriving from Canada where they use the LTE Band 4 (AWS 2100 / 1700MHz). People from other countries, where operators use different bands have been unable to successfully replicate it.

SlimPort Video/Power Cable for the Nexus 4

Apple made a fuss with their Lightning connector, as being needed for future proofing their "cabling". Well, if you were annoyed by not being able to connect your Android smartphone to a video device (projector, monitor, etc) while charging it at the same time - because you had to use the same port - you'll like to know that Google has taken care of it in the new Nexus 4, thanks to SlimPort.

The SlimPort allows you to use a single microUSB port to provide a video output while charging the device at the same time. For now you get a HDMI out SlimPort dongle, but soon you'll be able to find DVI, VGA, and DisplayPort models.

While these SlimPort adapter will cost around $30, I think that's not too expensive (Apple's Lightning cables and adapters cost roughly the same). So... it seems Apple could have used a microUSB port if they wanted, though I have to admit, being able to plug a Lightning plug  "either way" is... nice. (In my microUSB devices, I still keep missing the "right way" to connect the microUSB cable, even after years of use.)