Nexus 4 doesn’t support USB OTG out of the box? Ouch.

The earpiece on the Nexus 4 emitting buzzing and clicking noises for no apparent reason isn’t the only problem with Google’s latest flagship Nexus smartphone, as users are reporting that the USB On-The-Go functionality on the phone is broken and doesn’t work, despite Google saying that it does support the feature.

For the uninitiated, USB On-The-Go, or USB OTG, allows you to connect external USB devices such as hard disks, keyboard and mice, and even game controllers, but according to a few XDA forum members, the Nexus 4 fails to detect any external USB device. Even AnandTech, who review devices and benchmark them, has confirmed that the Nexus 4 doesn’t connect to any USB device.

Apparently, even partial support as on the Nexus 7, which supports keyboards and mice but not storage devices without any modification, is not available on the Nexus 4, making it effectively useless, despite Google mentioning in the Nexus 4 manual (page 43) that USB OTG is a feature supported out of the box.

While many users will be able to flash a custom kernel and gain USB OTG functionality, it isn’t an elegant solution, so hopefully Google will be adding support in a future update after reading complaints about the issue.

Via: GSMArena

2 Comments

  1. That is what they get for letting LG do this one. Hopefully it will be lesson learned for them.

  2. google just wants the people to use their cloud storage and wants that everyone buys movies and music through the play store… very sad.

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