The new Nexus 4 is everything I hoped the Galaxy Nexus would be when it came out a year ago. I've spent a bit of time with Google's new handset, and it feels and performs like a true flagship phone. The build quality and materials used are about as high-end as you can get. The LG-built Nexus 4 is a big step forward for Google’s Nexus line of products.

Like the iPhone 4 and 4S, the Nexus 4 has glass panels front and back, with a center band that holds everything together. But it doesn’t seem fragile. I feel like I could drop the Nexus 4 without it shattering, something I’ve never felt with glass-backed iPhones. The two glass panels on the Nexus 4 are Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2, which offer a good deal of scratch resistance and strength.

The display is big and beautiful – 4.7-inches of 1280 × 768 resolution, detailed and vivid without being too overly saturated. If anything, colors skew a bit cool. Nothing I've seen so far – photos, websites, video, apps – look anything short of great. The edges of the front glass panel roll into the sides of the phone, which makes the Nexus 4 not only very comfortable to clutch but also a joy to swipe your fingers across. There are no hard edges to get in the way, just smooth glass – a design trait we’ve seen on the displays of the HTC One X and 8x and Nokia’s Lumia 800.

The center band is made of a rubberized plastic that has a soft, grippy touch to it. It’s a nice and practical contrast to the glass that makes up the rest of the phone. On the rear, LG has added a texture beneath the glass that glimmers when the light catches it just right. It's subtle. Most of the time it's not even visible. But every now and then there's a shimmer that reminds me of Neo seeing the Matrix for the first time. It’s a unique bit of design flair that suggests a high level of attention to detail. Interestingly, though, there is no Google logo to be found on the hardware. That trademark of Nexus phones past is gone, replaced by a chrome Nexus logo on the back.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Everything runs on Google’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, free of any carrier add-ons or third-party skins. This is still the fastest and the best overall Android experience you can find on any handset. There’s a ton of newness here that I need to dive into further before writing up my full review, including a new 8-megapixel camera that can shoot Street View-style 360-degree panoramas, wireless charging, Qualcomm’s 1.5-GHz Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor, and all the updates found in Android 4.2 over 4.1.

The Galaxy Nexus was a great smartphone and one of my favorite gadgets of all time, despite the cheap-feeling plastic body and muddy 5-megapixel camera. So I'm happy to say that the Nexus 4 is an improvement on the Galaxy Nexus in just about every way. There is one notable omission, though: LTE connectivity. I test a lot of phones and tablets, many of them with LTE from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. LTE can be blazing fast. It’s faster than 3G service (which is still fast) and, when it’s at its best, it’s faster than T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network. But by no means is the Nexus 4, or T-Mobile’s network, slow. The Nexus 4 I’m using is running on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network (which can hit speeds as high as 42 mbps), and here in San Francisco service has been both reliable and fast for me over the last day.

I do expect that there will eventually be an LTE version, though. Last year’s Galaxy Nexus was released in LTE variants for Sprint and Verizon, and I don’t see Google giving up on working with those carriers (and maybe even AT&T eventually). But at this point, releasing an LTE-free Nexus 4 allows Google to deliver an unlocked phone that will work in most mobile markets around the world. LTE is in its infancy, and AT&T, Verizon and Sprint's LTE networks are running on unique bandwidths, which would mean Google would need to build a special version of the Nexus 4 for each carrier if it were to go the LTE route.

Skipping that mess of carrier politics, for now, is a big part of why Google will be able to sell the Nexus 4 unlocked at the fantastic prices of $300 with 8GB of storage, and $350 with 16GB of storage on its Google Play online store. T-Mobile will also sell the 16GB model at $200 on a 2-year contract. The Nexus 4 starts shipping Nov. 13.