Google Nexus 6 review: No longer in production following Pixel launch

Update: Google Nexus 6 is no more

The now two-year-old handset is officially dead and buried with Google pushing all its efforts into its fancy new flagship, the Pixel.

New units are no longer being manufactured, but there are a handful of Nexus 6’s doing the rounds on reseller sites such as Ebay for super cheap should your heart be set on getting one. The Nexus 6 is still a reasonably solid choice, and a recent update should see it running Google’s latest version of its smartphone operating system, Android 7.1 Marshmallow.

Google Nexus 6 review

The Nexus 6 heralds a new era for Google’s flagship mobile devices. Previously, its phones have packed plenty of hardware in at great prices, but sometimes at the expense of slick design. This year, its new phone goes all out, upping the price, the specifications, the size and the design. Google wants the Nexus 6 to be a no-compromise competitor to the best smartphones on the market.

Google Nexus 6 review: How big is it?

Google made a bad start to this brave new world with the Nexus 9 – its design and build quality were distinctly underwhelming for a premium device – so I was hoping the Nexus 6 would be an improvement. I wasn’t disappointed: it’s a sumptuous and luxurious piece of personal technology.

To be fair, that’s hardly a surprise. The Nexus 6 has been manufactured in partnership with Motorola, a company with a good (recent) record of producing attractively designed Android smartphones. The Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen.) in particular stands out, and the Nexus 6 is effectively the same design, just bigger.

And when I say bigger, I really mean it. The Nexus 6’s screen measures an enormous 5.96in across the diagonal. That’s 0.5in larger than the Apple iPhone 6 Plus, 0.3in bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and it gains nearly an inch on its cousin, the Moto X (2nd Gen.).

It’s a real handful of a phone, measuring 83mm across, a huge 159mm tall and 10.1mm thick. And it weighs a not inconsiderable 184g – making it the heaviest phone I’ve laid hands on in quite a while. Overall, it feels larger than all those phones, although the iPhone 6 Plus is slightly taller.

The Nexus 6 is most definitely a phone for those who favour cargo pants over skinny jeans, and who don’t mind texting with both hands. Unlike some recent larger-screened smartphones, there’s no software function to shrink apps down or move them within reach of a single thumb.

For us, the size of the Nexus 6 is a step too far, but I do recognise that the scale of your smartphone is a very personal thing. Others might well find it’s the ideal size for them – the perfect compromise between compact tablet and smartphone.

It’s also well worth remembering that, if you’re teetering on the edge of whether or not to buy such a huge phone or not, using Google Now mitigates this problem somewhat. Since it’s a Nexus device, Google’s voice-control and dictation system can be activated using the key phrase “OK Google”, which means you don’t even have to tap the microphone icon in the search box to instigate voice control.

Even if one hand is occupied with a shopping bag or suitcase, this means all you need to do to dial or text a friend, search the web or even find a nearby coffee bar, is drag the phone out of your pocket, unlock it and speak. And the efficacy of the Google Now system and the Nexus 6’s microphones means that this works with a remarkable degree of accuracy, and in even the noisiest environments.

In fact it’s so good, and the Nexus 6 so big, that I’ve increasingly found myself turning to Google Now instead of using the onscreen keyboard to enter simple search phrases, because it’s less effort and more accurate.

Google Nexus 6 review: Design and other key features

Aside from its size there’s a lot to love about the Nexus 6’s design. There are no fancy customisation options – it’s only available in “midnight blue” or white – but elsewhere the design language is all Moto X (2nd Gen.), and that’s very much a good thing.

The phone is surrounded with a gently curved silver aluminium frame, which feels great in the hand. The smooth matte-plastic rear isn’t soft to the touch like the Moto X, but it doesn’t give an inch and feels pleasant under the finger. The Nexus logo is emblazoned in silver lettering across the back, lending the phone a touch of class. The screen, which is topped with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3, is slightly curved at the edges, so thumbs and fingers slide on and off it without catching.

Above and below that screen sit a pair of stereo speakers that have to be among the loudest I’ve ever come across on a phone – they really pound out the volume and showed no sign of distortion, even with the volume turned all the way up. That makes the Nexus 6 a great phone for listening to podcasts and radio in the kitchen although, as you might expect, music still sounds rather tinny.

One feature the Nexus 6 has that the Moto X (2nd Gen.) can’t boast of just yet is Android 5 (Lollipop), a revamp that represents the biggest leap forward for Google’s mobile OS I’ve yet seen. Its colourful flat icons, updated core apps, notifications and lockscreen all hang together just as well as they did on the Nexus 9, and the whole shebang feels superbly responsive.

