They may be separated by about three weeks and $300, but it's time to put Apple and Google's fat-face flagships side by side. Despite the price gulf, Google's newly announced Nexus 6P compares favorably with Apple's recently launched iPhone 6s Plus.
Google unveiled its $549 64GB Nexus 6P during its event on Tuesday and began taking orders for the handset, which it commissioned Huawei to build. Apple used its Sept. 9 Hello Siri presentation to unveil its $849 64GB iPhone 6s Plus and the phone's A9 processor, which it commissioned Samsung to develop.
Display
On paper, the Nexus 6P's WQHD AMOLED display, with its 2560 x 1440 resolution, packs in more pixels than the 6s Plus' Retina HD display and its 1920 x 1080 pixel count.
Despite its 5.7-inch display being slightly larger than the 6s Plus' 5.5-inch screen, the Nexus 6P delivers more pixels per square inch. The Nexus 6P has a pixel density of 518 ppi, while the 6s Plus' display has a ppi of 401.
Power and Horsepower
It's always like comparing apples and oranges when measuring any mobile processor against Apple's custom SoCs (system on a chip), especially considering they only process iOS data.
Apple says the CPU side of the iPhone 6s Plus' A9 processor is about 70 percent faster than the version built into the iPhone 6 Plus' A8 processor. Meanwhile, the Nexus 6P uses a second-generation Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor that ranks near the top of the market. The Nexus 6P's Sensor Hub could make the processor's job just a tad bit easier.
For randomly accessing temporarily cached data, the Nexus 6P is stocked with 3GB of RAM while the iPhone 6s Plus has 2GB. We're still near those apple and orange trees here, since iOS' optimization works magic with the iPhone 6's 1GB of RAM.
Camera
Apple has proven that, past a certain resolution, pixel processing can be more important than pixel count. It finally took a significant step up in resolution, however, with the iPhone 6s Plus.
The iPhone 6s Plus has a 12MP rear shooter and a 5MP FaceTime camera. The Nexus 6P has a 12.3MP rear camera and 8MP selfie cam.
While Apple turns again to its proprietary image processing tech, Google has turned to a camera that was never meant to be stuffed into a smartphone. What the Nexus 6P's camera has going for it are larger pixels, which allow it to capture more light in dim environments.
