- All-metal design Unlocked, LTE smartphone with a powerful 2GHz Snapdragon 810 V2.1 Processor and the newest Android software, Android 6.0 marshmallow.
- A 5.7-Inch, high-resolution wqhd AMOLED display and front-facing stereo speakers to experience your photos and videos in cinematic Quality.
- The powerful 12 MP Camera was built to capture your world in true-to-life detail. Larger 1.55 µM pixels absorb more light¹ in even the dimmest conditions to make your photos Brighter.
- Quicker access and more security with a fingerprint sensor placed on the back to complement the way you naturally hold your Phone.
- Long lasting 3,450 mAh battery with quick charging USB Type-C plug. it's reversible, so there's no more guessing which way is up.
Appearance
This is highly subjective and for many people largely irrelevant. Most people slap their phone in a case. So what it's made out of and how it looks and feels is more a function of the case than the phone. For those who like to use it without a case there are plenty of observations and pictures. I thought it looked fine, slapped it in a case, stuck a screen protector on it and moved on to more important things.
Size
With a 5.7 inch screen it is a large phone. Iphone 6+ class. I played with the iphone 6+ for a while and found I didn't mind the size so for me (glove size medium) the size was acceptable. With a slim case I can slip it into the pocket of my jeans without issue. Makes reading easier, movies more enjoyable.
Screen
It's pretty. Bright, excellent off angle viewing. Has a slight green tint to it, but in my experience tint varies from phone to phone. The pixel resolution is high so everything is crisp. Though probably overkill. At least for my eyes.
Speakers
Twin front facing speakers. They are ok, don't mistake them for a good stereo system though. When I play tunes in the car its decent, though not as good as using the car stereo.
Call Quality
I use Tmobil as the carrier. Call quality is crisp, though perhaps a little high pitched compared to reality. Easy to understand but not audio realistic. Speakerphone works fine.
Data Quality
I live in a 4G LTE area so data speed is pretty good. Seems to get good reception, though this is more a function of the carrier than the phone. Speedtests vs the 3G Moto G showed 2-3x as fast.
General Speed
This is a tough one to measure but the general speed and lag when doing items. Switching between aps, opening them, closing them etc. Its powered by top of the line chips (as of 2015) and I have no real complaints. It's a big improvement over the moto G which could sometimes take up to 3 seconds to do something. Most of the time operations are instant or less than a second. Sometimes I will find a little lag if I've been using it a lot and flipping back and forth.
Heating up
There is a lot of concern about the Snapdragon 810's overheating and things slowing down. So far I haven't found that to be the case. On some occasions the phone will get slightly warm wheras my Moto-G would get warm enough to be nice on cold hands. I do run it with a fairly slim plastic case. So far heating is a non-issue.
Battery life
This phone has two personalities on battery life. If you have it in your pocket, move around, watch movies etc the battery life is nothing exceptional. It will get you through the day but you'll want to charge it at night. But if you leave it to idle (no movement at all) it goes into Doze mode (function of android 6.0 and some hardware optimization) which sips power. Overnight it will drop maybe 5%, maybe less. Android 6 has a good battery use graph you can look at and see. Its cool because you can almost match up what you were doing by the battery consumption.
Battery Charging
It comes with the nexus charger and a long (probably 3 foot) power cable. This long cable is only used for charging (both sides are the USB C tips so you can't plug it into a regular computer USB port). With the included charge it charges fast it will jump by 40% in around 20 minutes. Even the slower charging off that charger is more than 1%/minute. The downside is from what I've read its “fast charging” technology doesn't play will with other “quick charge” tech used by other phone makes. So if you want it fast you have to buy the rather expensive google fast chargers for now. If you use a non-OEM charger it still works fine, charges as fast (or faster) than other phones.
