Google Nexus 4 vs Samsung Galaxy S3

The Google Nexus 4 is the latest phone to bear the Google name. LG made it, but to most people, it's the "Google phone". It's here to show off Android 4.2, and it supplies a huge amount of smartphone goodness for not all that much money.

But can it hold a candle to the Samsung Galaxy S3, the most successful Android phone of the year? We've taken apart each phone piece-by-piece to find out which of these Android mammoths you should buy.

Read our iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 comparison

Price and Deals

Google Nexus 4 - From £239 SIM-free, £36 a month on contract
Samsung Galaxy S3 - From £400 SIM-free, £30-odd a month on contract

The fantastic thing about the Google Nexus 4 is that it's super-cheap, if you go to the right place. Buy direct from Google and it costs just £239 for the 8GB edition or £279 for the 16GB version. That's around half the price of the Samsung Galaxy S3, making it a wee bit of a bargain, and something that should get many a mid-range phone running scared.

SIM-free, the Samsung Galaxy S3 will set you back around £400. It has gotten a little cheaper since its launch in May, but not by a great deal. 

If you want a contract deal, the price difference is much less significant. Compared to the price the Nexus 4 sells at direct from Google, contract deals at present are poor. You're looking at around £36 a month to get the phone free from O2, which is the price of a top-end phone like the Galaxy S3. 

Design

Google Nexus 4 - glass rear, plastic sides, black sparkly finish
Samsung Galaxy S3 - plastic removable battery cover, white/blue/black/red finishes

One of the most common criticisms levelled at the Samsung Galaxy S3 is that it doesn't feel all that swanky because it uses a pretty unimpressive, thin, glossy plastic battery cover. It's a classic Samsung design move - one seen in both previous Galaxy flagship phones. 

The LG-made Google Nexus 4 doesn't go plastic fantastic, topping the rear of the phone with a layer of glass. However, it doesn't feel quite as high-end as something like the iPhone 4S. You could quite easily mistake the glass layer for a sheet of transparent plastic. This may be in part down to the plastic sides, robbing the phone of that cool-to-the-touch feel. 

The Google Nexus 4 has an unusual spangly finish, with a disco ball-style shiny pattern on its rear. However, it doesn't look as garish in person as it does in pictures. It's less "1970s" in the flesh, thankfully, and it comes in black only at present.

At launch the Samsung Galaxy S3 was available in white and pebble blue finishes. The blue version had a brushed metal effect look, which turned off a few prospective buyers. Since then, a couple of extra editions have surfaced. There are now black and red versions, both using the metallic-look finish of the pebble blue handset. Neither phone is perfect, but the Galaxy wins out with a slightly higher-end feel, in spite of the plastic construction.

Thanks to their huge screens, both phones are quite large, and we recommend getting your mitts on a phone this size before buying, to check it's simply not too big for your paws.

Screen

Google Nexus 4 - True IPS 4.7 inches, 720 x 1,280 pixels
Samsung Galaxy S3 - Super AMOLED 4.8 inches, 720 x 1,280 pixels

The Google Nexus 4 screen is a smidge smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S3's display, 4.7 inches instead of 4.8. Resolution is exactly the same, though, at 720p 

Aside from the similar numbers, the tech used in the displays is completely different. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has an AMOLED screen, and the Google Nexus 4 a variant of IPS. 

AMOLED screens supply superb contrast as they don't use a universal backlight, which tends to make blacks look a little grey or blueish when in a dark environment, or when held at an angle. IPS screens like the Google Nexus 4 tend to supply more natural-looking colours and higher brightness, though. 

There's an additional downside to the Galaxy S3's display. It uses a Pentile subpixel layout. Instead of teeny, tinny red, green and blue subpixels (RGB), as seen in the Google Nexus 4, the S3 has a RGBG (red-green-blue-green) array. To see this directly, you'd have to use a pretty strong macro camera lens, but it has a negative effect on general image quality, reducing sharpness - especially in text. 

The Google Nexus 4 screen is sharper, has generally more relaxed-looking colours and higher top brightness, but the Galaxy S3 brings unbeatable contrast to the table. We tend to favour IPS over AMOLED.

Power

Google Nexus 4 - Qualcomm APQ8064 Snapdragon Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait, 1GB RAM
Samsung Galaxy S3 - Exynos 4412 Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9, 2GB

Six months is a long time in the world of tech, and the time gap shows up in the specs of these two phones - the S3 was released around half a year before the Google phone. The Qualcomm quad-core chip in the Google Nexus 4 comfortable outperforms the Samsung Galaxy S3's chip in some benchmarks, including Geekbench. However, it's not a winner across the board and the Exynos pips the Qualcomm in the Sunspider java benchmark. In summary, both phones are highly-specced powerhouses. 

The RAM situation is much easier to call - the Google Nexus 4 has 2GB, where the Samsung Galaxy S3 has just 1GB. 2GB is a whole lotta RAM for a phone, and it ensures that the Google Nexus 4 will be able to hack new versions of Google Android for a long time to come.

In practice, though, both phones are extremely quick and there's nothing on the Google Play app store they can't handle. It's more a case of future proofing rather than a boost in power that's going to dramatically change what the phones are like to use. That said, the Google Nexus 4 is a tiny bit faster as it isn't weighed down by any additional software beyond vanilla Android.

