What's missing from the Nexus 4?

The LG Nexus 4 is Google's latest Android device to land, and although it looks pretty good, with an amazingly cheap SIM free price of £239 for the 8GB version, it does have a few foibles.

It does seem LG and Google have cut a few corners here and although that may be down to its bargain basement price, it's a little disappointing to see some essentials missing from the spec list.

Expandable memory

The LG Nexus 4 may include either 8GB or 16GB internal storage, depending on how much you wish to spend, but there's no microSD card slot, which limits things somewhat.

Although microSD card storage seems a little outdated with cloud services and onboard memory, it's still important for consumers to have the choice whether they want to add more.

Apple may have managed to revolutionise the 'no extra stroage' approach, but at least it offers a 32GB and 64GB option of its smartphones. Those buying the 8GB iteration will run out of space pretty fast if they want to listen to music and pack it full of apps.

LTE/4G

With 4G being all the rage and it coming to the UK very soon, it seems strange LG has omitted high speed internet access, especially as the Samsung Galaxy S3 supports Everything Everywhere's LTE network, as does Apple with the iPhone 5 and Nokia with the Lumia 920.

The Nexus 4 does support HSPA+, which is some way to go towards fast internet access, but it's not the same and we expected more from Google and LG.

Google's Android head Andy Rubin told The Verge it didn't include LTE because of 'tactical issues' - meaning cost and battery life are key concerns.

Google wanted to make sure the device was ready for all networks, and not just those with LTE enabled. However, other manufacturers have managed to produce different versions - why can't Google/LG?

Android Key Lime Pie

this is a bit of a contentious missing piece to the puzzle, but the Nexus 4 launches on a new version of Android Jelly Bean, not Key Lime Pie as the whole world was speculating.

There are a huge array of new features in the update, but we were hoping a little slice of Android pie would join the Jelly Bean Android and Gingerbread man.

You've ruined our fun, Google.