USB-C
One gotcha on this is that it uses USB –C. This is a mixed bag. It means that the port is incompatible with 99% of what's currently out there as of 2015. This means bring your own cable (or adaptor). However USB-C is where the industry is supposed to go so a few years from now you will be mainstream and everyone else is going to be so 2014..
It does come with a short (9 inch) USB-C cable for hooking it up to your computer. When you do plug it in you have the option of what you would like it to do, charge, be a disk etc) got to remember to do that or all it does is recharge (no data transfer).
I ordered a couple of Micro-USB to USB-C adaptors and they seem to work. Plug them into the existing tips of my chargers to charge at work and in the car.
When googles chargers get more reasonably priced (and work on a 12v plug) I plan to get one for the car. With the rapid charge even plugging it in for a few minutes on errands will be enough to keep you going. But for now I'd avoid getting a new charger unless it explicitly claims it works with the 6p in fast charge mode.
Fingerprint Sensor
Something you never knew you'd miss till you had it. My wifes Iphone 6+ has one and it can be a bit flakey at times. This sensor has been pretty rock solid. The placement on the back is pretty good, its natural to reach for it when you pick the phone up. Just touch the sensor and it unlocks the phone, quick and easy, no PIN required. This is really a huge benefit. It saves a lot of time vs swiping around on the pad just to check something and integrates into the security settings. One of the really cool things about it vs the Iphone 6+ is the ability to store multiple fingers vs 1. So I have the index and middle finger of both hands. Being able to use the middle finger is huge because when you pick the phone off the desk and shift your fingers to the back its easier to use the longer middle finger than the index finger.
In addition to multiple finger you can have multiple users. So you can give someone else access by storing their fingers without having to give them your PIN.
This fingerprint unlock is especially useful at night when you wake from sleep and need to check something. You can unlock it with one hand vs having to hold it with one and swipe around with the other.
The sensor is fast and accurate, it's a tool not a toy.
Camera
FINALLY someone decided not to follow the megapixel trap and focus on quality. I do photography as a side job and have bemoaned the “more megapixels is better because it looks better on a spec sheet” for years. This phone as a 12MP main shooter on the back (which is PLENTY of MP for anything but the most specialized of zoom ins). Instead of more MP they used larger sensor points which if done right (and it has been done right) leads to higher quality images. So you get a better picture vs a muddy mess that you can blow up 50x to see just how lousy the image is. The sensor combined with a f2.0 lens gives you a lot of options. I got shots that were ISO 2000 F2 1/15 sec under a street light there were still very usable. Its really giving point and shoot cameras a run. Though newer PNS cameras can still beat it in terms of flexibility and image quality and ergonomics. Trying to take a picture one handed is tricky and will likely result in some camera shake. The lens is a fixed focal length of somewhere around 28mm. So it's got a fair amount wide angle distortion at the edges, but that's what you get with 28mm.
The laser assist focus is nice. Focal speed is fast and accurate, even in lower light.
I haven't used the flash that much but so far it looks pretty good. So taking pictures of your friends indoors should come out ok.
Within the google camera app you have some cool features. You can do a Panorama shoot. You can also do the photosphere. Think of it as shooting a 360 VR image. No idea of what software it takes to look at the image OFF the phone, but its cool.
Video
I'm not a big video guy, but you've got the option of 720P, 1080P or HD4K. I've just played around with it but playback on the phone doesn't have any real difference between the resolutions chosen.
Another video option is high speed video, you can shoot at 120 FPS or 240 FPS. This means you can do some really cool slow motion stuff, though make sure you have lots of light, especially for the 240 FPS. Its not prime time quality slow motion video (those cameras run at 1-2K+/FPS. But it is fun to play with. When you are looking at the clip on the phone you can choose a lead in and lead out to play at “normal” speed and then the good parts of the clip in slow motion. These lead-in/lead-out settings do not extend to other applications though. If you upload or open it in another app the entire clip is slow-motion.
