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If you’ve been trying to get your hands on a Nexus 4 (without signing a contract, anyway) then these past few weeks have probably been some pretty iffy ones. Even now they’re unavailable from the Google Play store, but LG France Communications Director Cathy Robin wants to straighten things out a bit — according to an interview with her in Challenges.fr, LG remains devoted to the Nexus 4 and pegs some of the supply woes on Google’s questionable foresight.
The full (and mildly kooky) Google translation can be found here for you non-francophone types, but the gist of Cathy’s argument is that it’s all a case of misallocated resources. Google apparently overestimated demand for Nexus 4s in some countries, underestimated demand in others (she claims that strong forecasts for UK and German demand led to a shortage in France), and generally made some curious calls when it came to where the lion’s share of Nexus 4s should wind up.
Curiously, Dan Cobley, Google UK’s Managing Director said in an apology on Google+ in December that “supplies from the manufacturer are scarce, and our communication has been flawed,” so it seems that Google is unwilling to shoulder the blame by themselves. Gotta wonder how/if Google will respond now that another LG representative has called them out (even if she says that she’s not outright blaming Google).
In any case, she also quickly downplayed the (pretty damned silly) notion that LG would be winding down production of the Nexus 4 just a few months after the device was officially released to the world. If anything, production momentum is expected to pick up as we head into February, though there’s no telling what sort of effect Mobile World Congress (and its multitude of phone announcements) could mean for LG’s production priorities going forward. But is it all too late?
It’s no secret that the Nexus 4 was designed using LG’s one-time flagship the Optimus G as a base, but the Korean company is reportedly working on a successor to the device that (surprise surprise) should outclass the original in a number of ways. Rumors of a new Optimus with a 5-inch 1080p display have picked up plenty of steam thanks to reports from Korea’s MK Business News, and a May 2013 launch window has been bandied about to go with them.
Meanwhile, those rumors dovetail rather nicely with murmurs of new LG Nexus hardware — specifically a Nexus 5 smartphone and a Nexus 7.7 tablet — that continue to make the rounds thanks to a post from Korean forum Ruliweb. The purported spec sheets are nothing to sneeze at (both are said to sport the newly-announced Tegra 4 chipsets from NVIDIA, among other things), and the rumor du jour says that they’ll see the light of day at Google I/O in (dun dun dun!) May 2013.
Is it possible that Google and LG are planning to push out even more hardware together on such short notice? Sure — LG USA CMO James Fisher said at CES that the Nexus 4 was the first in the company’s “growing partnership” with Google after all, but that by itself shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Still, if the timing for both of these events pan out the way the rumors suggest, we could be looking at some fresh new Nexus gadgets much sooner than expected, and the Nexus 4 may wind up an unintended casualty of change.
Google and LG’s Nexus 4 has been such a coveted item this past holiday season, that it’s been in and out of stock since its release in mid-November. Because Google doesn’t publicly comment on device sales, it’s been hard to understand exactly how much OEM partner LG produced for the device’s initial launch.
However, a little sleuthing by some Android enthusiasts and Nexus 4 owners suggests that LG produced about 400,000 devices going into the end of last year.
How did they do it? They’ve taken the IMEI numbers of their phones and backtracked the production number of their devices using an LG mobile link that’s usually used for finding new firmware. An IMEI number, or International Mobile Station Equipment Identity number, is usually printed on the battery compartment of the inside of the phone. It can be used to prevent stolen phones from accessing a network.
If you take this link and put your IMEI number at the very end, this LG site will spit back out the IMEI followed by a long string of characters that looks something like this: “LGE960 ACAGBK 212KPHG188745 20121206 GLOBAL/GLOBAL N N”
If you break this string apart, you get: LGE960 = phone model A = ? CA = Country where the device was sold. (Others include ‘US’ for the U.S., ‘HK’ for Hong Kong, ‘AU’ for Australia and so on.) G = Storage (G = 16GB, 8 = 8GB) BK = Color 2 = ? 12 = Production Month (November) K = Production Country (Korea) PHG = ? 188745 = The line or production number, showing that phone was the 188,745th device made. 2012121206 = The production date in YYYYMMDD format
A number of Nexus 4 owners have been sharing and compiling the production numbers day by day (see below). It suggests that LG made about 70,000 devices in October, 90,000 in November and 210,000 in December. Google declined to comment on these numbers.
