Nexus 6 by Motorola - The Google Phablet
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,181 words · ~10 min read
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frankly I wasn't sure where to begin with the Google Nexus 6 so I decided to
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shake things up and start at the end when I'm reviewing a phone I put my
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personal SIM card the only one I have in and I leave it there for at least a
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couple weeks while I get a feel for what it's really like to use the device as a
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daily driver I believe this gives every phone a chance to win me over and become
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my new dayto day and the conclusion for me on this one is that it squandered
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that chance on the subject of driving
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though by the time you guys see this my team and I will already be at CES 2015
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so don't miss any of the awesome content that's coming your
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way as far as hardware specs are concerned the Nexus 6 is a worthy
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followup to the Nexus 5 improving on it in almost every conceivable way the
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quadcore Snapdragon processor is now an 805 and clocked 15% faster with three
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gigs of RAM and 32 or 64 gigs of non-
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upgradable storage to go with it the adreno 420 GPU is in the neighborhood of
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40% faster and good thing because the AMOLED screen has 76% more pixels with a
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massive 2560 x440 resolution the battery
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gets bumped to 3220 milliamps the rear camera weighs in at a respectable 13
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megapixels for Stills with up to 4K 30fps video recording support and you
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get a Fancy Pants ring flash for more even Shadows for close-ups oh yeah you
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also get a schmeck Nano coating for the body that Harris from it techworld
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docomo the body then I guess the solid
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and very premium feeling aluminum body of mine is wrapped front and back in a
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dbrand vinyl skin that gives the back a pleasing leather look and feel and makes
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the front look an awful lot like a white note too although many other finishes
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are available at the back of the phone is the main camera with its ring flash
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moving down we find a little dimple that would have a Motorola logo a cut out in
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my skin for the Nexus logo and a noise cancellation microphone it should be
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noted though that the Nexus 6 does not feature the same quad micay as the Moto
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X 2014 unfortunately around the edges of
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the phone we find Micro USB nothing on the left a nano SIM tray and headphone
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jack in my preferred position on the top and on the right the lock button and
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volume rocker and these are awful I think I'm batting about 500 for hitting
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whichever button I'm aiming for thanks to them being extremely close together
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and way too easy to press with goa's I'm
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not really sure who to blame here so I'll go with both genius idea to help
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you differentiate between them being a subtle texture to the lock button I know
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I harp on this a lot but for crying out loud manufacturers the volume and lock
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are often the only physical buttons you're giving us on a phone surely that
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means you understand that they're important and we might want to use them
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which brings us around to the front the Nexus 6's Gorilla Glass 3 covered 5.96
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in display feature phenomenally fine image quality vibrant colors and wicked
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contrast making Android L's new visual design and really anything else look
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absolutely gorgeous my only complaint about the screen is that just like the
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Droid Turbo it has a noticeable green Shimmer at some mostly very extreme
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angles but it doesn't bother me dayto day the size of the screen lands this
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phone solidly in fablet territory and while as someone with small hands my
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feelings about these devices that they're ridiculous large and difficult
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to handle shouldn't be a surprise but I have to give Google credit for being
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clever enough to at least give it a curved shape you know like a hand so in
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spite of its significantly larger screen size I actually find it much easier to
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hold on to than the iPhone 6 plus I also
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have to give them credit for front-facing speakers you could have the
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best speakers in the world but if they're playing in the house next to you
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they're still going to sound like muffled farts while the Nexus 6 is both
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loud and clear enough for content in enjoyment in a moving car which is my
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standard Benchmark and it actually sounds overall pretty freaking good for
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a phone battery life was also pretty freaking good and I regularly had 40 to
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50% left at the end of the day the large
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high resolution display will negatively impact battery life but Android lollipop
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comes with some efficiency improvements and AMOLED screens can be much more
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efficient than LCDs when a lot of the screen is black lighting only the pixels
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that are needed so you can use the handy motion activated ambient display feature
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that displays notifications when they come in or if you move the device
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basically guilt free and very heavy users can Rejoice because the battery
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charges both quickly with qualcom Quick Charge 2.0 and conveniently with Chi
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wireless charging in theory I found
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correctly aligning the phone for wireless charging was actually pretty
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hit or miss on my car dock but your mileage may vary camera time I have very
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mixed impressions of the camera on the Nexus 6 the hardware seems great with
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dynamic range right up there with the iPhone 6 with shockingly little detail
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lost in the branches of the trees and in the sunny houses in the background here
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but our flower subject is not as well exposed under Studio lighting it takes
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awesome sharp images of my subject albeit without a very pleasing outof
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Focus effect in the background and auto white balance was handled better than
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any of the other Android phones that I checked out in my test Suite you can
