Gadgetory

it's the same old pattern a new phone is announced we all go crazy covering it then after a handful of videos we move on to the next new thing how a phone ages is just as important as that initial experience so let's do something about this seven months after its launch how has the smaller Google phone held up to the competition I'm Juan Carlos bag now for PocketNow and here's our Nexus 5x after the buzz the five acts was marked as something of a homecoming for Google the original LG built Nexus 5 held on for a long stretch google skipped a year of medium-sized phones to introduce the Nexus 6 in 2015 Nexus fans received two phones and we recently covered huawei 6p and another after the buzz video but what about the smaller option the 5x holds on to more of the philosophy we came to expect from earlier Nexus phones competitive processor specs for a lower price years ago this was novel it was fresh but recently this has become an intense tier of smartphone competition the bar has been raised on these budget flagships looking at this simple plastic shell it feels fine in the hand and the two-tone approach here resembles two-thirds of an Oreo cookie it's as plain as it is inoffensive tho button feel and tactile response is rather poor the LCD here is a respectable performer and 1080p resolution is perfectly adequate for covering daily smartphone use and the always-on fingerprint sensor makes for fast unlocking though some of the glance style screen options still seem inconsistently implemented by Google performance is unsurprising and the Qualcomm 808 chipset here is a well known entity sliding through the UI remains snappy and quick but this won't blow people away is a gaming platform now Google made a lot of noise about improving the camera on this generation of Nexus phones this is the best camera I've used on a nexus outside of the 6p but it's another area where performances mid-pack opposite competitors we're perfectly capable producing some great looking still photos in daylight slow motion video is much improved an HDR processing is some of the best we've seen on an Android well some of the fun features like panorama performance are disappointing it stitching together simple scenes the video produced is high quality but without image stabilization it's kind of a twitchy mess handheld video is always going to be moving even when you're trying to hold as still as you can audio on this phone also fails to inspire much excitement the speaker is pointing in the right direction but output is thin dull and prone to Distortion and this headphone amp is also one of the weakest we've ever tested and it's still prone to distorting at full volume these numbers fall even behind phones like the galaxy s7 which we would expect given the price difference but the Nexus 5x isn't even able to unseat an Alcatel idol 3 in speaker or headphone performance and our experiences with runtime and battery life have also been disappointing running a media test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 50 percent brightness the nexus trained 9% of its battery putting it far behind most of the flagships we've tested this year so what were the advantages of buying a nexus the price is certainly attractive you lose out on microSD card expansion but Google currently lists the 32 gigabyte version for 399 and pairing it up with project Phi you can get it a lot cheaper though when looking at hardware that's honestly something of a tough call against other phones from the end of 2015 and some of the newer mid back price phones released this year but then we come to software and a major part of the conversation changes do you care about having up-to-date software do you want timely updates when new versions of Android are released do you want access to public betas do you want to utilize services like project 5 this hardware might be plain and inoffensive but software is king here clean sleek and update it faster than any of Google's manufacturing partners we should absolutely care more about updates security and bug fixes and it's not always considered the sexiest but we should all think that's cool we're not too far away from the next generation of Nexus phones and we're hoping to see something exciting from HTC but if you're picking up something basic and are curious about Android N or project Phi the 5x remains one of the more cost-effective ways to dip your toe into the pure Google waters as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more after the buzz reviews and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag nail you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram is some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next review you