Hasta La Gadget!

Google likes to skate to where the puck might be next game. They were first in the U.S. with a viable NFC payments solution (that isn’t very popular) and they’ve been at the forefront of AR with Glass (which is too expensive for the average consumer) and now they’re one of the first to market with a wireless charging solution for the Nexus 4.

Wireless charging has been far too slow on the uptake, but that’s to be expected. Beyond a very few very specific situations, the technology is slow, and in the case of Google’s Qi-based solution, the device has to be statically placed at a certain position on the charging pad. The Qi standard has some ways around that particularly onerous requirement – if you have to stick it in a certain place, why not just plug in a cable – but to complain about it is to miss the point.

Every port, dock, and transformer requires resources and real estate. Apple reduced the 30-pin port not because it wanted to piss off the millions of iPod dock owners out there. In order to reduce size and footprint they had to abandon the arguably huge 30-pin solution for the arguably more elegant Lightning port.

Imagine, then, what could happen if there were no ports at all? The headphone jack could free up a few millimeters in thickness and the wireless charging solution could save an additional bit of electronics. It’s not much, but it adds up.

I find it quite odd that Google is actually backing a standard other than Qi with Starbucks but I suspect, in the Powermat case, this is more a question of branding and cash payouts than anything else. I’ve found Powermat to be surprisingly shortsighted and inelegant over the past few years and it’s obviously not Duracell’s wish to completely move away from battery sales so I’m loath to trust them to be a good partner in the wireless power world.

I, for one, am glad that Google pushes things forward with these little technical tricks. They’re usually the first to the party but showing up early only counts for so much. They need to put cash into partnerships with points of sale in the case of NFC and some sort of public charging solution for Nexus users in order to convince the rest of the world that wireless charging is actually cool. Then they’ll really be creating a brave new world built mostly in Mountain View rather than Cupertino.

Google finally introduced its latest Nexus Android reference phone to the world (meaning the device that gets major OS updates first, and the one that’s guaranteed to receive all of them first, untouched by individual OEM bloatware). LG takes its turn at a Nexus device this time around, delivering the Nexus 4, an Android 4.2-powered handset with a 4.7-inch 1280×768 display, 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, an 8MP rear-facing camera and 8 or 16GB of internal storage.

It has 2 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, NFC and Bluetooth built in. But it’s an HSPA+ phone, not LTE, which could be a major disappointment. Specs-wise at least, the Nexus 4 is on par with many Android OEM flagship devices released recently. That said, the primary appeal of any Nexus device is always the fact that it carries vanilla Android (and 4.2 offers multiple user accounts  improved camera features, Miracast TV mirroring, and more), unmarred by third-party modifications or applications, and that it’s much more likely to be updated to the next version of Android than other, non-Nexus smartphones, so despite any spec sheet shortcomings, it’ll likely have its fair share of fans choosing it over competing hardware.

LG looks to have used the Optimus G as the basis for the Nexus 4, but significant differences to the physical design, including rounded edges and a screen with slightly curved class, the hallmark of the Nexus line of handsets. One key advantage to the Nexus 4′s physical design is the inclusion of wireless induction charging, which was leaked earlier but is still a fairly exciting inclusion as a default hardware feature, and something that definitely helps the Nexus 4 stand apart from the Optimus G.

The LG Nexus 4 will hit store shelves November 13, launching unlocked for $299 and $349 for 8GB and 16GB respectively. There’s also a 16GB T-Mobile version at launch on contract for $199 with a 2-year term. It’s definitely not a surprise, given the number of leaks that preceded this announcement, but is this the new Nexus phone you were hoping for?