It has a few quirks, but it’s an extremely well-made device and takes full advantage of Android’s latest operating system, Marshmallow. Well, maybe not every year: This time around there are two of them.
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The Nexus 5X has a 5.2-inch full HD display.
The Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, an operating system update that brings a handful of significant improvements. This year, we’re doing the same thing. But these phones are worth far more than a 48-hour look. Or, at least it did when I picked one up. And the looks? Eh. So, if you want to get notified, there’s two steps.
USB Type-C is going to be awesome.
Side note: I keep writing this and nobody listens. Is it good? Is it bad? Following up on what they’ve established last with the Nexus 5 from a couple of years ago, LG goes after the affordability route with the Google Nexus 5X. The $429 32GB model is the only model anyone should consider buying.
Pleasingly, Google has recognised that we don’t want to be wasting time clicking icons when there’s something pictureworthy happening. My advice: Don’t even consider the 16GB model.
Onward and backward! You can’t miss the 12.3-megapixel camera at the top of the 6P’s back because it’s surrounded by a spacious, glassy back bar. That’s also why there’s a dearth of antenna lines etched into the 6P’s frame – only four small ones are visible extending out of the black bar, and none of them help break up the phone’s clean lines. The sensor is large, which is the reason each phone has a subtle hump where the camera lies. To use a cliché, it works like a charm.
The sensor is fast, and very easy to set up to recognize the print of your sensor finger on both hands. And then when it did land, I was blown away with how good COS12 was.
As mentioned, the 6P sports a surprisingly pretty 5.7-inch, WQHD screen.
Above: The Nexus 6P lasted through the weekend (almost) on a single charge. Despite a more rounded feel, it has also gained six grams on its earlier incarnation. Just like the new Moto X is. Longtime readers will know I’m sort of a sucker for oversaturated colors.
Color-wise you have a choice between aluminium, graphite, and frost.
Of course, what’s a decent screen without quality audio to go with it? BoomSound speakers these ain’t.
The big number version, as opposed to a dot release, may trick you into believing there are lots of sweeping updates, but there really aren’t that many.
We’ll have a deeper, more nuanced review of Android 6.0 Marshmallow for you soon, but here’s what you need to know about the new OS and the Nexus 6P. With Marshmallow, it lasts until 6pm easily, under the same usage load. The phones last much longer in standby mode and the resultant power savings are impressive if users configure settings to get the most out of it but standing by often. Google’s going to find more competitive markets harder to crack, but Fi could become a major force in the mobile industry if it plays its cards right. And that would be a welcome change indeed. Apple’s Siri can perform similar feats, but I found Google’s ability to make inferences more consistent across different types of data. Say you’re reading an article about famed anime studio Sunrise. In certain situations, it opens quickly, focuses, and shoots immediately after you press the shutter button. We take a look at the important new features. Here’s an example from this weekend which drove me up a wall.
Apple may have pioneered the best (not the first) fingerprint sensor starting with the iPhone 5S, but the 5X surpasses it and even the iPhone 6S’s second-gen TouchID sensor, which is twice as fast.
It’s a hit-or-miss feature and I can only see it getting better with more time. On average, the battery drained about 3 or 4 percent an hour while the 6P was hanging out on my desk, so you shouldn’t have to worry about waking up and rushing to the office with a dead phone in tow.
For instance, in Gmail, when I opened up an email for a UPS package tracking confirmation, it showed options to Google “UPS”, go directly to UPS.com, or look up UPS on Google News. While this is mostly an autonomic function, you can always pop into the developer settings and toggle apps into inactivity yourself. I would probably compare it to the camera experience seen on Motorola’s phones, which is to say that it’s basic and does its best to just get out of your way.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the one thing Google and Huawei really needed to nail. I lean towards the darker colors, but it’s a personal call. Still, there’s plenty of detail in the resulting shots. In fact, one could argue that at the time, TouchWiz was Android for me, as it was the only Android I knew. For a Nexus phone, that’s huge. Especially combined with the light weight of the phone, it’s just too easy to drop. But most of the time, unless you’re already looking at what you’re looking for, Now on Tap can’t figure it out. Aside from just pointing and shooting, you can swipe over on the screen to shoot relatively impressive 4K video, or fire off a panorama or a Photo Sphere.
Make no mistake, though: The Nexus 6P still feels fast.
Back in 2012, I wrote that Android’s OS might be best suited for tablets. The power button is textured, the volume rocker smooth.
Cameras We’ll get to the cameras.
I could spend an eternity bringing up Google’s past blunders, but I won’t, simply on account the 5X has two of the best cameras on Android.
I can’t overstate how much more usable the 6P is than the Nexus 6. This will be an absolutely incredible feature once we get more phones with Type-C ports. It’s becoming more and more apparent that consumers can get more tech for their money on the Android side of the fence, and the Nexus 6P is case in point. Very smart. It’s super fast to unlock, too.
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The Nexus 5X has also a rectangular body, but its corners are more round and the back has a molded plastic finish, while the fingerprint scanner is located below the rear camera. The disadvantage is that historically the Nexus series has been built with good-enough hardware rather than something that will blow your socks off, in a good way. And did I mention it has expandable memory, too? Though the 5X has the same Snapdragon 808 chip as the Pure edition, it lacks a 128GB model for the digital hoarders out there. But, you would be forgiven for thinking this was stock.
