Well, almost 72 hours. Close enough. I ordered the phone on Wednesday morning, it shipped Wednesday night. It was being stored in the UPS warehouse in Kentucky, so it arrived quickly. The package was waiting at my front door in Minneapolis when I arrived home after work on Friday.
The phone feels lighter than the Nexus 4, and it has a nice fit in my hand. I chose the white one and it looks really sharp. It still has a black bezel, just the back cover is white. The contrast of the black and white looks classy to me.
I put the phone on the charger immediately. It was almost at full when I received it, so it was ready to go by the time I finished showering and getting ready to go out. I put my SIM card in and I didn't even have to re-register with T-Mobile. It was simply ready to use after I restarted the phone.
That night I used Google Maps to navigate, and I could immediately see the difference in the data rate. With the LTE connection, the map is able to reroute almost instantaneously. It probably helps to have such a fast processor, but the Nexus 4 had a pretty good processor too. So I think the HSPA+ data connection was the limiting factor.
On Saturday I took the time to install SwiftKey Keyboard. I might not keep it. The higher resolution screen caused it to resize and now the keyboard is too large. It takes up more than half of the screen. Maybe I just need to play with the settings, but I'm not happy with it at the moment.
An interesting change is the reduced number of panels on the home screen. The Nexus 4 had 5 panels. The Nexus 5 has only 3 panels, and one of them is filled with Google Now. I haven't decided if I like it or not. I was actually thinking that I had way too many shortcuts on my N4 and a lot of times it was just as easy to open the app menu and find the app I wanted alphabetically. The main panel was the one I used the vast majority of the time. So I was irritated by the change for a moment, but in actuality I don't really notice the change. I was able to set up the main panel exactly like I had it on my N4. Now it actually feels pretty much the same. I am considering taking that second panel and removing any shortcuts I have there, and dedicating it to widgets only.
Speaking of widgets, they no longer appear next to the apps in the app menu. Now they are set up by long-pressing the home screen and then choosing "WIDGETS" at the bottom of the screen. At first I was afraid there were no more widgets, but I found something online that showed me how to find them. Without my calendar widget I would have been pretty upset!
Overall it feels the same to use this phone as it did to use the N4. It's almost the same size and the buttons are all in the same place. For some reason the USB port is flipped upside down, but that only trips me up when I'm plugging in the charger. Otherwise everything feels the same. It just looks more vivid and bold because of the brighter, higher-resolution screen.
Even though it's plastic, the phone seems to be pretty tough. Yesterday I was volunteering at my church. We had our Christmas services, and last night was the one time each year when I help with parking. Because I was working outside, I was not wearing my normal pants. I was wearing some bright red warm up pants (over a couple other layers) and their pockets were not a good place for a phone. The Nexus 5 has nothing grippy on it whatsoever. Because of this, the phone fell out of my pocket twice. It landed on a concrete floor both times. It must be pretty tough. It survived both drops without a scratch... on the screen anyway. We went inside to warm up between services, and it fell out as I sat down. It only fell about a foot or so. This first drop made the cover loosen slightly. I had to press the cover down and then it snapped back into place. The second drop was higher because I was standing. I was in my garage and while I was removing my boots it popped out of my pocket again. Nothing came loose but I see there is a slight ding in the plastic bezel. It's more like a tiny scratch. I am impressed with how tough this phone appears to be, but I'm also glad that I found a rubber case for it on eBay last week. It was only $4, and it should arrive in a couple of weeks. Until then I will continue to be more careful with my new phone.
There seem to be a pretty good number of LTE towers around here. Unfortunately that does not include the outer suburb where I work. Hopefully that will change some time this year. I still have the "H" on my screen so I am getting the HSPA+ version of 4G here at work.
Overall I am pleased with this phone, but the two reasons I wanted a different phone were the slippery glass back on the N4, and the lack of LTE support. Now I have a phone with a plastic back, but overall the phone is even more slippery than the old one. And I don't have LTE at work yet. The rubber case will fix the slipperiness, and hopefully I will see LTE in the future. Yes I could have bought a case for the N4, but this is my Christmas present to myself!
I'm driving home to the Wisconsin backwoods for Christmas. I'm not expecting to have LTE coverage out there, but I will keep an eye on it to find out for sure.
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