Nexus 6P & Nexus 5X – First Impression
Yesterday it was Google’s event where they revealed the new Nexus with the flagship hardware to carry the latest version of their software Android 6.0 marshmallow. So this post is your one-stop-shop to everything you need to know about the newly announced 3 new devices. Yesterday Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P and Pixel C got announced.
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Nexus 6P
Huawei-made Nexus 6P is the highest-end, A successor to the Nexus 6. So I guess what I would call the flagship. The specs are high end, So, the newer Snapdragon 810 ship the Adreno 430 GPU and 3 GB of RAM. And the design is actually really nice. It’s completely metal body now and it’s all chamfered at every edge. Sealed in of course, As Nexuses are, but overall a very rigid, solid body that feels high-quality.
Design
The camera-hump is not nearly as bad as we thought it would be, So that’s great. And it’s one of the lightest phones of the size I know. It’s 70 milimetres wide and everything, but I don’t expect it to be this light. When I picked it up, assuming it was all metal. Its just 178 grams. So the light-weight, the soft-touch finish on the metal and the lack of curves made it really easy to hold.
While it does have this new big bright 5.7 inch QuadHD AMOLED display on the front, Side bezels stay pretty thin too. So the phone definitely feels more compact than the old Nexus 6. It’s got that big old Nexus logo on the back in whatever color you get. It also has that circle on the back, which is a fingerprint reader. Google calls it Nexus imprint. It’s supposed to work in 600 milliseconds or less. I have yet to test it for myself with my own fingerprint. But if it’s anything like Huawei’s other fingerprint readers, it should be pretty fast and the placement on the back here was a bit confusing at first but it actually makes a lot of sense.
Considering it turns out to be a pretty good place for index finger to rest, while I’m holding the phone.
So there’s a feature that will let you place your finger on the back while the phone is still sleeping, and in a wake the phone and unlock for you right away.
One question mark in my head now is just how cases will address this, other than just cutting a hole in the back of the Nexus 6P.
Specs
It fills up the spec sheet and checks a lot of boxes.
- High-end CPU
- High-end GPU
- All metal build
- Big bright Quad HD AMOLED display
- Dual front facing stereo speakers
- 802.11 A/C wifi
- Lte-advanced, NFC, Bluetooth 4.2
- USB Type C with fast charging, Thank you.
- A pretty big 3450 Mah battery, despite looking so thin.
- And even a new 12 megapixel camera with F 2.0 aperture. That even without optical image stabilization, Was just ranked number 2 DxO smartphone camera test, just below the Samsung Galaxy S6.
I know that having OIS would definitely still have been preferred. It would have benefited the camera, especially with video and for low-light shots. But I was shown some sample photos in low light from the 6P, that looked pretty good and the 1.55 micron pixel size is among the largest in any smartphone. So hopefully this Sony-made sensor combined with improved image processing and Android M will work its magic.
Software
Yeah you’ve got this pure simple Android 6.0 Marshmallow experience with the new Nexus phone. It was of course super smooth and snappy as you expect. We got to see Google-now-on-tap in action, So looks like it takes a few seconds to work its magic but when it does work, lets you press the home button and hold from anywhere to get textual information about the text on the screen. There’s all kinds of little improvements like this in the final version of Marshmallow here.
So improved permissions management, There’s a less preinstalled apps and you have the final Easter egg etc.
For me, I really can’t wait to test this guy full time and figure out if the camera and battery life up to the specs. But I think if they do, this could be one of my favorite smartphones of the year.
It’ll start at 32GB for $499 and then go all the way up to 128GB.
Nexus 5X
Next up is the LG-made Nexus 5X. This is a more compact and even more budget-friendly phone and it can sort of be seen as a successor to the original Nexus 5. Which a lot of people were asking for. Smaller phone with updated specs, that’s not huge but that same soft-touch feel but updated specs to bring you up to speed.
So that’s basically what this is, Of course it’s now a plastic body instead of metal. But you get a lot of what’s great about the Nexus 6P. From the fingerprint sensor to the exact same camera optics on the back to USB Type C and fast charging. But has the appropriate corners cut to make it a more budget-friendly option. So Snapdragon 808 chip 2 GB of RAM, 2700 mah battery and a 5.2 inch 1080p LCD display instead of QuadHD Amoled.
In many ways a slightly redesigned and in my opinion cleaner and better looking Nexus 5. And its price, I seriously think this is a phone that anyone can consider buying, Not just Nexus enthusiasts. It starts at 16GB, So that’s a little low and no expandable storage but thats $379 and then the 32GB version is $429. That’s right up next to the Moto X Pure and the OnePlus 2 but with a potentially much better camera and larger battery.
So again that’s potential, So can’t wait to see these tests in the full review.
Pixel C
Now finally we saw the Pixel C. C stands for Convertible and to be briefed, it looks very familiar. Basically a 10 inch tablet that looks a lot like a Chromebook pixel and a magnetically attaching keyboard accessory that also looks like a lot like the Chromebook pixel. So it’s like they split the Pixel on half.
It has a super-bright 2560 by 1800 display, NVIDIA X1 chip, 3GB of RAM and some bigger stereo speakers on either side for that crispy audio. $149 keyboard accessory has some really powerful magnets in it, that allow for the hinge to be really strong. Actually feels like an actual laptop so this guy will start at $499. So a little less expensive, I guess, than some other options like it. But still pretty interesting nevertheless, So there you have it.[/sociallocker]
The new Nexus family is born for 2016. Like I said, I’m personally pretty pumped about the Nexus 6P. I think it’s going to make a pretty good run at potentially being my daily phone. If the battery life and the camera are as good as they promised. I was pleasantly surprised with the 5X fitting in nicely as a phone, that I would actually recommend to a normal person. Which hasn’t been the case with the Nexus phone for a little.
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