The Nexus 5 has a tough spot in the market. Thanks to its spec sheet, it will be compared to high-end phones from every other OEM. A 2.26Ghz Snapdragon 800 processor; 2GB of RAM; and a 5-inch, 1080p screen is certainly worthy of any company's flagship.

Specs at a glance: Google Nexus 5 Screen 1920×1080 4.95" (445 ppi) IPS touchscreen OS Android KitKat 4.4 CPU 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 RAM 2GB GPU 450 Mhz Adreno 330 Storage 16GB or 32GB Networking Dual Band 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS Network GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); CDMA Bands 0/1/10; WCDMA Bands 1/2/4/5/6/8/19; LTE Bands 1/2/4/5/14/19/25/26/41 Ports Micro USB, headphones Camera 8MP rear camera with OIS, 1.3MP front camera Size 137.84mm x 69.17mm x 8.59mm Weight 130g Battery 2300 mAh Starting price $350 off contract Other perks Slimport, RGB notification LED

There's one part of the spec sheet that is definitely not comparable to a flagship phone, though: the price. At only $350 off contract, the Nexus 5 comes in at around half the cost of other high-end phones—an off contract iPhone 5S is $650, an HTC One is $600, a Galaxy S 4 is $640. It's almost hard to be critical of something that delivers so much value for the money.

The Nexus 5 is the first device to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat. KitKat integrates Google Now into the home screen, brings a Google Maps-powered dialer, and features some nice design refreshes all over the OS. There's so much KitKat stuff to talk about that we're going to have a separate review focusing just on the new OS. This review, however, will mostly focus on the Nexus 5 as a piece of hardware.

We tested the black version of the Nexus 5 as opposed to the two-tone white version. While at first glance the only difference might seem to be the colors, the two phones actually use different types of plastic around the edge. The black version has a matte, soft-touch plastic on the back and sides, but the white version uses glossy plastic for the sides and matte, soft-touch plastic for the back. We haven't gotten to play with the white glossy plastic version, but it probably feels like other glossy plastics (i.e. terrible).

Even if you throw the price advantage out the window, the Nexus 5 is an extremely good piece of hardware. Google and LG have taken the G2 hardware and made a few changes that appear to be mostly for the better. The wacky rear buttons of the G2 were tossed for a much more normal side positioning, and the glossy plastic back was replaced with a much nicer feeling soft-touch plastic. However, it's not going to rival the aluminum back of the HTC One or iPhone 5S. The G2's 5.2-inch screen has been shrunk to 4.95 inches, which is still plenty big. The only really bad change is that with a smaller device comes a smaller battery: it's only 2300mAh.

We're always wary of build quality on devices that are priced this low, but Google and LG have managed to do a good job. The back is just slightly squishy around the "nexus" logo. It feels a little cheap, but you won't notice it in day-to-day usage. According to Google, the "nexus" inlay, power, and volume buttons are made out of ceramic, but that's another piece of trivia that a normal user would never notice on their own. The buttons on the review unit were securely attached without a micron of wiggle. All the buttons are where you would expect them to be, too—the volume rocker is on the left, and power and the SIM slot are on the right side.

The Nexus 5 is yet another entry in Google's refreshing commitment to minimalistic design. In a world where carrier and OEM logos are awkwardly shoehorned around the screen, on top of a button , or sometimes outright replace a button , it's wonderful to see something relegate all the branding to the back of the device. The minimalism doesn't stop there. You won't find any fake chrome, brushed aluminum, stitching, carbon fiber, or leather on this device. Assuming you pick the correct color (black, not white) you're getting a utilitarian design in full stealth mode—the logos are black, the buttons are black, the camera cover is black—the only thing that didn't get the stealth treatment is the camera flash. While everything is mostly the same color, Google kept things interesting by mixing and matching components with various levels of reflectivity. The back is matte, but all the ceramic accent pieces—the buttons and rear logos—are glossy. This is so much more grown up than the gaudy "faux" nonsense that gets slathered onto other Android phones. It's like the CR-48 of smartphones.

The 4.95-inch, 1080p IPS LCD is one of the best you can get in a smartphone. The 445ppi display is second only to that on the HTC One, which packs the same 1080p resolution into a 4.7-inch screen. The screen is bright and beautiful; so bright that max brightness indoors is sometimes a little too bright. The colors are accurate, and the IPS LCD means you'll be getting superior color reproduction over the hyper-saturated AMOLED displays.

The Nexus 5 subpixel layout (left) is a full RGB stripe, but rather than orderly rows, the display has a "wiggly" subpixel layout. This is what's usually present in HTC devices. We've yet to hear a proper name for this design, but presumably the messy layout helps the display manufacturer pack in more pixels. The high number of pixels per inch, along with the LCD's full complement of subpixels, means that you will never see a pixel or jagged edge. It's interesting to compare this to the G2, which uses a normally aligned RGB stripe.

The all-glass front is broken only by the uniquely designed earpiece, which is just an indented mesh circle. It would have been easy to slap some pre-existing part on the front of the Nexus 5, but Google and LG took the time to design something different and eye-catching. Although it looks nice, the earpiece is nothing special, performance-wise. The same goes for the 1.3MP front-facing camera, which sits at the top left of the device. That's just a big enough sensor to do a 720p video chat.

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

The soft-touch back of the Nexus 5 comes up the sides and extends just slightly above the glass touchscreen. The plastic is about as thin as it could possibly be, to the point that it's hard to see when viewed straight on. The protruding sides are so thin that they are almost sharp to the touch, but Google has rounded them enough that they're not uncomfortable.

Despite the large 5-inch screen, the Nexus 5 doesn't feel like a giant phone. Like the G2, the Nexus 5 has some of the slimmest bezels ever fitted to a phone, resulting in a device that's about the same size as the Nexus 4, despite adding 0.3 inches to the screen. According to the spec sheets, the Nexus 5 is only 1mm wider than the Nexus 4.

The extra width is hiding in the base of the Nexus 5, which, from the "waist" up, is actually a slightly rounded trapezoid. This makes the whole phone a little easier to grip. The wider base rests in the joints of your hand, and your fingers wrap around the slanted sides. Good ergonomics all around.

The one part of the design that we'd rather not have is the gigantic seam running around the perimeter of the phone. If this wasn't a Nexus device, we would swear the back was removable. A one-piece body like you would see in the iPhone 5C would have been much nicer—that is, after all, one of the advantages of plastic, isn't it? Why have a two-piece body that doesn't come apart?

The bottom of the Nexus 5 has two speaker grills but one speaker—the other side houses the microphone. The speaker is much louder than the Nexus 4 on a table, just by virtue of the speaker being able to breathe.

The Nexus 5 includes an RGB notification LED in the same spot as the Nexus 4, but this time it's significantly brighter. For some reason, Google decided to make the light only blink once every 10 seconds by default, which is pretty useless. Thankfully apps like LightFlow will let you take full control of the LED, so you can set up a fast blink speed and have different colors for every app.

The back of the Nexus 5 is dominated by a huge glass camera cover. The 13MP G2 sensor has been toned down to an 8MP version. Google has kept the optical image stabilization, though. The glass circle is raised up a bit, which will cause the device to be slightly uneven on a table. A press on the top left corner of the screen might trigger a bit of wobble, but not much more than that. It's no worse than any other device with a camera hump (which are most Android devices).