LG
Nexus 5

The Nexus 5, which was manufactured by LG, continued a series of (almost) ‘at cost’ developer phones from Google that proved to be consumer hits. Launching at £339 including taxes in the UK and $349 in the US, it massively undercut the £500 / US$520 flagships of the day. Offering no-frills Android that the tech-savvy user could build on with the apps of their choice and with zero bloatware or user interface layers to work around, the Nexus 5 was Android as Google intended. The phone was armed with a flagship processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, a non-pentile super-bright LCD 1080p display at over 440ppi, and Qi wireless charging, very new in the tech world at the time. It also featured 2GB RAM, cutting edge for Android of the time, ensuring peak performance, despite the negative implications for battery life. Battery life was the only major drawback on this phone, with the 2300mAh battery not perhaps being optimised in the same way as LG did for its other models of the time. The 32GB of storage was fixed and pointed the way towards the Google Pixels of today, with no microSD support. The Camera app also pointed in that direction, with the beginnings of Google’s now hugely evolved and praised multi-frame capture software. The Nexus 5 was beautifully made in solid polycarbonate, with no creaks. It was the Android device to get for enthusiasts of the day, helped by the outrageously low cost of entry. Succeeded by the quirky (LG-made) Nexus 5X, the giant (Motorola-made) Nexus 6 and the more fragile (Huawei-made) Nexus 6P, the Nexus 5 is the one most Nexus fans remember.