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actually download these test shots in the link in the video description but on
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the other hand the scenario where I use my phone most close and medium range
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shots without ideal lighting had the Nexus 6's camera performing about as
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well as the potato camera on my iPhone 4
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with autofocus completely crapping the bed in some cases I know that some
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people are wetting themselves over the new camera API that should allow raw
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shooting and lots of other goodies with alternate camera apps but I don't give a
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toss about raw and frankly providing better tools to thirdparty developers
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while admirable is not an excuse for the abysmal included camera app it's slow to
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launch slow to take pictures infuriating to navigate I mean why does the settings
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Cog only appear when I swipe from the left why are there four menu items here
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when none of them contain anything and all the good stuff is in one of the
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menus anyway just put them all in the same place and why do the photo and
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video modes both of which should just be accessible at the same time like Sony
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does it remember which camera they were using last time rather than
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changing modes and changing cameras independently I've never seen this
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before and it's really unintuitive and it completely lacks features that are
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taken for granted in high-end phones these days there's no burst Picture Mode
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no time lapse no slow mode not even 60 FPS I mean okay it's got 4K video
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capture but it drops frames all over the place anyway and I mean I know I'm
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ragging on the camera a lot here but this is a $600 plus Flagship grade
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device we always gave phones a free pass
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to have sucky cameras because we were still getting a great deal but this one
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has the hardware so it appears that Google is just sitting on ass waiting
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for someone else to fix it for them so I got to call them out on it and the
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ranting actually doesn't end here under the hood Android 5.0 seems awesome the
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NFC based Setup Wizard and quick logging into accounts was great it's got more
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robust notification management including separate rules for high priority
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applications that can be toggled in seconds the more efficient are runtime
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is now mandatory user and limited access
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accounts are Now supported and security has been beefed up for business users
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but I have never been so excited for the
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handset vendors to put their own finishing touches on a Google OS I tend
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to give software bugs a bit of a pass in my reviews because I'm usually reviewing
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the device very close to launch and in good faith I believe that by the time
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many people watch my video the little glitches will have been sorted out
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anyway so I don't want to waste time on them but for crying out loud Google this
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is the launch device for lollipop and you still can't get Wi-Fi working
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reliably are you serious I mean iOS 8 is still bugged on a couple of the apps
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that I like to use but I can forgive that stuff Wi-Fi just cutting out and
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requiring a device reboot to fix it every time seriously and my frustrations
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with the Nexus 6 don't end here I mean here are some more in no particular
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order the multitasking Rolodex interface is much more natural to use than kit
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Kat's default design but the icon for it is atrocious I mean good luck explaining
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this one to your mother the lock screen displays only a few more recent
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notifications and to access the rest you have to swipe down rather than up what
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the old Google Calendar's month view sucked but instead of improving it
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they've removed it entirely on phones now thanks for nothing and the haptic
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feedback is among the worst I've ever encountered makes it feel like the
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device is falling apart the stock keyboard took a sharp turn at artsy
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fartsy Junction presumably for the sake of making its design more material and
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now has no dividing lines between characters and I mean where the heck is
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the restart button some Android devices
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have it but for some reason it's become unpopular with the cool kids I mean I
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guess I probably have apple to thank for this rubbish but at least in their
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defense in my four plus years of using various iPhones I've needed to do fewer
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restarts to fix Wi-Fi connectivity than I have in two weeks with the Nexus 6 so
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it feels like the least Google could have done was make it a bit more convenient for me
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so since I did the conclusion at the beginning of this video I don't really
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have much to say other than I don't think the Nexus 6 is worth your $650 I
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think there are better options out there and other than that well thank you to
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dbrand for providing me with the Nexus 6 that I used to make this video and
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asking in return only that we point out that they carry an incredibly wide
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variety of precision Cut vinyl skins for tablets phones game consoles and other
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electronics to give them a unique look and feel at a reasonable price also have
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noticed that dbrand now carries Gilla glass screen protectors that are only
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marginally thicker than their vinyl wraps making for a smoother transition
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when swiping your finger over your phone than ever before and keeping pretty much
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your whole device protected from incidental scuffs and scratches so
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thanks again to dbrand and thanks to you guys for watching like this video if you
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liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if you completely disagree with my assessment of the Nexus
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6 and if you think I'm just biased against big phones because I have small
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hands which has no implications for other parts of my body um also check out
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