Finally, Google has refreshed the Nexus 5. Two years later, we now have the LG Nexus 5X. And for $379 off-contract, Google has added and refined a lot. The Nexus 5X is still constructed with a primarily plastic build construction. It’s lightweight and there’s no question the back cover is constructed with plastic because it feels like plastic because it is plastic. What’s new is that we now have an aluminum frame that wraps around the entire device, giving it some more integrity and reinforcement in the hand.
On the back, we have some new additions. We now have a fingerprint scanner right here on the back, which is in a perfect location for unlocking the device with your index finger when pulling the device out of your pocket. It’s extremely fast—one of the fastest, if not the fastest on the market. While the complaint is that while you’re using the device on a flat surface, you need to either pick up your device to unlock it or enter in a PIN or a password. If it were on the front of the device, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Above the fingerprint scanner, we have a camera sensor. It’s a 12.3MP camera sensor with 1.55 micron meter pixels, an f2.0 aperture, IR laser assisted autofocus, and broad spectrum CRI-90 dual flash. Basically, it’s a lot better than the 8MP camera sensor found on the previous Nexus 5, like seriously a lot better. We’ll have a lot of coverage with this camera sensor coming to your sub-boxes here very, very shortly.
The front-facing camera sensor though is also upgraded to a wide angle 5MP sensor with 1.4 micron meter pixels and an f2.0 aperture. Flipping the Nexus 5X over and we’ll see some more welcomed new changes. Number one, we have front-facing speakers. Well, actually it’s 1 front-facing speaker. It looks like dual stereo front-facing speakers but in fact, just the bottom speaker here is a front-facing speaker. Better than on the bottom or on the back though, that’s for sure.
Number two, we also have a larger display. It’s a 5.2-inch FHD 1080p LCD panel with Gorilla Glass 3. Technically, it’s not as pixel dense as the 4.95-inch 1080p LCD panel on the Nexus 5 but it honestly shouldn’t be very noticeable. But what makes any Nexus device great is of course stock Android and the LG Nexus 5X is running stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the latest and the greatest OS from Google. And it runs very, very well.
The LG Nexus 5X features an 808 hexa-core processor with 2GB of RAM, kind of a bummer though that it doesn’t feature 3GB of RAM. But hey, it is what it is. Also, it only features 16 or 32GB of native onboard storage so you’ll want to go with the 32GB variant.
The OS is very fluid, it’s very quick; no question about it. Not quite as fluid as the Nexus 6P but still more fluid than most Android phones in the market. I also find it interesting how icons appear to be scaled smaller than on the previous Nexus but I might be wrong about that. I kind of broke my Nexus 5 on accident so I can’t really check the display.
The Nexus 5X features a 2700mAh battery packed inside of this fairly thin build here. Not as big as the Nexus 6P but we shall see how it performs. It doesn’t have quite as demanding specs so I expect it to perform pretty well especially with the Doze feature in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. So we will see. But for $379 off-contract, the LG Nexus 5X is a very capable device. I can’t wait to use it more and test it over the next few weeks to just see how it stacks up to the competition.
But let me know what your thoughts are of the Nexus 5X. Do you think it can compete with the competition? I know 2015 has been the year for budget smartphones so let me know what your thoughts are in a comment down below.