Software
A computer is only as good as its software. This comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow which is pretty slick. I used Kit-Kat (4.x) for years and I have to say I like 6.x better. 6.x can do a lot of cool stuff, but it can do that on just about any phone its on so its not unique to the nexus. What is nice about the nexus is that its pure and clean, no skinning, no extra bloatware or other carrier/manufacturer “improvements”. This was one of the selling points of the Moto – G/X is that they had minimal extras and some of those extras where actually pretty cool. Many of those features have been incorporated into 6.0 and the Nexus.
Full time Google Now
Train it and you can say “Ok Google” or some other phrase and it pulls up a google search or a number of other commands. Useful for sending a text message while driving. Alas it doesn't read the texts you get like the Motorola did. The thing about the Nexus is that this feature can be turned on full time. You don't have to be at a home screen. You can wake up in the middle of the night with the phone locked in doze mode and say “OK Google, what time is it” without having to open your eyes. Google now has increasingly tight integration with other google apps. Both the Motorola and the nexus phones have a processor optimized to handle this full time awareness with little battery cost. The commands are keyed to your voice so your kids are not going to get away with yelling “OK Google, play Death Metal” just as you walk into the dentist. Accuracy is pretty good though not perfect.
Android Pay
The phone has near field communication so you can hook up android pay and use it to pay at some credit card terminals. NOTE: No all Credit Cards can be used with android pay, only some banks support it.
Fingerprint unlock to buy – Buy something on the google store and you can use your fingerprint to supply the password for the purchase. That's slick. Maybe other shopping places (amazon, hint…hint…hint..) will pick this up.
Notifications
While in sleep mode if you get a notification it will bubble up and then go away. You can still have the blinking notification light which now has multiple color options. Alas the notification detail does not continue to pulse like on the moto x. It doesn't come up again if you put your hand over the phone like the X. But if you pick the phone up (detects a movement pattern) it will come up again. Hats off to Motorola for perfecting this feature where the nexus is playing catch up.
Carrier Choice – I use it on T-mobile, but I could move over to Verizon or Sprint or ATT and not have to get a new phone. One phone to use them all.
There are of course lots of other cool features for Android 6.0 that I'm still discovering. But these are the key ones that are tied into the Nexus.
Cons
There are a few negatives about this phone, though they are not unique to the nexus.
Memory – There is no card slot like on the Motorola's. Result, memory is fixed. Consequently I sprang for the 128G model (which came with about 111mb actual free space). This was one area the Moto-X excelled in. I wanted to keep a lot of pictures and music on the phone and not regret buying the cheaper phone with less storage a few years from now. Yes I know it's a rip off (it only costs them a few bucks more to put that extra ram in but they charge big $) but it makes the phone functional for what I need now and in the future.
Battery – Not user replaceable. Someone on Youtube did a tear down and getting at the battery was in the “don't even think about it” category unless you work on electronics and have specialized tools. I had to accept that two years from now I'm going to be shelling out another $70+ to get my battery life back.
Price – Not really a pro or a con but an observation. Its about $150 more than a Moto-X and $150 less than a top end Samsung. But if you look at the total cost of ownership combined with how much use you get out of a phone these price differences are minor. A smart phone plan can run you $50/month, many run $80. Even at $50 over two years that's $1200. Add another $500 “base” cost for a good phone and $150 becomes less than a 10% price difference. Now take that $150 more and divide it by how much use you get out of the phone (how many hours). Even if you only use your phone actively for an hour a day over 2 years your looking at a 20 cent an hour difference in cost. If you use it more or it lasts 3 vs two that cost drops to pennies and hour. Don't be scared off by the initial price, think about what utility your buying in the long term.
Conclusion
This is a great phone. Maybe I'm biased because its my first “flagship” phone. It has great features both hardware and software. I don't find the size to be problematic. I love the full time Google now and wouldn't want to live without a fingerprint sensor. The camera is great for a phone, though it's no SLR replacement. A worthy buy.
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