Price: $650-$700 off contract
On Sale Date: November 13
Comparing the three Nexus phones (4, 5 and the new Nexus 6), it is remarkable how Google's flagship smartphone line has evolved. The Nexus 4 is modest by today's standards, though still a great phone with a solid 4.7-inch 720p screen of pure Android, followed by the Nexus 5 and its 4.95-inch 1080p screen and a significant improvement in hardware, bolstered by Android’s KitKat operating system.
And today we have the Nexus 6. It’s huge. It’s powerful. And it’s fantastic… if you can get over how huge and expensive it is.
Design
The Nexus 6 is big. It’s got a 6-inch screen (technically 5.96 inches), bigger than the iPhone 6 Plus at 5.5 inches and the Moto X at 5.2 inches. It’s heavier than either device weighing in at 6.49 ounces. Google chose Motorola as its manufacturing partner for the Nexus 6, and with its curved back is reminiscent of the Moto X. The Motorola symbol appears on the back above the “NEXUS” lettering.
The device sports two colors, midnight blue and cloud white. Stereo speakers are mounted at the top and bottom on the front of the device, and perform loud and clear. The only physical buttons are the very small power button above the volume button on the right side. Google has stuck to its guns about microSD slots—you won’t find any here. And the 3220 mAh battery is non-removable. The AMOLED touchscreen is smooth with no raised bezels and the display is absolutely gorgeous, coming in at 1440 x 2560 pixels and about 493 ppi.
If you’ve held a Moto X, the Nexus 6 will have a similar feel in your hand, but Nexus 6 is bigger, heavier, heftier. The problem I encountered is that my hands fall on the smaller side and it's difficult to hold the phone in one hand. Apple addressed this problem in the iPhone 6 Plus by incorporating a double-tap option on the home button to bring the screen down. But Google doesn't offer such a feature on the Nexus 6. If you don’t mind occasionally reaching across the screen to tap or grab something toward the top, you should be fine. But this device is difficult, small hands or not, to use one-handed.
Operating System
It’s impossible to talk about the Nexus 6 without talking about Android 5.0 Lollipop, the next generation of Android OS. Android 5.0 Lollipop is Google's best OS yet. It’s snappy, responsive and beautiful. Google calls the new design language of their home apps “material design,” and on the big Nexus 6, apps like Calendar and Inbox by Gmail are revamped with more squares, circles and rigidity (in a good way) than they’ve used in the past. It’s an amazing design language, and Android fans will love it. It’s prettier than native KitKat, but still less flashy than Samsung’s TouchWiz skin.
One of the best features of Lollipop (and the Nexus 6) is how simple it is to set up a new device. Lollipop lets a user transfer customized settings and apps to their new phone with a “tap and go” feature that rivals Apple’s cloud backups. It’s a small feature of the new OS, but a big one. Another feature worth noting is that notifications are stacked on the lock notifications screen to provide a clear preview of notifications, along with the ability to swipe them away or prioritize them based on preference. If the phone is awake, a user swipes down to see notifications, and swipes again to see settings. On the lock screen notifications will display upon tap in black and white to save battery power. There are countless other new features worth checking out that Google optimized for the Nexus 6.
Material design is a big breakthrough for Google. The OS feels more streamlined, and its emphasis on design as well as functionality makes it appealing to current iPhone users who are considering ditching IOS for Android. Lollipop works like a charm on the big Nexus 6, so much so that I can’t imagine running KitKat on it.
Performance
Supposedly, the larger, more powerful 3220 mAh battery means longer battery life—about 24 hours with mixed use, according to Google. I found this to fall a little short, but I was using the device heavily and pairing it with Android Wear. In any case, I got a full day's use out of the device, finishing with about 20% battery life at the end of the day. The battery is also capable of wireless charging, and has all the information you need in the battery information to optimize your phone’s day life.
Many Android phones experience lag, depending on how many operations are running at simultaneously. I didn’t experience lag with the Nexus 6's Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 2.7 GHz processor. Granted, I haven’t spent months or years with it, but from what I’ve experienced it’s a very responsive phone capable of multitasking.
The 13 megapixel camera on the back has optical image stabilization and a dual-LED flash. Image quality will vary based on the photographer and environment, of course, but generally I found my photos to be crystal-clear. The manual autofocus is definitely cool, but it can be a distraction when you have to touch the screen every time you try to snap a quick pic. Other features of the camera include a panorama and a lens blur mode. An Instagram filter will produce the same blur effect, and I discovered that the lens blur mode is difficult to use when you have to move slowly. Overall, the Nexus 6 camera takes good quality pictures but taking quick shots seemed a little tougher.
Video looks crisp and clear on the large screen. I showed a buddy Too Many Cooks on it, and it felt like we were watching it on a tablet, complete with the feeling that, because of its heft, my hand was getting tired holding the phone up in landscape.
The keyboard is flawless, and the haptic feedback is just enough to be comfortable. I made only a few mistakes while typing with two hands. One-handed, I did my best to use swiping on the keys that is built into the OS, akin to SwiftKey, one of my favorite parts of Android. The performance on the phone as a whole was extremely solid. Supported by the latest Qualcomm processor and a huge battery, this is a top performing Android device.
Bottom Line
If you love big phones, have big hands (or at least don’t mind holding it with two hands most of the time) and are looking for the next great Android phablet, you’ve found it in the Nexus 6. But the proposition is expensive. The Nexus 6 will cost about $650 for an unlocked 32 GB device running pure Android, though there will be deals with the carriers. As a comparison last year's unlocked Nexus 5, still a fantastic phone, retailed for $350. The Nexus 6 is coming to all four major U.S. carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint) and as long as the device isn't preloaded with a lot of carrier bloatware, it’s definitely worth considering the upgrade.
This phone might have a hard time appealing to buyers who aren't Android power users. Part of the draw of its predecessor, the Nexus 5, is how utilitarian and relatively inexpensive it is—an excellent phone that doesn’t cost as much as a high-end one. The Nexus 6 is a high-end device, meant to compete directly with the iPhone 6 Plus. It’s already sold out on pre-order, but after the initial excitement of a new Google phone dies down the real test will be its sales numbers against Apple’s phablet in the coming months.
And I can’t stress this enough. You probably need big hands.
