The Nexus 6 Review
by Brandon Chester on November 12, 2014 1:00 PM ESTCPU Performance
Much like other recent Android flagship devices, the Nexus 6 uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 APQ8084. It's built on TSMC's 28nm HPm process, and it will be Qualcomm's final chip based on their Krait architecture. Although the use of a Krait CPU unfortunately means we don't get to take advantage of the 64-bit support built into Android Lollipop, it's still one of the fastest chips you'll find in an Android device today and will remain so until the first half of 2015. In order to measure CPU performance with some degree of comparability between different platforms, we turn to our typical suite of browser benchmarks, along with BaseMark OS II.
As you can see, the Nexus 6 performs how you would expect a Snapdragon 805 device to perform. All of its scores are similar to the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5 LTE-A, with the exception of the extremely high BaseMark OS II Graphics score which I believe is some sort of error relating to the compatibility of the benchmark with Android Lollipop.
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Chiropteran - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Isn't that like using windows XP test results and labeling them as Windows 8? The performance of the N5 might well change (for the worse) with Lollipop...vshah - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
this is pretty terrible. devices should be labeled as tested.tuxRoller - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Regarding the camera, it's arguable how good/bad the actual hardware is given that, until lollipop, we haven't had a way to get at the RAWs. Now that we can, we can see what the device captures, and the quality of the post-processing.From various sources (both reddit, and forbes) the results seem to be that with a bit of work using rawtherapee you get significantly better results. What remains is for someone to produce an app that makes better choices than google.
Considering that google has used pretty good image sensors with the last couple of nexii, the only unknown is lens quality. Hopefully someone will perform a test with another lollipop device that uses the same sensors as the N5/N6 but different lens and examine the DNG image, with settings as close to like-for-like as possible.
anactoraaron - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
But camera software improvements can reduce latency and focus to capture time though.Spawne32 - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I would imagine both phones are running a "dev preview" as the battery bug which is clearly rearing its ugly head in the battery tests, were only fixed 2 days ago.Brandon Chester - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
There was no mention of battery improvements in the small update that shipped on Monday.gregspruce - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Droid Turbo review?Chaser - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I can help. Large phone with (built in Kevlar case). Dim display. No simultaneous voice and data on "Americas most reliable network".gregspruce - Thursday, November 13, 2014 - link
I have the phone, I just want to see their take on it.BTW, display is more than readable in direct sunlight, so...
Also not the first phone to ditch dual modems and lose simultaneous voice and data pre-VoLTE.
The Turbo is fantastic, absolutely the best choice on Verizon right now, my friends on other networks are a little jealous currently, especially in light all of the Nexus reviews.
humjaba - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Damn. Still looking for something >5" that gets stellar battery life, that I can get on AT&T, and that won't cost me my first born son. The Sony Z3 looks perfect but I'm not interested in paying that price off-contract. Maybe I'll have to start hunting for a oneplus one invite...