I don't have that clear a picture of the mobile landscape over the past couple of years (since the last time I was in the market for a phone), but has this not consistently been the case? I remember hearing as far back as 2010, "Specs aren't everything, android fans are obsessed with numbers". The price of course is rather new, but to my memory, this latest comparison really seems entirely in line with the last couple years of the smartphone landscape.
I think for me it's the seriousness of the tablet, more so than the phone.
Anyway, yeah, Nexus phones have always been competitive, but they've always skimped. PenTile display, or low memory or low ROM, or a shit camera on the Galaxy Nexus. This looks like PREMO nearly best you can source parts across 4, 7, 10.
