Thanks for the summary, Rob! I can't say I disagree with most of that, and I think my feelings line up with yours. I have a few comments, though:

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I'm not a fan of this new launcher, but I don't hate the Google Now integration. I don't like that it goes back to the pre-ICS method of adding widgets by long-pressing on a blank area of your homescreen. That's not a big deal when your phone has a menu key. I have four homescreens full. I have to leave a 1x1 section of one of them empty so I can switch wallpaper or add a widget.

Quick tip: long-press the dots that signify which screen you're on.

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The icon size on this launcher is absolutely out of control. They could have added another row and column of icons with such a high-res display. Instead they just made everything jumbo-sized.

Other than those two things, the new launcher and Google-fication is OK with me. If 3rd party launchers come out with a similar style, but fit more icons on the screen, I may take a look at those.

Haha! Yeah, they really are pretty enormous, aren't they? Weirdly it doesn't bother me too much. I might not entirely understand what you mean about 3rd party launchers. I used to use a launcher that could let me choose however many columns and rows (within reason) I wanted on my home screens. I had something like 5-6 columns and about 8 rows. It even adjusted the sizes of widgets, which was nice because you could really fine-tune widget sizes. I liked Zeam Launcher a lot because it was simple and lightweight.

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I don't know what they were thinking by not recessing the camera.

Yeah, that's starting to bother me. It's annoying that when the phone is resting on a flat surface, pressing on one corner makes it rock back and forth. That's a weird design choice. I would guess that's down to the OIS camera module being kind of deep. Maybe?

I think I'm seeing similar battery life to you. It sounds like they've made some great improvements in Kitkat in this department, including some sort of improvement in how the OS handles music streaming.
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Matt