The much-anticipated Nexus 6 is here, Google announced the device in the middle of October. It is the first Nexus made by Motorola and comes with the most expensive price tag for a Nexus device. For the starting price of $649, you get one of the best hardware setups for a phone many have seen and one of the first to run Android 5.0 Lollipop. This the largest Nexus smartphone at 5.96-inches as well and it continues to move the brand forward. It will be the first Nexus to land on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless in the United States as well. It went up for pre-order earlier this month and sold out within a matter of minutes, but they have been working hard to restore supply. It will be landing on carriers and they will begin selling it quite soon. After all of the other smartphones that have been released this year, was the Nexus 6 worth waiting for and is the super phone of the year; Keep reading to see our full review on the Nexus 6.
Design
Motorola clearly took some design elements of the Moto X, when making the Nexus 6. It looks very similar to that of the new second generation Moto X, with the metal edges and the subtly curved design. Big difference is that the Nexus 6 is a large smartphone, it has almost a 6-inch display, it is a phablet. But, it does something really well and that is that it feels really nice in the hand. It has a plastic back which feels really well-built, and you can choose either a midnight blue or a cloud white. My review unit from Google is a midnight blue variant and its looks very nice, it is a nice change from the regular black or white choices. One bad thing about the plastic back, is that it does capture fingerprints really well, but this is only a minor downside. The metal edges on the Nexus 6 are tinted with the midnight blue color and it almost makes the design come full circle, and this midnight blue design paired with the black front looks very nice.
The power button and volume rocker have a unique placement, as they are both next to each other and live on the right hand side. While at first I was a little surprised with the placement of the devices, I eventually got used too them. Both the volume rocker and power/sleep button have a tactile feel and are far enough out from the side of the device that you can feel them. While the volume rocker is smooth, the power/sleep button actually has some texture to it, which helps with finding it. The top of the device is home to the nano sim card slot and the headphone jack. You can charge the Nexus 6 with the Motorola Turbo Charge via the micro USB port on the bottom of the device. Above and below the display you have front facing speakers, while the top one also functions as an ear piece. The top of the device also has a 2 megapixel front camera. All of the other buttons are built into the operating system, this means the home, back, and multitasking buttons are all digital.
While the Nexus 6 is a large smartphone, alright very large smartphone, it is a phablet and they did a great job of making sure it was manageable. The Nexus 6 feels really nice in the hand and you feel like you have control of it, and even better it is more comfortable than most other phablets currently on the market. The subtle curve on the back of the device, similar to that of the HTC One M8 or the Moto X, makes it a really comfortable device.
Display
A phablet or a big smartphone, needs a big display and the latest nexus accomplishes this. The Nexus 6 has an almost 6-inch, but slightly under 5.96-inch qHD display. To put it simply, it is one of the nicest displays on a smartphone. To be exact it is a Quad HD AMOLED display with a resolution of 2560 X 1440 and 493 pixels per inch. While it is not the sharpest display on the planet, colors look very vibrant, blacks are dark, and images just like life-like. For the size of the device, the 5.96-inch display gets the job done.
Camera
The camera on previous Nexus devices were not the best, but the Nexus 6 has a 13 megapixel camera as the main shooter. The 13 megapixel shooter features an IMX 214 Image Sensor along with Optical Image Stabilization. All of this and more come together to create the best camera experience i have seen yet on a Nexus device. This 13 megapixel shooter supports HDR+, Panoramas, Photo Sphere, and more. The very simple Motorola camera application, is replaced by the Google Camera application. They moved some of the options around, but they still make it quite simple. When recording video, you can record in 2160p 4K UHD, 1080pHD, or 720pHD capture at 30 frames per second. The quality of the video looks pretty good and you can see it below in our Nexus 6 camera test!
Hardware
Powering Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Nexus 6 is a super fast 2.7 Quad Core processor with a large 3GB of RAM. This setup is paired with an Adreno 420 GPU, all of this being put together makes for a great experience. The Nexus 6 is a very speedy device, applications open very quickly and multitasking is a great experience. You have to remember the Nexus 6 is a 64Bit phone and 5.0 Lollipop is supporting the 64Bit architecture. The hardware powering the software experience is great.