In terms of UI design, Lollipop is Google’s finest hour, and it really puts other manufacturers’ custom efforts in the shade.

Google Nexus 6 review: Display

Fundamentally, the Nexus 6 is really all about the screen. Why else would someone put up with such a giant smartphone if not for all that extra space? So it’s important to nail this critical element, and the Nexus 6 gets off on the right foot. Motorola has employed an AMOLED panel behind the Gorilla Glass frontage, so the black level is deep and contrast superb.

Using AMOLED technology should allow the phone to keep power demands to a minimum when using Android Lollipop’s “Ambient display” mode – where notifications appear when the phone is in standby. This is a great feature, but you might want to think about switching it off. Google quotes up to 250 hours of battery life with it on, a figure that leaps to 330 hours with it off – a significant 32% longer.

As has become the norm for larger flagship smartphones of late (the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and LG G3 come to mind), the resolution of this enormous screen is Quad HD – that’s 1,440 pixels across and 2,560 down.

This gives a faintly ridiculous pixel density of 493ppi, and though I remain unconvinced that even a 6in display needs that many pixels, there’s no denying the screen is sharp, with crisp text and sharp images all round.

In terms of colour and brightness performance, I’m less impressed. The main problem is that the Nexus 6 employs content-based dynamic contrast that cannot be disabled. Even with “adaptive brightness” switched off in the settings (this adjusts brightness depending on the ambient lighting conditions), the Nexus 6 constantly adjusts the brightness according to what’s displayed onscreen.

Thus, while white text on a dark background looks gleamingly brilliant, the white background of a web page will look slightly dim. In fact, brightness can swing by as much as 70cd/m², an adjustment that’s particularly noticeable when opening up the Settings menu (which has a white background), from a homescreen with a dark background.

That makes any definitive judgement over colour accuracy impossible, since it’s effectively in constant flux. Even by eye, however, the colours on the screen look slightly off, and in many cases a little overenthusiastic, even lurid. One thing is clear: this screen isn’t a patch on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4’s or the iPhone 6 Plus’.

Google Nexus 6 review: Core hardware and performance

Nexus products are usually cutting-edge when it comes to core performance, and the Nexus 6 is no different. Inside is one of the fastest mobile SoCs that Qualcomm produces – a quad-core Snapdragon 805, running at 2.7GHz with 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 420 GPU – which is the same getup as found in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

As expected, the Nexus 6 swatted aside all the benchmarks I was able to throw at it, matching the Note 4 blow-for-blow. It’s reasonably competitive with the iPhone 6 Plus, as well, until you get to the GFXBench gaming tests – that’s because, with a 1080p screen, the 6 Plus has a far lighter workload than the Nexus 6.

Still, 27fps in the latter test is perfectly respectable, and in real world gaming the Nexus 6 put in a decent showing. It’s amazingly slick and responsive in every other situation, too, whether browsing heavy web pages or Googe Maps, and asking it to multitask doesn’t faze it either.

It does, however, get rather hot when used intensively. The top portion of the screen hit 41 degrees Celcius at times and the rear 39 degrees, which becomes uncomfortable after a while.

	iPhone 6 Plus	Samsung Galaxy Note 4	Nexus 6
SunSpider (ms)	349 (Safari)	745 (Chrome)	806 (Chrome)
Peacekeeper	2,606	1,310	1,025
Geekbench 3 sc	1,628	1,095	1,054
Geekbench 3 mc	2,922	3,268	3,279
GFXBench T-Rex onscreen (fps)	52	27	27
GFXBench Manhattan onscreen (fps)	31	11	12

Google Nexus 6 review: battery life

Battery life is a more mixed picture. For light- and moderate-use scenarios, it’s excellent. In a 720p video-playback test, where the phone is put in flight mode and set the screen as close to 120cd/m² as possible, the capacity of the Nexus 6’s 3,220mAh battery fell at a rate of 6.8% per hour.

It’s in good company here, nearly matching the Note 4’s result of 5.9%, although it falls some way behind the iPhone 6 Plus’ 4.9%.

The audio-streaming test, which gives an indication of a phone’s standby performance, resulted in a depletion rate of 2.3% per hour, slightly better than the Note 4 and on a par with the 6 Plus.