Still, they’re interesting for a couple reasons. It appears that Google and LG have been conservative with the Nexus 4 launch. LG has previously said that the Nexus 4 “had proven extremely popular, and as such retailers have been met with huge demand.” Google’s U.K. and Ireland managing director Dan Cobley likewise has said there have been communication problems on both ends with managing supply for the Nexus 4.
Keeping supplies tight have made the Nexus 4 debut a world apart from the launch of the original HTC-manufactured Nexus One back in 2010.
DEC 165000 264000 265133 14-th ADEUBK GERMANY 266133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 267133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 268133 15-th ADEUBK GERMANY 269133 15-th ADEUBK GERMANY 270133 15-th ASWSBK SWS Switzerland (looks like around 500 units) 271133 16-th AISRBK Israel 272133 15-th ADEUBK Germany 273133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 274133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 275133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 277133 17-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 278133 17-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 279133 16-th AMYSBK 280123 17-th AMYSBK 289000 18-th UK 300123 19-th ADEGBK 305112 19-th ACA8BK 306000 28-Oct (?) AUSGBK, 211KPPB306000 “csn” is also very different from the “surroundings” 306001 8-Oct AUSGBK 211KPHG306001 esnoutgodate=null >>Never shipped? 306009 4-th Dec AUSGBK 212KPHG306009 esnoutgodate=null 306010 19-th AUS8BK 212KPYR306010 esnoutgodate=null 306020 19-th AUS8BK esnoutgodate=null 314001 19-th AFRGBK 314002 19-th ADEGBK 314050 19-th ADEGBK 314123 19-th ADEGBK 315112 19-th ADE8BK 319123 20-th ADEGBK 320123 20-th ADEGBK 321123 20-th AAUGBK 325112 20-th AUSGBK 330123 20-th AUSGBK 340123 21-th ACAGBK 350123 22-th AUS8BK 360123 26-th AUSGBK 365123 27-th AUS8BK 370123 27-th AUSGBK 374110 28-th AUSGBK
- Sleuthing|Tech Meets Blog
Last Friday, I told you how to get your Google Nexus 4 working on LTE networks in Canada. All through this past weekend and today, I’ve been using that device as my primary phone on the LTE band the entire time. And despite some definite reduction in battery life, I couldn’t be happier with the Nexus 4 now that it’s playing nice with Rogers’ LTE network.
To be clear, the Nexus 4 was a strong contender to begin with. I agree with Chris Velazco’s review: Google’s done a great job creating an untouched Android experience in an attractive hardware package thanks to OEM partner LG. But the lack of LTE was a sore spot, and one that didn’t sit well with me, especially since, as primarily an iPhone user, I just got access to next-gen mobile networks on my daily device via the iPhone 5. And the speed difference isn’t inconsequential: you can see from my network tests in the original how-to post that the LTE network here is orders of magnitude faster than the standard HSPA+ 3G one.
In terms of practical use, that means lightning fast loading of web pages, effortless media streaming and just less time in general waiting for any kind of content grabbed from the web to display. The LTE network was consistently available and strong in my home network of downtown Toronto, and despite the lack of official support from Google or LG, I noticed no unusual drop-outs or failures to connect, in general.
The one sore spot for the Nexus 4 initially was that for some reason, being on a true 4G network disabled Google Now from refreshing. Since this is actually one of my favorite things about Android Jelly Bean, I was more than a little disappointed. Switching to 3G or Wi-Fi got it to refresh, but otherwise, it would just spend a lot of time trying to load and then produce its most recent results instead, ignoring my current location.
