| Pros: | Cons: |
| + Powerful | - Overly large |
| + Stylish design | - No microSD card slot |
| + Great screen | - Higher priced than its predessecors |
"The Nexus 6 is far and away the most cutting edge Nexus yet, but with a phablet size and in all likelihood a high price tag it might not have as wide an appeal as the Nexus 5."
One of the most attractive aspects of at least the last two Nexus handsets was how affordable they were. You were getting high end hardware at a fraction of the price as well as getting the latest and purest versions of Android.
With the Nexus 6 you still get to enjoy Android in all its glory and Google and Motorola have pushed the hardware from high end to top end, delivering a device which can compete with anything else out there in specs. But in doing so it’s also pushed the price up and as such the appealing affordability is no longer there.
The question is then can the Nexus 6 compete when it’s likely to be just as expensive as every other flagship? Read on to find out.
The screen on the Nexus 6 is undeniably impressive. At 5.96 inches it’s in full-fledged phablet territory, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective but at the very least seems like an odd decision as it’s unlikely to have as wide an appeal as a screen of around 5 inches.
One change that’s definitely for the better is the resolution, as the Nexus 6 has a 1440 x 2560 display with a pixel density of 493 pixels per inch. It’s impeccably sharp and you’ll be hard pressed to make out any pixels even if you hold it right up to your face.
The use of AMOLED technology also makes it brighter and more vibrant than the Nexus 5 and it’s a top flight screen all round, just as long as you’re ok with the size.
The Nexus 5 has a fairly bland design and while there are some similarities here the Nexus 6 is certainly more stylish overall.
The easiest way to look at it is as an oversized Moto X, because that’s essentially what it is, with the same slightly curved shell, the same metal frame and the same dimple in the back housing an ‘M’ logo.
That metal frame helps mark it out as a high end handset and it looks good, if still fairly plain. Though at 159.3 x 83 x 10.1mm and 184g it’s quite large and heavy, so it’s not the most pocket friendly phone around. It also lacks the water and dust proofing that many of its contemporaries have.
With a 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor and 3GB of RAM the Nexus 6 has the same horsepower as the Galaxy Note 4 and we were hugely impressed by that phones performance.
This really is a top tier handset and a marked improvement over past Nexus phones which tended to have high but not quite top end specs.
There’s really not even much that needs that much power, but it means that performance should be fast and faultless and the Nexus 6 should remain a capable performer for a good few years.
Nexus phones have never been known for their cameras but that might be about to change, as with a 13 megapixel sensor, optical image stabilisation and a dual-LED flash the Nexus 6 is certainly well equipped on paper.
It should be good at recording video too as it can manage 2160p at 30fps and the front-facing snapper is a respectable but not over the top 2 megapixels. We haven’t had a chance to put the camera through its paces yet but the specs certainly bode well.
Android 5.0 Lollipop is of course the star of the show on the Nexus 6. The phone runs it out of the box so it’s one of the first places you’ll be able to experience the latest version of Google’s mobile OS.
We’ve covered Android Lollipop elsewhere but it’s a substantial improvement over Android 4.4, with a new, flatter design, enhanced notifications, improved battery life and more. Of course other phones will get updated to Android 5.0 over time, but most will have manufacturer overlays, so you won’t be able to experience it as Google intended unless you have a Nexus.
The Nexus 6 also has dual front-facing stereo speakers which should lead to a vastly improved audio experience over the mono Nexus 5.
The Google Nexus 6 has a sizeable 3220 mAh battery pack so it should be able to keep on going for quite a long time, even with a QHD screen and all that power under the hood, especially as the Snapdragon 805 is an efficient processor and Android Lollipop includes battery optimisations.
According to Google you can get up to 24 hours of use from a single charge and the phone supports fast charging, delivering up to 6 hours of use from just 15 minutes of charging.
There’s a choice of 32 or 64GB of built in storage but in typical Nexus fashion there’s no microSD card slot. That’s a shame, but at least the built in storage is fairly generous.
For connectivity options you get Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, so in other words the standard selection of features you’d expect on a high end handset.
When it comes to specs the Nexus 6 ticks just about every box you could hope for. It’s one of the most powerful phones on the market with one of the highest resolution screens on the market, a well-equipped camera and a premium design. Battery life should be good too and while there’s no microSD card slot there’s plenty of storage built in.
Really we can only see two problems with the Nexus 6 but they could both be quite substantial. Firstly there’s the size. At 5.96 inches this is a very big phone, now that’s not necessarily a problem as there’s a large market for phablets, but we’d wager that it’s dwarfed by the market for more pocketable handsets and there’s no smaller Nexus other than the year old Nexus 5.
The bigger problem though is the price. In fairness Google hasn’t yet confirmed the UK price, but with a US price of $649 it’s likely to come in at around £500. The Nexus 5 by comparison launched at around £300, so you see the problem.
Yes this is a better phone, but is it £200 better? We’re not so sure and with a price like that it will also be directly competing with the likes of the iPhone 6 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.
It’s not necessarily a worse phone than them, but other than the stock Android experience there’s also now little reason to choose it over them. Our first impressions then are that this is a great phone, but one which might be just a little too expensive.
Our full Google Nexus 6 review is coming soon!
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Dimensions : 159.3 x 83 x 10.1mm Weight: 184 grams Screen size: 5.96” AMOLED (1440 x 2560) Screen Resolution: 1440 x 2560 display resolution Pixels Per Inch (PPI) : 493 Processor: 2.7GHz Quad core application processor RAM: 3 GB On-board Memory: 32/64GB Camera: 13MP (rear) 2160p@30fps, (2 megapixel front-facing) Operating system: Android 5.0 Ultrafast / 3G / 4G LTE: Yes/ Yes/ Yes Bluetooth / NFC : Yes/ Yes Battery capacity: 3220mAh Colours: Midnight Blue, Cloud White Launch Date: November Price: TBC (Expected to be £500) |
