The Google Nexus 6P Review
by Andrei Frumusanu on December 16, 2015 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
As we reach the conclusion of our Nexus 6P review, we’re hopefully left with a more educated view of how the 6P performs and why it perform as it does. It’s also the first showing from Huawei as a Nexus partner, and I think that Huawei has proven itself to be an extremely competent partner at that.
Design-wise, the Nexus 6P takes advantages of Huawei’s experience in building aluminium uni-body phones which results in an extremely solidly built device. While the front face of the phone doesn’t have too much character to it due it being little more than an all-black glass surface with screen and the two speaker grills, it’s the back that makes the Nexus 6P to be instantly recognizable. The “visor” as people have come to call it serves both as an aesthetic feature as well as a practical one as it houses the camera system and flash.
The metal finish and polish makes for a solid grip that is helped by the comparatively flatter sides of the device. Here the 6P trades in a bit of in-hand feel for better handling of the large form-factor. And make no mistake as the Nexus 6P is very much a large form-factor phablet device. The 5.7” screen compares to competing devices such as the Note 5 or the Mi Note Pro, however the 6P is noticeably larger than its cousins due to larger bezels both on the sides and especially on the top and bottom.
The large screen is backed by an excellent AMOLED panel from Samsung. Here Google seems to have made a much better choice in panels than what we saw in last year’s Nexus 6 or what Huawei seems to have employed in their own Mate S. Picture quality is comparable to the Note 5, although the 6P loses out in terms of efficiency, only able to slightly beat the Note 4’s screen efficiency.
Performance wise, the Nexus 6P is excellent. Huawei’s internal design and handling of the SoC’s thermal dissipation makes this the best implementation of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC. CPU performance is currently among one of the best, particularly in bursty workloads, although it can’t really match the sustained and consistent performance of Samsung’s Exynos 7420 devices or even last year’s Snapdragon 801/805 phones. Gaming performs well too, although we again see that sustained performance is only about half of peak performance, an issue competing high-end Android devices also have to deal with.
Battery life, while being subjectively is very good to the point that no user would have to complain about it, it still falls behind the competition. I’ll be honest and say that 2015 has been a pretty bad year for Android devices, as other than Samsung, vendors had to rely on the Snapdragon 810/808’s rather disappointing power efficiency. It’s the fact that you know that a device could have done much better had it had a different SoC that simply leaves me hesitant in praising the Nexus 6P’s battery life. It reminds me of Huawei’s own Mate 7, which while it had excellent battery life due to the very large battery capacity, it failed to be able to provide results worthy able to live up to the specifications.
Meanwhile the camera on the Nexus 6P is among the best, although there were some software processing and consistency issues discovered. Due to these issues encountered in my testing I’m a bit undecided on how to evaluate the 6P’s camera. In situations where it manages to perform, it performs excellently. But as we’ve seen there’s also scenarios where it struggles to get good exposure, and I view that as more important than having an edge in sharpness and effective spacial resolution. And an edge in sharpness is something the Nexus 6P very much has. While the Nexus 6P’s daylight performance can be argued about, it absolutely seems to lead in low-light scenarios as the camera sensor is able to resolve that much more details than the competition; as long as it exposes and color-balances correctly (most of the time).
Wrapping things up, we’re left with the question of the Nexus 6P is a worthwhile buy or not. Here I’d like to offer two conclusions, one for US users and one for buyers in Europe and the rest of the world. At a US price starting at $499 for an unlocked variant, it seems that the Nexus 6P hits a sweet-spot in terms of price-performance and is able to position itself very competitively against other devices. Google’s own services are also much more prevalent and far reaching in North America, so there’s definitely advantage of having a pure Nexus experience (Along with the non-carrier firmware advantage). Here the Nexus 6P is definitely a worthwhile purchase.
For regions outside of North America, and Europe especially, the Nexus 6P just seems an unreasonable device. Starting at prices from 649€, you would expect a device without drawbacks, and it’s simply not worth the premium over other devices, or at the same price you’ll be better off with an equally priced S6 Edge+ or Note 5 if it’s available in your region. Here, the Nexus 6P just simply doesn’t seem that attractive unless you’re putting a lot of weight into the Google Nexus experience, which I find to be a rather subjective aspect of the device. With Snapdragon 820 phones coming in just a few months there’s also the viable option to hold out for better alternatives as we're on the verge of a large generational jump that will undoubtedly bring a lot of improvements to the table.
