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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brentwgraham - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I pre-ordered the Nexus 6... I'm now wavering and considering either a Note 4 or an Xperia Z3...Good news is they bungled the launch so badly that mine hasn't even shipped yet.
Coup27 - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I also have a Z3 having come from an S4. The Z3 is awesome. I put the two side by side before selling my S4 and the display is much better on the Z3. The S4 had a green tint where as the Z3 seems to be accurate in colour reproduction and white point. The speakers produce a much better sound with the only negative being they aren't very loud. The design is great, but did take some getting used to. Finally, batter life is on another level. My S4 used to die after 2 days. With exactly the same usage I can easily hit 3 and still have some left.grayson_carr - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Well, guess I will stick with my Nexus 5 for now. The poor display brightness and calibration killed it for me. Not to mention the fact that he said the Nexus 5 feels faster on Lollipop. The size and price don't do the Nexus 6 any favors either. I love the Note 4 hardware, camera performance, accurate display calibration setting, and battery life, but after playing with one in store several times, I just don't think I can deal with how slow it felt and how many frames it dropped in pedestrian scrolling tasks.sqeaky_fartz - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Are the front facing speakers actually stereo, or is it like the 2nd gen Moto X in that regard?Brandon Chester - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Actually stereo.lostleaf - Friday, November 14, 2014 - link
Are you able to comment on the sound for the stereo speakers? I would like a comparison to the htc one m7 or m8.Spawne32 - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I can honestly say I wouldn't even remotely consider this phone an upgrade from the Nexus 5, which was a game changer for me in terms of sub $400 dollar smart phones. This is exactly what I expected with the switch from LG to motorola for the OEM for the nexus 6, a ridiculously high price tag for mediocre performance. It's a damn shame to see google stray away from providing a good quality phone at a reasonable price to some ridiculous hunk of crap at almost a $700 dollar price tag.tipoo - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I still think the performance degradation test makes more sense if you divide by the first cycle. The way it is, if a phone with performance of 100 drops 40%, and a phone with performance of 50 drops 10%, the first one will have dropped a lot more, but still show higher total performance in the end, when the test is about seeing how badly the device throttles.tipoo - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
The system and web benchmarks show a regression from the nexus 5...Hmm.tipoo - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
There are also some lag issues...I'm kind of relieved to see it has some lag issues, as that means Nvidias Denver isn't the culprit in the Nexus 9.