Software, Storage, Camera and Verdict

Software

Google Nexus 4 - Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
Samsung Galaxy S3 - Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz UI
When the Samsung Galaxy S3 launched, it ran Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. However, the Jelly Bean update has now been applied, giving it the crucial speed boost that Google hardwired into the system's programming. 

It's called Project Butter, and makes much more aggressive use of CPU power to give phones and tablets extra grunt when it's needed - such as loading apps and transitioning between parts of the interface.

The S3 lock screen
However, the Google Nexus 4 once again benefits from being that little bit newer, running Jelly Bean 4.2 instead of Jelly Bean 4.1. Some of the new features that 4.2 brings are included in the custom TouchWiz UI anyway, such as Beam - which lets you transfer files using NFC - but there are a couple of extra bits. Our favourite is a complete faddy frill, called Photoshphere. This is effectively a 360-degree panorama shot, letting you see your entire surroundings rather than just a slice. 

Both the notifications menu and widgets have been given a tweak in 4.2 Jelly Bean too. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has its own share of extra bits too, though. One of the most headline-grabbing of the lot is the ability to play a video over the top of other activities - an extra bit of multi-tasking.

Storage

Google Nexus 4 - 8/16GB, non-expandable
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 16/32GB (in UK), expandable

The Google Nexus 4 continues a relatively new trend in Android devices by not letting you expand the internal storage. There's no microSD memory card slot, making the choice between the 8GB and 16GB models all the more important. 8GB will only store around five movies at good SD quality, or a petite music library. 

You have to pay £40 extra for the additional 8GB, which is an annoyance but certainly not a surprise. 64GB microSD cards can be bought for around £40 and 8GB cards for under £4. The extra space will come in extremely handy, though, especially when you consider that a chunk of the 8GB is taken up by the Android OS and its core apps.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 sticks to its geek guns, with at least 16GB of internal memory and a microSD slot hidden under the battery cover. This lets you boost storage into the stratosphere very cheaply. 

32GB and 64GB editions of the Samsung Galaxy S3 exist too, although the 64GB version is not widely available in the UK. We'd advise opting for the 16GB edition and jamming in a memory card if you find you need more memory. 

Connectivity

Google Nexus 4 - HSPA, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth, NFC, MHL video output
Samsung Galaxy S3 - HSPA, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth, NFC, MHL video output

The Google Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S3 are evenly matched on connections, in that they include just about everything you could hope to have. The one thing missing is some form of HDMI video output, although the microUSB socket on both phones is MHL compliant, meaning with the right cable you can output video and surround audio to a TV. However, the Samsung Galaxy S3 demands you use the Samsung brand cable, although you can find cheapy knock-off cables if you don't want to spend the £15-20 the official cable costs. 

Not too au fait with technical jargon? Other connection types include NFC and DLNA. NFC stands for Near-Field Communication and is a short-distance communication standard that can be used to transfer data. Its most exciting implementation is on the high street, though.

The Galaxy S3 MHL adapter
NFC can be used to buy low-cost items in certain shops. Generally it's used in food chains, such as sandwich purveyor EAT. It works a little like the contactless payment system now used by debit cards, requiring little more than a quick swipe.

Video playback

Google Nexus 4 - HD quality, Divx/MP4/H.264 support
Samsung Galaxy S3 - HD quality, Divx/MP4/H.264/MKV support

Samsung is renowned for packing excellent video support into its high-end phones - it has been going the extra mile on this front for years. As it runs stock Android, the Google Nexus 4 does not have any particularly impressive video skills. 

The Google Nexus 4 has the power to handle just about any video you could fling at it, but it won't play back MKV files without a third-party app. The Samsung Galaxy S3 will. It's still one of the best mobile phone media players on the market. Expandable memory boosts its video potential too - with a 64GB in tow, you could store quite an impressive video library on the thing.

Patchy video support doesn't need to be a deal-breaker as there are plenty of half-decent third-party video players available from Google Play. 

Camera

Google Nexus 4 - 8-megapixel rear sensor, 1.3MP user-facing, LED flash
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 8-megapixel rear sensor, 1.9MP user-facing, LED flash

Specs-wise, the cameras of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Google Nexus 4 are very similar. Both main sensors have eight megapixels a piece and both use an LED flash. The only difference is that the user-facing sensor is a little higher-powered in the Samsung Galaxy S3 - 1.9 megapixels instead of 1.3.

In practice, though, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is significantly better. Much like the video skills of the Galaxy S3, imaging is something that Samsung is good at, and it shows in the phone camera. 

Of course, you do miss out on Photosphere, which is fun. However, there are apps available from Google Play that do pretty much the same thing. 

Verdict

If you're after the best buy, the Google Nexus 4 is simply better value than the Samsung Galaxy S3 if you buy direct from Google. It's a cracking buy. Look into buying one on contract from a carrier and the argument is a lot less clear. 

The Google Nexus 4 has a newer processor, more RAM, more up-to-date software and, in our opinion at least, a slightly better screen. However, for real power users, being able to increase the Samsung Galaxy S3's memory with a microSD card will be a huge benefit. Still, the Google Nexus 4 wins this fight.