In other good news, the Nexus 6 has wireless charging built in, and comes with a “Turbo” AC charger supplied in the box, which I found was capable of ramping up the charge very quickly indeed: 17% in 15 minutes is enough of an emergency boost to be really useful. And the improvements wrought through Android 5’s “Project Volta” mean that standby stamina is exceptional: I left the Nexus 6 on a bedside table overnight at 3% capacity, forgetting to plug it in, and it still had 1% remaining eight hours later.

Push the CPU, however, and stamina takes a dramatic turn for the worse. In the GFXBench battery test, despite the fact that the frame rate is capped at 22.4fps (lower than the maximum the phone is capable of), a result of 144mins is pretty poor, and well short of the iPhone 6 Plus’ time of 206mins, which is rendering more than twice the number of frames.

In all, though, it’s a thumbs-up for the battery life – just don’t expect it to last long when you’re gaming hard.

	iPhone 6 Plus	Samsung Galaxy Note 4	Nexus 6
720p video playback	-4.9%/hr	-6.2%/hr	-6.8%/hr
Audio streaming	-2.2%/hr	-2.9%/hr	-2.3%/hr
GFXBench battery test (projected runtime)	206mins (52fps)	206mins (12.3fps)	144mins (22.4fps)

Google Nexus 6 review: Camera

On paper, the Nexus 6’s cameras look decent, too. The rear camera has a top resolution of 13 megapixels, an f/2 lens, 4K video recording, optical image stabilisation (OIS), and a dual-LED ring flash. The front-facing camera can capture 2-megapixel stills and 1080p video. It can’t quite match the Samsung Galaxy Note 4’s 16-megapixel snapper, but beats the 8 megapixels of the iPhone 6 Plus.

In testing it performed much better than expected (given how disappointing the Moto X 2nd Gen’s camera was), capturing largely clean images and video in good light, and well-exposed and -focused photographs and video in low light, without recourse to the dual-LED flash.

If there is a weakness, it’s the speed of autofocus system. It isn’t anywhere near as fast as Samsung Galaxy Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus, both of which employ phase-detect autofocus like a DSLR or compact system camera. The Nexus 6’s doesn’t have that, instead relying on contrast detect, and this takes quite a while to lock focus. In video, it’s more of a problem, as the focus jumps distractingly backwards and forwards as you pan the camera around.

In general, though, I’m pleased with the results from the Nexus 6’s camera, and it’s nice to see that Google has refrained from messing about too much with the camera software. It’s simple, effective, and not overladen with features, yet it puts most of what you need a tap and swipe or two away. The only major thing it lacks is full control over ISO and shutter speed, but as compensation, it is possible to tweak the exposure up and down.

Google Nexus 6 review: Connectivity, storage, price and call quality

As you’d expect of a high-end handset, connectivity is cutting-edge. The Nexus 6 has Cat 6 4G support for download speeds of up to 300Mbits/sec and uploads of 50Mbits/sec. There’s 2×2 MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which I saw hit speeds between 8MB/sec and 9MB/sec when reading a large movie file at close range from a network share. NFC is covered, too, as is Bluetooth 4.1, and you also get SlimPort for HDMI output via the phone’s USB port.

As far as storage is concerned, there are two different configurations of the Nexus 6 to choose between: a 32GB and a 64GB model. Both represent good (if not exceptional) value, at £499 and £549 SIM-free respectively. To put it into context, the iPhone 6 Plus (16GB) is much more expensive, the 16GB version costing £619 and the 64GB version £699, while the 32GB Samsung Galaxy Note 4 goes for £599.

Finally, call quality is perfectly respectable. The Nexus 6 goes loud enough that you can hear your caller in even the noisiest environments. Just be careful not to put the phone to your ear in speakerphone mode: you’ll come away with your ears ringing.

Google Nexus 6 review: Verdict

The Nexus 6 has taken us by surprise in the short time I’ve had it. Once you sidle past the unavoidable fact of its gargantuan size, there’s an awful lot it does right. Battery life is good, the camera is excellent, and the build and design quality are second to none. And although its rivals hold an edge over it in many areas, the differences aren’t huge.

For us, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 remains top dog in the big-phone stakes thanks to its slightly more manageable size and stylus input, better camera and superior screen, but if you’re in the market for a big phone (and make no mistake, this is a real bruiser of a handset) you’d be doing yourself a disfavour by not putting the Nexus 6 on your shortlist.

