Nexus 6 review
Nexus 6 review! I received my #Nexus6 (Midnight Blue 64GB) Thursday night so I’ve had a chance to play with it for a few days. With my #DroidTurbo coming in the next day or so I wanted to get this out the way for that comparison. So let’s just jump right into it!!!!
After I unboxed everything I grabbed other similar sized devices to see how they compared in size. I wanted to show people that even though it’s a huge display the actual size of the phone is not too bad (unless you just don’t like big devices). After that I popped in my active sim card and proceeded to get everything setup.
The first thing you’re going to notice is the huge display!!! It is massive and there’s no way around that. I proceeded to check for flaws within the QHD AMOLED panel. Dead pixels, discoloration, and other things I like to look for. It’s what I do with every new smartphone. Everything was good. No pink/purple hues even with the screen at its possible lowest brightness (including adaptive display), whites are slightly warm compared to other panels I have, but that was expected. Am I impressed with the display, though?…. The answer is not really, but it’s not bad at all. AMOLED displays have never been my favorite. Colors of course are over saturated (but I do love those deep blacks), direct sunlight performance is not the greatest but it’s ok, and for it to be a QHD display like the LG G3 it doesn’t look as sharp. I’m guessing that’s due to the size. Overall, I give the display a 8 out of 10.
I wasn’t going to get the Nexus 6 until I had daily runs with Android 5.0 Lollipop on my M8. The cool thing about Android 5.0 is that when I signed into it everything set up on my Nexus like I had it on my M8. So it didn’t take me a lot of time to rearrange widgets and apps on my home screens. Now I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about Android 5.0. Pretty sure everyone has at least seen a few videos on it so there’s not much need to go into extreme detail. I’m an AOSP guy so I absolutely love it. Just know this is a big update like when we went from Gingerbread 2.3 to Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. Next thing I check for was performance. Especially since some people are experiencing decrease performance by the phone encryption at boot. This thing FLIES!!!!! I have yet to witness any type of stutters or lagginess people are having. This could be due to the Snapdragon 805, Quad-core clocked at 2.7 GHz, and pair off with 3GB of RAM. Every time I think Android can’t get any faster I’m proved wrong. Software and speed for me gets a 10 out of 10.
Next up is battery life. I really don’t like talking about battery life too much because everyone is different. Battery needs will vary among users. I’ve always been a light to moderate user. I survived on the Galaxy Nexus stock battery for an entire year. If you’re a previous owner of the classic GNex then you know exactly what I’m talking about lol (Thanks Franco’s kernel). My first run with the 3220mAh battery in the Nexus 6 at 100% was horrible lol….. BUT! …. That was expected, though. After my second charge the battery life started to increase. It lasted me my 8 hour work shift with about 60% left and I was using it pretty heavily at work Friday. Now the battery life for my usage is awesome. Check out the battery stats in this picture album. Battery for me is a 10 out of 10.
While I was at work Friday as well, I notice that my connectivity was a lot stronger than my HTC One M8’s. I was receiving LTE speeds in places where I was only getting HSPA. Connectivity gets a 10 out of 10.
The build quality is what you can expect from Motorola. A nice, well built device. If you’re familiar with the past Moto devices or the more recently Moto X 2014 then you know the Nexus 6 is built like a mini tank. There’s no creaking, flimsiness, and you’re damn sure not going to be able to bend this like an iPhone 6+ lol. The power and volume rockers are perfectly placed on the right hand side for reachability. The power and volume buttons also seem to be made out of the same aluminum surrounding the device (I could be wrong).The power button is ridged and the volume rocker is smooth which is a nice touch. With them being placed so closely together, it helps you differentiate between the two. The buttons also provide nice feedback when you press them and are not mushy like some people are complaining about the Nexus 9. Sim card slot is on the upper side next to the headphone jack with USB port on the bottom of the device. The screen tapers off the edges so it’s a smooth connection between the glass and metal. The surrounding edges are thinner than the middle of the device which gives it a nice feel in the hand. Although the Nexus 6 feels thinner than expected what surprised me the most is how damn slippery it is in the hand. The back of the phone is made out of a hard plastic and it’s almost as slippery as the HTC One M8 or iPhone 6. If you don’t like rocking a case and have smaller hands I strongly suggest you buy a skin to help with the grip of the Nexus 6. Another thing I noticed Friday when I was using it at work is I can use it with one hand!!!! I’m a big guy. Around 6’3, size 14 shoes, and could palm a basketball lol so the fact that I can use it one handed is a major plus. Build quality I give it a 9 out of 10 for it slipperiness.
The camera is decent. My time with it Saturday I took some really great landscape shots. The Nexus 6 pretty much has the same camera the OnePlus One does. The Nexus curse of bad cameras has definitely been lifted this year (but I don’t think the Nexus 5 or GNex had horrible cameras, but that my opinion. Maybe I just take good shots). My only issue with the camera is stock Android. The leg up skinned Android has over AOSP are the features provided in the camera app. I’m an amateur photographer with a DSLR camera and love playing with different setting (ISO, exposures, and things like that). The thing with Google and Motorola is that they’re camera app provide people with minimal options compared to the competition (Photosphere is pretty bad ass though). The stock Android camera app is not bad at all, but it’s just not on par with other OEM camera apps. For example the camera app on the Nokia Icon (930) is just amazing. And I’m not sure why Google doesn’t make the camera app a little more of a priority with mobile cameras being a major selling point now. If I could port the Sense UI camera app to stock Android I would be head over hills. The front facing camera is average as well. I give the camera a 7.5 out of 10.
Well, that’s pretty much all I have to say about the Nexus 6. Remember this is all personal opinion on how I see the device. I’m enjoying it and as long as i don’t have quality issues like I did with the Nexus 5…. The Nexus 6 is here to stay until the next. Using it, I can definitely understand the price tag and it feels nice to have a high quality Nexus smartphone.
If you read this thank you and let me know your thoughts on the Nexus 6.