Gadgetory

when talking about phones that carry the Nexus name we typically consider them to be iterative updates of one another each building on the success of the one that came before Google decided to change things up a bit last year by releasing the Nexus 6 a phablet thankfully this year Google returned the Nexus to its roots by releasing the Nexus 5x how does it stack up against the original Nexus 5 from two years back let's dive right in to begin with the original Nexus 5 and the Nexus 5x are remarkably similar in terms of overall dimensions this year's version is slightly taller and barely wider than the original it's also a little slimmer and a smidgen heavier some of that weight can be attributed to the battery which is 400 milliamps larger in the new phone and unless you've got both of them in hand probably never notice the difference where you might notice the differences in the shape the original Nexus 5 had gently curved top and bottom edges whereas the new one is much more square sure the corners are nice ly radiused but the elegant curve of the original is gone instead elegant curves surround the camera ah the camera back in 2013 Vic Gundotra said Google was committed to making Nexus phones quote insanely great cameras we thought that was going to be in the original Nexus 5 but despite getting an update that addressed camera performance the Nexus 5's 8 megapixel camera didn't live up to its potential or Tuvix promise the laser autofocus twelve point three megapixel shooter on the Nexus 5x on the other hand performs admirably well despite not having OIS which ironically the original Nexus 5 did it performs well in both bright light as well as low-light situations though we're hoping the 5x gets an update to its camera to help fix the sluggishness and cannot connect errors that many 5x owners are reporting it should be obvious that the original Nexus 5 didn't ship with Android 6.0 marshmallow but thanks to an OTA update that's what it's running now just like the new 5x marshmallow has a lot going on under the hood to help the Android operating system look and perform smoother than previous versions one could assume that the extra smoothness would require more RAM a faster processor and even a better graphics chip while all those are present in the 5x the original Nexus 5 2 has remarkably well with marshmallow the original Nexus 5 has a 32-bit quad-core Snapdragon 800 clocked at 2.3 gigahertz compared to the 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 808 clocked at 1.4 4 gigahertz but that's teamed up with a companion dual-core 1.8 to gigahertz coprocessor both have two gig RAM but the RAM in the 5x is faster than the original interestingly enough there are times when the processor in our Nexus 5x will max out and cause some serious hesitation which the original Nexus 5 doesn't seem to exhibit we're not sure if this is due to the slower clock speed despite being a more advanced architecture in the 808 versus the 800 or if it's the handoff from the little pores to the big cores or maybe even some other reason that we haven't discovered yet once the cores in the 5x are spun up it outperforms the original Nexus 5 in almost every way but not by very much the main differences between the two phones of course and hardware the original Nexus 5 supports qi wireless charging in sports a micro USB port the 5x does away with the convenience of wireless charging in lieu of a USB type-c rapid charging both support Wi-Fi AC and the 5 gigahertz spectrum and both support LTE though band support is much better on the 5x than the 5 bluetooth on the 5x is also bumped up 4.2 versus 4.0 on the original also new is the rear-facing fingerprint reader which serves not only as a power button to quickly wake your phone but also as a biometric security mechanism to unlock the all at the same time lastly is battery life as we mentioned in a review of the Nexus 5x its battery is pretty good though not great but charging is very very quick especially from empty the battery on our original Nexus 5 well it can't stray far from a charger and it takes a fair amount of time to top it off which is at least in part due to the batteries starting to show its age all in all the original Nexus 5 has aged very well however if you've been holding out the 5x is most definitely a worthy ohh be sure to check out our full review of the Nexus 5x as well as our after the buzz episode number 32 where we took another look at the original Nexus 5 also make sure you're following us on your favorite social media networks you can catch me on twitter as at joe levi if you like this comparison go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to make sure you don't miss out on everything else that is coming down pike for pocket now i'm joe levi it's a great time to be alive you