Gadgetory

amid all of these smartphone flagships that are available today there is one line that Android purists look toward the most and it's the Nexus after some fears that the entire Nexus line was going to be scrapped a new bigger larger and overall greater Nexus appeared and it just might be one of the most anticipated yet polarizing releases of the year hey it's Josh regard from Andhra Authority what's going on everybody and here is my full review of the Nexus 6 the Nexus has grown up literally into a large form factor device that directly rivals the many we've seen released this year design-wise we have a phone that is akin to a very large new Moto X this is Motorola's envisioning of a Nexus device after all with the button layout all on the right side a distinct curve on the back that also provides curves to the metallic sides two grills on the front how's the phone speaker and the dual audio setup some might be surprised to find no LED notification light here anymore this is for a specific reason that we'll get to in the software section the large 5.9 six inch panel manages to keep the bezels pretty respectable and is covered by a 2.5 D glass for that subtle rising curve all around elements on the top and bottom are centered and the lines of the metallic frame make for a really slim profile the optics for the camera the dimple for the Motorola logo that is more reminiscent of the original Moto X and the large landscape Nexus logo all adorned the back this hard plastic doesn't get smudged too easily especially in this white edition and that signature moto curve tries to help with the ergonomics but that's when we get into the handling at first hold this phone simply felt too big but I realized that was in hindsight afterall the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is the same size pretty much as the Nexus 6 but it did not get the same reaction as this one did when I unboxed it and actually found out why I realized that it wasn't necessarily the size of the phone but its materials the hard plastic on the back does tend to slip around a lot as does the metallic frame which actually doesn't have a very uniform size due to the curve that this phone has so for those of you out that have larger hands and then the Nexus 6 will feel more normal to you that's perfectly fine but for the rest of us there's more to contend with with this phone than just sighs it also has to do with what material it's made of all in all though the Nexus 6 is simply exquisite taking Motorola's updated design language and bringing it to the Android purist just be wary of its handling experience and the whole reason why the phone is so large is because of the display a five point nine six inch display adorns the then aptly named Nexus 6 and gives it a large screen experience it doesn't even stop there because the quad HD display thus brings 2560 by 1440 resolution and 493 pixels per inch for some real sharpness simply put this screen is a beast and its viewing experience is indicative of that due in part to the AMOLED construction colors remain vivid and bright throughout without going too overboard and having all of this real estate in order to play games and watch Netflix or YouTube definitely mitigates the handling experience viewing angle is also all look quite great and in broad daylight the screen manages to remain quite viewable we've said before that quad HD doesn't quite blow away 1080p displays personally I think that I would have had just as much fun with 1080p on here but even if it's not an upgrade that is so easily noticeable it is still highly appreciated and all the work and play that screen allows is powered by the best processing package available right now the Snapdragon 805 with the audrina 420 + 3 gigabytes of RAM it's obvious that Motorola and Google were going all-in with this phone and it shows in all aspects thus far coupled with the optimized and beautifully designed Android 5.0 smooth doesn't even begin to describe how well this phone performs only when I was going at an incredibly rapid pace and loading certain functions like the camera out of nowhere did I find a little more extra loading time but for everything else the Nexus 6 excels with the new recent apps screen also logging your tabs in Chrome the list can get enormous and yet the speed didn't let up one bit in hardware the Nexus does remain true to its more bare-bones nature providing all of the needed tools for connectivity but for going mainly the addition of a microSD card slot larger 32 or 64 gigabytes of storage are available options however while versions of the Nexus 6 will be available via the major carriers in the US this unlocked version perfectly took my sim cards from both AT&T Mobile call quality was standard ly good in my main testing on the t-mobile network with calls coming in nice and clear on ends and the front-facing speakers are good to use for a speakerphone experience speaking of those two'll front-facing speakers they are here in specific grilles on the front making for a good stereo experience that is very welcome on the nexus I wouldn't say it's as good as the sound coming from the HTC One phones but it is almost as high on the quality scale clearly beating out any of the rear or side mounted speakers from other competitors large phones tend to bring longevity but unfortunately for the Nexus 6 the 30 to 20 mili-amp power unit is only capable of providing average performance screen on time never really got past the 5 hour mark making a full day of work definitely possible but never really going past that with heavy usage you can pretty much expect that amount of total time especially if you're constantly on the phone when you taper off your usage while you can probably get a longer amount of time given the standby time but it never really gets close to the 2 day mark even the redesigned battery usage area knows when the phone will conk out and it knows it's not going to go for a long time usually adding up to about 12 full hours on a single charge a battery saving mode can be activated to turn off all of the major power sucking features when in standby mode but that is a trade off for a phone that should be going the distance but only gets about halfway there thankfully the new trend of fast charging has made it to the Nexus and the Motorola turbo charger comes standard with the phone in about 15 minutes the claim is that it will get 6 hours of battery life that was kind of right if I had the phone off during that charging time when the phone was on during a charge it took longer than that though I will admit that the time to charge the phone definitely is shorter than compared to other normal chargers still it's a handy but unfortunately totally necessary tool to have and it means bringing the larger plug adapter break with you in order to take advantage of it if there was one place that the Nexus has always had a bit of a hole it was in the camera quality the Nexus 4 simply wasn't a good performer and the Nexus 5 received only a somewhat better upgrade but now there are quite a few great cameras in the market and if the Nexus 6 wants to compete it has to step its game up and with a 13 megapixel shooter at F 2.0 aperture sporting optical image stabilization it seems poised to do so the camera app is the Google camera that came out a little earlier this year which keeps things pretty simple with just a few modes for panorama and photosphere but adds in the lens blur D focusing feature along with an enhanced version of HDR the app is not that hard to use by any means but a few better design choices could have helped mainly the ability to activate video via an extra button rather than swiping the menu over and selecting the mode and then you have to go into that very menu just to access the settings 4k video recording is and bring some nice-looking