Google Nexus 6 review: Android 5.1

I’ve been using a Nexus 6 as our main phone for some time now, and largely, I’ve been pretty happy with it. Android 5 is responsive and zippy in the main, especially compared to the Touchwiz-burdened software on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge.

However, it would appear that some users have been complaining about performance slowing down over time. The Android 5.1 update, which is currently rolling out to Nexus devices worldwide, looks to have sorted out those problems.

Among a handful of improvements the update brings is a boost to encryption performance, plus a change to the way the CPU runs. The Nexus 6 now runs in quad-core mode permanently, instead of shutting down two of its cores when the screen is on but the phone is idle.

In real terms, it doesn’t feel as if this makes much difference. I’ve always found the Nexus 6 to be nippy and responsive, and it won’t do anything for your gaming performance. Before and after tests run on GFXBench revealed no change.

In CPU benchmarks, however, the 5.1 update improved performance significantly. On our test Nexus 6 I saw performance increase by 19% and 57% in the single-core and multi-core Geekbench 3 tests, and by 7% in SunSpider. Previously, I’d noted that the performance had deteriorated since I first tested the phone, but this update brings it back to factory-fresh speeds.

Elsewhere, the 5.1 update brings a handful of small interface changes with it. There are now dropdown arrows shown under the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth icons in the Notifications pulldown menu, which display alternative networks and devices, and an alarm volume. You can now tap an icon to adjust the alarm volume level while music is playing.

Other small touches include icon animations in the Clock app and on the rotation lock icon in the notifications menu, plus the new On-body unlock feature. Turn this feature on (it’s found in the Settings under Security > Smart Lock) and the Nexus 6 will remain unlocked as long as it detects it’s in your pocket, by monitoring the accelerometer for movement. I like this idea, and it works pretty well for the most part, but if you sit still at your desk it will lock itself if you sit still for longer than around 20 seconds.

There were reports of bugs and crashes initially, but these appear to have been all resolved now; overall Android 5.1 looks as if it’s an update well worth installing.

Google Nexus 6 review: Android M

If you’re feeling brave, though, you might want to take a leap of faith and install the recently announced Android M on your Nexus 6. Android M adds a few nice new features to Android, and if you’re comfortable unlocking your handset and installing a new OS manually, you can download the Developer Preview image here and flash it to your handset.

So what’s different? Well, for a start, performance has dropped back to pre-5.1 levels. That’s a touch disappointing, but presumably performance tweaks will arrive later in the development cycle, and since Android M doesn’t feel appreciably slower on my Nexus 6 anyway, this is not a major issue right now.

In it’s current form Android M isn’t complete – there’s no Now on Tap yet, multi-window support or any sign of Android Pay – but it does introduce a few smaller changes. The most significant from a UI perspective is the app tray, which now scrolls vertically rather than horizontally, and sports a letter index down the left-hand side, making it ieasier to find the app you’re looking for.

The way the volume controls and Do not disturb features as been cleaned up, too, and there are under-the-hood improvements to standby battery performance and the way apps request permissions.

The best bit? So far, it’s been business as usual. Despite the fact that this is a very early build, I haven’t come across any major areas of instability, and I’ve been able to use my phone as normal. You can read our full hands-on review of Android M here.

Google Nexus 6 review: The competition

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

The Nexus 6 is great value, but if you want the best big smartphone on the market in your pocket, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 isn’t quite as bombastic, but despite similar specifications and performance, it’s the more accomplished all-rounder.

First, it’s a much more manageable phone: although the screen is only 0.3in smaller, the Note 4 is a much slimmer, lighter and more pocketable device. The quality of the screen is better. It’s more readable on bright days outdoors than the Nexus 6, and it’s more colour accurate, too (if you choose the Basic colour profile), despite the fact that it uses the same type of screen technology.

And the Note 4 is the more flexible, capable device. Don’t want to enter text by tapping the screen? Use the integrated, pressure sensitive stylus. Want to control your TV from phone? You can with the Note 4 thanks to its infrared transmitter. The camera is pretty awesome as well, especially the phase detect autofocus sytem, which locks onto your subject with far more surety than the Nexus 6’s can.