Luckily, as of Sunday night, Google now works fine on LTE connections, with no changes to system preferences or updates conducted on my part. It’s almost as if a benevolent fairy at Google flipped a switch and turned the feature back on, knowing it would make all of us Canadian amateur hackers very happy. Regardless of why, Google Now has been working consistently on 4G since.
The last remaining anxiety I had about using the Nexus 4 on LTE full-time was around battery life. But those fears have proven to be mostly unfounded. When Chris reviewed the Nexus 4, he found that it wasn’t all that strong on battery life: it was doing 5.5 hours on a testing loop. When being actively used on LTE, especially for data-intense tasks like streaming video, the Nexus 4 consumes power at a fairly rapid, almost alarming rate. But used normally, it still manages to conserve juice well when in standby mode, and I’ve found that I can at least make it from morning to night with my usual usage habits, which as you might imagine can be fairly demanding.
All in all, my experience with the Nexus 4 as an LTE device gives me plenty of hope that Google will officially support it in an update, and possible release LTE versions compatible with U.S. and international networks down the road, too. Even without it, a $ 300 smartphone this good is a triumph, but with LTE included, it’s a nearly unbeatable package.
Reports surfaced this morning that the Nexus 4, Google’s latest flagship Android smartphone, supports LTE via a relatively easy software hack. After testing, it turns out that’s definitely true, so I’ll show you exactly how to enable it on your device. Fair warning: the Nexus 4 only supports LTE on the AWS band (1700 or 2100MHz), which is currently used for LTE networks in Canada, and for some areas served by T-Mobile’s fledgling 4G network.
Step 1: Access Phone Testing SettingsYour phone’s dialer is the key to getting entry to the system menu where you can switch your radio preferences. Just open your phone app, and type in *#*#4636#*#*, which will instantly take you to the necessary preference panel seen below. You can also download and install the Phone Info app from Google Play if you’d rather not have to re-enter that sequence every time you want to change these settings (the app also stays open, so you can recall it via Android’s app switcher so long as it has been active recently).
Step 2: Change Your Phone’s Cellular Network TypeFrom this screen you can switch which networks your phone connects to under the “Preferred Network Type” drop-down menu. There are options for various combinations of CDMA, GSM, LTE and more.
In my testing, I found that the only sure way to get LTE to actually kick in and take over is to set your preferred network to “LTE only.” Using the options that auto-select between LTE, GSM and CDMA seemed to just cause the phone to default back to HSDPA+ speeds where available, although I’m seeing other users are having success with any option that includes LTE.
Step 3: Change Your APN SettingsDig down through Settings, Mobile Networks, Access Point Names and change your APN Settings. The XDA Developer forums show you a number of ways and which values you need to change to make it work, depending on your carrier. You just change the APN name for Rogers users, to “lteinternet.apn.”
Step 4: Enjoy The Speed BoostIt may seem like there should be more to this, but there isn’t. After you’ve changed that radio setting, your phone should disconnect from the network, and then reconnect with LTE speeds. I immediately jumped into Speedtest to check out the difference, and lo and behold, download speeds exploded, as did upload rates.
HSPA+ Speeds
LTE Speeds
CaveatsThis is great, and I’ll be using my Nexus 4 hard-switched to LTE bands for the foreseeable future, but there are some things to keep in mind. First, this is technically a back door trick, even though it’s relatively simple and doesn’t require any hardcore hacking. That means Google could potentially shut down the loophole if it has reason to. Second, there’s no telling how enabling LTE on a phone which ostensibly isn’t designed for it will affect device battery life. The Nexus 4 wasn’t the strongest performer in that regard to begin with, so I’m a little worried about the ultimate effect there, but not enough to stop me using those sweet, sweet LTE speeds.
If, for any reason, you want to turn this off after enabling, just follow the same steps above and choose a preferred connection speed that’s compatible with your carrier’s network but doesn’t include LTE as an option.
Update: It turns out that enabling LTE breaks Google Now’s ability to connect to the network for some reason. That’s too bad, since Google Now is arguably on of Android 4.2′s best features, but if you can live without it, the LTE speeds are a good trade-off.