video panorama was mostly good experience but some of my photos weren't stitched together too well and photosphere is a novel but ultimately not always used mode at least for me but you want to know about the image quality in a nutshell it's a huge improvement I still remember the first picture that I took and reviewed in the photos gallery that was surprised at how detailed and sharp the photo was without going too hard on the processing indeed your focal point will have a very good amount of detail to it and as far as colors go there's still an extra bit of saturation but it keeps the picture from straying too far from being accurate hdr+ actually does what it's supposed to do by capturing all the dynamic ranges and putting them together for a compelling shot tapping on a dark point in the photo to up the exposure can blow out the lighter parts of the scene and HDR plus solves that problem as such it's not a mode you would have on all the time as plenty of situations don't call for its usage and thus will yield a photo just like in normal mode it's a mode best used outside where the daylight is mixed with all the dark shadows it creates low-light shots are actually quite decent with the low aperture able to capture some nice shots unfortunately the flash isn't much help as it harshly illuminates the subject this is one of those concessions that I would say hdr+ actually helps even though it's not really made for this situation all in all the camera is a refreshingly pleasant surprise in the Nexus 6 and I continue to be impressed with it after pretty much any photo or video that I take and finally we have the software the crux of the nexus experience lollipop is our new 5.0 flavor of android and it brings optimizations atop a new look called material design and in short it is one hell of an update let's start from the bottom up the lockscreen has been reworked into a version of the new notification drop-down allowing you to interact with your notifications from there by swiping them away or double tapping them to activate you can swipe up to unlock and to the left or right for phone or camera respectively once you're into the home screen is the usual trope of having Google now as a screen to the left returns but Google now gets even flatter with its cards falling in line with the material design it's when you get into the app drawer and then all of the folders that things get pretty interesting you see this ripple effect that reveals and conceals just about everything in a fluid motion and what the Nexus 6 is power they're all smooth and make for beautiful eye candy transitions permeate the entire Opera system now making for what feels like a seamless experience in and out of applications all notifications have been made into a stacking set of cards tap the top again one time after this and the quick toggles come up and then in the recent apps screen there has also been a reworked cascading series of cards though now they also include any tabs that you have open in chrome while it's a nice way to get back to any of these pages I did get overwhelmed from time to time looking for one if I had too many open the ambient display is a new way of looking at your notifications via a minimized version of the lockscreen that comes on when picking the phone up unfortunately it just isn't as reliable as the Moto display especially without those infrared sensors on the front and I was hitting the power button more often than I feel I should have been with this feature on this is obviously Google's way of making up for the lack of an LED notification light but even though I haven't really paid attention to LEDs on phones like this and quite a long time ambient display is still an implementation that needs a few more improvements before the change can be more compelling the only thing that makes me miss the notification light is how lollipop handles blow battery States if you have the power saving mode set to turn on when hitting critical levels the top and bottom bars turn red this is just simply jarring and honestly it was pretty annoying to me as Android continues to really strip away the extras and get back to a really simplistic place the small details are what really made me happy and the quick settings tapping the words Wi-Fi or Bluetooth take you to the settings page the battery icon was moved up top to save some space and hitting the mobile network icon shows you your data usage even if sometimes the quick heads-up notifications will cover my video or a game they weren't gross offenders and don't stick around for too long and as this design permeates throughout the different google apps it looks like material design will help make many more experiences better I really like what material design is bringing to Android 5.0 and as such I'm a big fan of lollipop but I can see what some people are saying if they believe that this direction of Android is somewhat an oversimplification nonetheless you know how I feel about that kind of direction after all lollipop keeps things simple and thus keeps it fast and finally we get into what might be the main point of contention for the Nexus 6 as the base 32 gigabyte version of the phone comes in at a whopping six hundred and forty nine dollars and the 64 gigabyte version adds another 50 that price is pretty steep for plenty of users as many of you have already sounded off your opinions but for all of the premium you get in this device it actually isn't too far from hitting the mark this becomes clearer when you consider its competitors namely the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 that matches it in plenty of aspects and then comes with a replaceable battery and the S Pen or the iPhone 6 plus Apple's answer to the large phone space that Google is now squarely a part of and so there you have it the Nexus 6 it's clear that this is a massive improvement in the Nexus line with the bigger but higher resolution display and all the power underneath a better camera experience and all of the steps taken to make lollipop the best version of Android that we've seen yet but in the time that I was using this particular device I couldn't help but think of yet another car analogy there's the case of the road car versus the supercar the supercar is the blazing performer the one that you jump into when you want the best experience possible instantly driving the thing but what it lacks is often exactly what keeps you from using it literally all the time namely gas mileage sure you might be able to fill it back up on the fly that isn't always ideal and for all the flashiness it might have the supercar isn't the most practically designed vehicle to bring especially in places where its size can be more of a hindrance than an advantage and then of course there's the price for plenty of people the supercar is more of a dream than a reality within reach the Nexus 5 was like a high-end road car affordable but then again not quite there in being absolutely super the Nexus 6 is much closer to that and as Google's way of going all-in with Motorola and establish its place in the Android Kingdom like many people who look past their supercar in practicalities if you look past a few flaws of the Nexus 6 you'll have a phone that is sleek is low on compromises and can go from 0 to 100 real quick thank you for watching this review of the Nexus 6 as always keep it tuned here for all of the best coverage and our coverage of the Nexus 6 is far from complete so make sure you subscribe to our channel if you haven't already to keep up with all of that and don't forget to drop us some likes on these videos as well because we'd love to see those thumbs up check out more content from all of my colleagues in Android a couple of which are right over on the side and remember that Android Authority comm is your source for all things Android