Last year, we had the Motorola Nexus 6. This year, we have two Nexus devices—the LG Nexus 5X and the Huawei Nexus 6P, the flagship of the Nexus devices and the Nexus device that’s most similar to last year’s Nexus 6. So what’s so new about the Nexus 6P? Well, there’s a lot of new changes and new improvements; most of which are for the better.
For starters, we have an aluminum build construction that stretches around the sides and onto the back of the device and it feels really great. It has a very nice, cool to the touch feel—something that you don’t really have with the Nexus 6. It also doesn’t pick up any fingerprint smudges or just fingerprints in general which is really nice. In addition, we have this little circle. It’s a fingerprint scanner and it’s one of the fastest on the market. The Nexus 6 does not have a fingerprint scanner so it’s a welcome addition. Android 6.0 Marshmallow also natively supports fingerprint scanners now, hence the implementation.
The fingerprint scanners on the new Nexus devices work very, very well. They’re in a very natural spot for your finger when you pull out your device from your pocket. However, when your phone is lying flat on a surface, they’re very unpractical because you can’t access the fingerprint scanner. You either have to pick up the device from a flat surface, flip it over and unlock it via your fingerprint or enter in a PIN and password which can be a little bit of a pain. So that’s really my only complaint with the fingerprint scanner being on the back of the device.
The camera itself is a 12.3MP camera sensor with 1.55 micron meter pixels and an f2.0 aperture, IR laser assisted autofocus and a broad spectrum CRI-90 dual flash. We haven’t had enough time to really test the camera sensors of the new Nexus devices here on PhoneDog. But rest assured, coverage is coming. I can’t wait to test out the camera sensor. If you remember last year with the Nexus 6, the camera sensor and battery life were really the two major gripes I had with that device. So this one definitely looks promising. As for the front-facing camera sensor, it’s also very sweet. It’s an 8MP camera sensor with 1.4 micron meter pixels and a fairly wide angle lens and f2.4 aperture.
On the front of the device, we have the dual front-facing stereo speakers which aren’t exactly new for the Nexus 6. But hey, they’re much appreciated I love front facing stereo speakers so much better than on the bottom or on the back. Definitely love these front-facing speakers.
There’s also a 5.7-inch WQHD 2560x1440 resolution AMOLED display. It’s really hard to go back to a non-AMOLED display. I love AMOLED displays back when I had the Samsung Fascinate years ago and I still love them today more so than LCD panels. The 5.7-inch display size and the QHD resolution is very nice. I think more people will like it because it’s more manageable than Nexus 6 and its 6-inch display or near 6-inch display.
Taking a quick look around the software and this is really where the Nexus shines, as if it didn’t shine in other areas. It’s pure stock Android and it’s fantastic. It’s super fluid, super-fast. There is a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM in here to help this thing perform very well. Before I finally received my Nexus 6P, I was using the iPhone 6S Plus as my daily driver. So it’s crazy to see that scrolling is actually more fluid on the Nexus 6P than the iPhone 6S Plus. It’s seriously impressive.
I haven’t been able to thoroughly test the battery life yet. I just only received the device. But the Nexus 6P does feature a 3550mAh battery and paired with the Android 6.0—those software features, the battery life should be rock solid. I have high expectations.
So the Nexus 6P is going to be my daily driver for quite some time. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m really excited. It’s going to be pretty nice coming from iOS. Like I said, I was using the iPhone 6S Plus as my daily driver. So it’s nice I had a little bit of break from Android, which makes returning to Android all the better. So yeah, I can’t wait to put my SIM officially on here and just get going.
But with that said, let us know what you like for us to cover in an upcoming video with the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P.