A Nexus fan's take on the LG G3

My first Android phone, eww.

A little backstory, I got my first Nexus device, the original Nexus 7 shortly after it came out in the fall of 2012. This was my first Android device, I knew nothing about anything, and I grew to love it over time. I had never owned a smartphone and I decided that winter I would try. I got a Samsung Galaxy S3 and was so disappointed... It didn't look right at all, nor did it feel right. The high-contrast green on black really upset me. I began researching ways to make this device more palatable, and long story short I got heavy into rooting and custom ROMs. This got bad, to the point where I didn't spend more than a day or two without a clean flash. I wasted a lot of time trying to get the right experience. It was very frustrating.

This all finally came to rest when I got my first Nexus phone, the Nexus 5. I was in love, and I finally had what I wanted my phone to feel like originally. However, I had become so accustomed to the features present in custom ROMs that I had to root and rom this one too. I had this for quite a while, but I noticed that after playing around with different ROMs, I always went back to stock. I found the Xposed module GravityBox and used that for a while, as it provided the features I had missed without any real hassle. I enjoyed things this way for a while.

But seriously... Look at this beauty.

Recently I upgraded to an LG G3 and since it is so new, there is very little development available for it thus far. But I really quite enjoy this UI. The double-tap-to-wake is something every phone needs. I have the screen timeout down to 15 seconds, and I use the "Smart Screen" feature to keep it on when it detects my face. Even the remote works quite well, and I lost my TV remote about a week ago and haven't looked back. The features of this device keep me quite satisfied.
So far I don't miss my Nexus 5. Don't get me wrong, I did very much enjoy everything about the phone. The soft touch back, the camera, which I always had great results with, the smoothness of the UI. The G3 is better in every aspect, camera, battery, screen, size, feel. I can't emphasize the feel part enough, the weight, the size, as well as the fluidity of the OS. I was most skeptical at first of the interface, with LG's optimus UI laying on top of Android. Since playing with it for a couple weeks, I have gotten over this skepticism and grown very much fond of the flat textures and pastel colors. My favorite feature is how the status bar can change color when in some of LG's built in apps. The other great part is if you don't like a particular LG app, you can uninstall it.
This is huge, as not even stock Android will let you uninstall built in apps. Sure enough, LG's QuickMemo+, Quick Remote, even the Calculator can all be uninstalled without having to change anything about the system, and swapped out to another app of your preference. Though I have found LG's calendar to be better looking and more robust than Google's.

In short, though the screen does suck a bit more power than similar 1080p displays, I can still get a solid 12 hours out of the battery on a normal day. I am quite happy with this phone and I am really excited at the direction LG is heading in.