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Djdjndjddjs - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
"even last year’s Snapdragon 801/805 phones" this here just made this review a whole lot less credible.grayson_carr - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
How so? He was referring to sustained performance (after throttling) and the Nexus 6P does indeed have a lower framerate than the One M8 (Snapdragon 801) in the GFXBench Sustained Performance test.tuxRoller - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
So, the 6p does a better job than the note 5 at maintaining long-term graphics perf.grayson_carr - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Looks like it. Weird that the Galaxy S6 did a better job than both though. You would think the Note 5 would do better than the S6... same SOC, but seemingly more room to dissipate heat.Sahrin - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
Really important to see the carrier aggregation information for the radio as well, not just the band supported.bmullan - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
The article was TLDR ... but in case the article didn't mention it.... These are the 2 Phones that Google has approved for its Project FI (https://fi.google.com/about/).The Nexus 6P is the one to get if you want to have the transparent auto-switching between 2 different Mobile Providers and also auto-switching with wifi. The Nexus 6 only gets you transparent auto-switching between 1 mobile provider & wifi.
rstuart - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
I bought a 6P a while ago, so I read the article more to get a feel for how well it matches my own thoughts about the phone.Overall, it does. Even it's comments on price are pretty well spot on - I live outside of the US, and if I had to pay for it there is no way I could justify it, even though I happen to prefer stock Android.
I was particularly pleased to see how Qualcomm's clusterfuck, the 810 was presented. There is simply no excuse for producing a SoC that is worse than the previous generation in terms of performance/watt, and yet that is what Quallcomm did. Yet amazingly, Huawei (mostly through the large battery) and Google (using software tricks to keep the thing switched off) managed to mitigate that and produce a device that has a very usable battery life.
Subjectively in everyday use the 6P is very fast, just as the review says. And yes the screen is excellent, although it would be just as good if they dropped the resolution by 1/3 to retina levels and reduced the load off the GPU. The form fact is perfect for a phablet - the screen is large but you can still comfortably operate it with one hand. (Hint Andrei: that is why the buttons are in the middle. You could not reach them if they were on the top. And yes, making them reachable when you pick it up with one hand also means you bump them occasionally.)
It's a pity Andrei didn't comment on USB-C. I make a point of handing the phone plus USB-C cable over to people and you can hear an audible sigh of joy from some as they realise the mental effort of orientating the connect has gone. The connector with its definite click as you push it home is a delight to use. And he neither does he mention the down side - USB-C to traditional USB adaptors is a mess, and as a result you can forget getting those excellent charging results from any of your non USB-C chargers. Instead you get the base rate of 0.5A 5V charging regardless of what your charger is capable of, which means when I'm using the phone for navigation in the car the battery discharges even though plugged in. And there is no wireless charging.
My overall feeling is it is a wonderful phone, the occasional wart doesn't harm the experience. Amazing, given given the clusterfuck of a SoC Huawei and Google had to work with. Still, if I was in a position to wait 12 months I'd be waiting. The 820 is not only back on trend in the performance/watt stakes, it also has a much better LTE modem and it looks like those extra LTE bands international version has is what took the price from "reasonable" to "badly overpriced".
silverblue - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
My upgrade is due next Wednesday, and I've been looking at this phone with more than a passing interest, however one or two sites out of the (very happy, I might add) maddening crowd don't appear to be too complimentary about it. We've got a 950 XL here for testing so I'm waiting for more news on that despite the slagging off it's been getting from the press, and I suppose I don't have to upgrade on the deadline day, however there is the small matter of a free £50 Google Play voucher until the 24th which makes it all the more tempting. Additionally, whereas the Note 5 would seem like a good alternative, I'm hearing a lot made about its availability and price, plus Samsung's incessant desire to tell you that their vision of Android is the correct one, and the aforementioned memory management issue, so I'm not considering the Note 5 at this time. Had this review been more positive, I think my mind would've been made up.I could always just wait another month. January sales, and all that.
silverblue - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Of course, the voucher is applicable to the 6P. :) There's also the small matter of the non-availability of the free dock on the 950 series, but then again, it's not as if I'm going to use a phone to do all my work on.grayson_carr - Thursday, December 17, 2015 - link
Your point about only getting the base rate of 0.5A from non USB-C chargers is not correct. Using an Anker charger in my care with the USB A to C cable from the Google Store gets me near 2A, which isn't as fast as the 3A provided by the USB C charger included in the box, but is still fairly fast.