Google Nexus 5 Available in Malaysia

Update: IPMart is selling the 32GB international LTE version of the Nexus 5 for RM1,849 while TechBug is selling the 16GB international LTE version for RM1,599. (Hat tip to Jesus and hazzery from the comments for the updates)

Good news, the Nexus 5 is available in Malaysia. Bad news, it’s not official from LG and it’s expensive.

A popular seller on Lelong.com have the Nexus 5 in stock but you must know that the unit being sold are gray imports which means you’re not going to get any warranty from LG. The seller is asking for RM1,999 for the 16GB LTE version. That’s a bit pricey considering that for about RM100 more you could get probably the best Android smartphone in the market right now — the Galaxy Note 3 — for around RM2,100 (Samsung warranty) from some online sellers. Also, the 16GB Nexus 5 retails for US$349 in the US and that’s about RM1,200 according to today’s conversion rate. That’s an astonishing RM800 premium over the US list price. Even if you factor in delivery cost from the US, the price from this Lelong.com seller is still rather exorbitant.

Manufactured by LG, the Nexus 5 features a 4.95-inch 1080p display with Gorilla Glass 3 and a top-of-the-line 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB RAM. In terms of cameras, you get a 1.3MP front shooter and a 8MP at the rear complete with optical image stabilisation. Google has also packed in wireless charging capabilities, LTE, NFC and a 2,300mAh battery. Unlike the all-glass Nexus 4, the Nexus 5 has a more conventional plastic back panel.

And of course the Nexus 5 is powered by Google’s latest and greatest Android version to date — 4.4 KitKat. Google engineers have designed KitKat so that it can run on the most basic of devices with as little as 512MB of RAM. With KitKat, the operating system’s memory footprint has been reduced considerably by removing unnecessary background services and reducing the memory consumption of features that you use all the time. RAM is usually one of the most expensive parts of a smartphone and by allowing its latest version of Android to run with less RAM, Google is opening up possibilities for manufacturers to expand their low-end market offerings with new features.

You check the seller’s listing of the Nexus 5 here.