The Nexus 6 is powered by a 3200mAh battery which provides enough power to get through the day with a phablet like the 6. Plus, you get a Motorola Turbo Charge in the box and with 15 minutes of charge you can get around 7 hours of battery life. With a day full of email, texting, phone calls, gaming, web browsing, streaming, and more I was left with some battery at the end of the day. I was very impressed with the battery life of the Nexus 6 and am happy to say that it provides enough for a full day, plus if it gets low your 15 minutes away from around 7 hours of battery life.
If you enjoy streaming Netflix or listening to music via your phone, you will be happy to know that the Nexus 6 has a nice sounding pair of speakers. Like the HTC One M8 and the Moto X, there are front facing speakers on the 6. They provide pretty good sound, that is balanced and not too heavy in one particular zone.
If your into LTE, you will be quite happy to know that the Nexus 6 supports LTE bands from Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile! We did our testing on T-Mobile’s network and the LTE was very fast. Netflix streams were ready to go in a matter of seconds, and web browsing was a breeze. We did try popping in a Verizon SIM card and it did perform very well on their lightning fast 4G LTE as well.
Software
Last but not least, the Nexus 6 is running Android 5.0 Lollipop, this of course is the biggest redesign to Android. This of course is material design, which is the new user interface. It runs really well on the Nexus 6 and brings with a more vibrant, colorful, and inviting software experience. You will notice that design, all of the apps, and the keyboard stretch fully from edge-to-edge, which gives you a more fluid experience. Android 5.0 is based on 64Bit technologies, this makes the overall experience faster, more fluid, and more powerful. This in the end give the developers more to play with and will let them create even better experiences for the end-user.
A whole new notification center comes with 5.0, and it is more powerful. For instance, from your lock screen you can simply double tap to launch that notification and it will take you were it corresponds to. For certain notifications, you can respond to them right from the home screen. When you have the device unlocked and you pull down, you are greeted with all of your notifications in an organized fashion and you have the new quick settings menu. This will give you access to turning on your flashlight, checking the WiFi, seeing your network, and much more. Multiple profiles are here as well, you can have multiple users or just have a guest mode. Lastly, my favorite feature has to be the new multitasking design, which presents you all of your windows in a carousel format. Plus, if you are using Chrome each of your tabs will show up in a separate window, allowing you to access what you need faster and quicker.
One last thing about the Nexus 6, it is a pure Android experience. You get a smooth, fast, powerful, and reliable software out of the box, plus you will get timely updates for future versions of software. You really have the playground of Android right in front of you and you can customize it to your liking. Thanks to the awesome hardware powering the Nexus 6, you experience with the software will be phenomenal.
Bottom Line
If you can handle the size of a 5.96-inch smartphone, you should definitely look into the Nexus 6. It is one of the fastest and smoothest experiences, I have ever had on a smartphone. The design of the device is superb, it feels really nice to hold in your hand. The only thing that might hold someone back, would be the size, as it is a large device, the Nexus 6 is in phablet territory. But, if you’re in the market for an Android device or if you are just looking for a new phone, be sure to check out the Nexus 6, as it has taken the throne as smartphone of the year.
The even better part about the Nexus 6, is that it is landing on all the big carriers in the United States, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint! It comes in either a 32GB of 64GB size and the Nexus 6 starts at $649.99 with no-contract. On contract it will be available for as low as $199.99 with one, but for instance AT&T will be charging $250 on contract for the device. It will also be available with the payment plan methods, for $0 down with Verizon Edge or Sprint Easy Pay. Carriers will be announcing exact launch dates and exact pricing very soon, stay tuned to NJTechReviews for the latest news on that! It is available for purchase on Google Play now, but they are quite hard to get, but keep checking the page here!
Lastly, we would like to thank our friends over at Google for providing us with a copy of the Nexus 6 to review!
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