Score: 7.5/10
Verdict: A good improvement over its predecessor, but a gigantic screen and high price point will put some off.
IT TOOK A long time for it to arrive over here, but the Nexus 6 finally made its way to Irish shores.
It’s the successor of the Nexus 5, a fan favourite among Android users for having good specs at an affordable price. While that was the case back in 2013 when it was first released, things have changed a little.
This time, Google has gone for premium specs with a phablet design and enlisted the help of Motorola to help design this. But how does it compare to the other big hitters like the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the iPhone 6 Plus?
Look and feel
The first thing you will immediately notice is the size. This is a big phone, something you’ll keep remembering whenever you use it.
A 6-inch screen allows for a lot on screen but at the best of times, one-handed use is difficult. It just manages to be a little too big for you to feel comfortable using it without both hands and this is something that crops up regularly.
That’s a pity as the design choices are quite good. Using a plastic backing, a metallic ridge and glass screen, the screen edges are smooth and the slightly curved backing does allow for comfort when nestled in your hand.
The only two physical buttons are located at the side, the power button and the volume buttons. Interestingly, the power button has a number of grooves on it while the volume button is smooth, likely to tell which is which by touch alone. This would be handy if it was a smaller phone, but even reaching for those buttons one-handed is pretty difficult.
There’s no notification light for this version. Instead, it uses ‘Ambient Display’ which has the screen lighting up in black and white whenever you get a notification. It feels less intrusive than a notification light and it’s less strain on the battery, which is always a good thing.
The two speakers are located at the front of the device, in the form of two ridges at the top and bottom. It’s a standard more smartphones are following since it allows better quality sound when watching video, and in this case, the quality is good.
The Hardware
Since this is Google’s attempt at creating a high-spec phone, it went all out on developing it. Using a 2.7 GHz quad-core processor and having 3GB of RAM means everything zips along nicely and it’s able to handle the more demanding tasks.
It also packs in a lot of pixels (1440 x 2560) producing a screen on par with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Note 4. Colours on the Nexus 5′s screen could look soft and blend in together, something that made taking photos a little difficult, but there’s a noticeable increase in sharpness here.
The one thing a large phone offers is a larger battery (3220 mAh) and to its credit, it does last a while. There were times after the end of a day through normal use (medium screen brightness, checking notifications, email, news, messages, etc.), we were left with roughly 30% of battery life which is decent, if not great.
Google’s claim that it can achieve 24 hours of use is a little generous mind, and a more realistic timeframe would be 14 to 18 hours depending on how heavily you use it.
The camera has received a boost as well, and is much better than the Nexus 5, one of the phone’s weak points. The 13MP rear camera is able to pack in high quality shots during the day, but in darker or low light situations, it will take a bit of time before you end up with a shot that gets the brightness right.
The 2.1MP front facing camera is pretty good for selfies, although nothing to write home about.
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