There are things the Note 4 doesn’t do as well as the Nexus 6. It won’t always be running the latest version of Android, for instance, and it’s always likely to be encumbered by Samsung’s Touchwiz skin. But we’d happily put up with that – and the higher price – to get our hands on what is the best big screen smartphone around.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Note 4 review here.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

The iPhone 6 Plus is Apple’s biggest ever smartphone, and if you’re considering moving up to a phone of the larger variety, it should be on your shortlist alongside the Nexus 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

Of the three, the 6 Plus has the smallest display at 5.5in across the diagonal, and it’s also the slimmest and lightest. In our opinion, that makes it the easiest to wield one-handed, although we are talking small degrees here. Most of the time, you’ll need both mitts to operate the 6 Plus, just as with the Nexus 6. The resolution of the screen is also lower, at 1,080 x 1,920, but viewed from a normal distance you’ll struggle to tell the difference.

The iPhone 6 Plus has equipped its “phablet” with a lower resolution camera than the Nexus 6 at eight megapixels, but otherwise it’s more than a match for the Nexus 6’s snapper. In particular, it focuses much more quickly, thanks to its phase detect autofocus system. The iPhone 6 Plus’ battery life is superior to the Nexus 6’s as well.

The major difference between the iPhone 6 Plus and the Nexus 6, though, is price. Although the Nexus 6 is the most expensive Nexus device to date, it’s still a good deal cheaper than the iPhone 6 Plus; and that, in our view, nudges it very slightly in front.

Read the full Apple iPhone 6 Plus review here.

LG G4

Another more recent model you might want to consider is the G4, LG’s latest flagship smartphone, which ups the ante in more ways than one. Just like the Galaxy Note 4 above, it has a removable battery and microSD slot, so beats the Nexus 6 when it comes to flexibility and practicality, and it ticks a number of other important boxes as well.

The LG G4’s camera is outstanding: far better than the Nexus 6’s, especially in low light, thanks to its large f/1.9 aperture, big 1/2.6in imaging sensor, optical image stabilisation system, laser autofocus and innovative colour spectrum sensor, which is designed to help avoid those discoloured indoor shots.

Its smaller, slightly concave 5.5in screen means the phone isn’t quite as bulky, yet brightness, sharpness and quality remains excellent. And, if you’re into that sort of thing, you can get hold of a G4 with a real leather back, in a variety of different colours.

It’s a belter of a smartphone: fantastic-looking, fast, and with a great camera to boot. If you’re not sold on the 6in screen of the Nexus, it’s a far more practical alternative.  

Motorola Moto X (2014)

If you like the design of the Nexus 6, but not its size, take a look at the Moto X (2014). Since both phones are manufactured by Motorola they share the same design DNA. Which is why the Moto X has the same curvaceous metal frame and rear panel, sophisticated detailing and centre-mounted camera and logo. The Moto X goes one further, however, in offering much more flexible customisation options: for a premium you can choose from a host of finishes for the back, including real wood and leather.

The big difference, however, is the screen size. The Moto X has a smaller, Full HD 5.2in AMOLED display, which makes the phone much more manageable for those who just don’t get on with the size of the Nexus 6. We’d count ourselves in that number, by the way. Elsewhere, the Moto X doesn’t lack much compared with the Nexus 6. Its processor is a little slower, as is its graphics chip, but since the resolution of the display isn’t as high, that doesn’t impact upon gaming performance much.

It now also has Android 5 Lollipop on board, just like the Nexus 6, and Motorola complements it with some clever extra tweaks. We’re particularly fond of the double twist-of-the-wrist camera launch gesture and the lockscreen notifications, which appear when you wave your hand near the display.

As with the Nexus 6 we’re not completely sold on the 13-megapixel camera, and battery life could be better, but overall the Moto X 2014 is well worth a look.

Read the full Motorola Moto X 2014 review here.

Nexus 6 specifications
Processor	Quad-core 2.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 805
RAM	3GB
Screen size	5.96in
Screen resolution	1,440 x 2,560
Screen type	AMOLED
Front camera	2MP
Rear camera	13MP
Flash	Dual-LED ring
GPS	Yes
Compass	Yes
Storage	32/64GB
Memory card slot (supplied)	No
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	4.1
NFC	Yes
Wireless data	4G (Cat6 up to 300Mbits/sec download)
Size	83 x 10.1 x 159mm (WDH)
Weight	184g
Operating system	Android 5 (Lollipop)
Battery size	3,220mAh
Buying information
Warranty	1yr RTB
Price SIM-free (inc VAT)	£400, 32GB; £479, 64GB
Price on contract (inc VAT)	Free, £30/mth, 24mths
Prepay price (inc VAT)	None available at time of writing
SIM-free supplier	play.google.com
Contract/prepay supplier	www.mobilephonesdirect.co.uk