Google Nexus 5X review: Google’s 2015 phone will NOT get Android P or any more major updates

Google Nexus 5X review: Performance and battery life

Despite that, there’s plenty else to like about the Nexus 5X’s specification, and, on this front, it follows the template set by the original Nexus 5. Functional though the design of that handset was, it packed one heck of a punch, including the leading smartphone processor of the time.

The Nexus 5X dials that ambition back a little. Instead of going all-out for the most powerful mobile chip on the market – that’s left for the flagship Nexus 6P – it has a six-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor inside it, the same as you’ll find within the LG G4, and accompanies it with 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 418 GPU.

The performance figures, if you’re interested in that kind of thing, show that the Nexus 5X doesn’t hit the heights of the most expensive phones on the market (see table below). But in real terms it’ll be fast enough for most people. The only complaint I have is that the camera app is occasionally a little sluggish to launch, and stutters when you swipe from stills to video mode and back again.

One bonus of the slightly lower-spec processor is that the 5X avoids the overheating issues that has afflicted some phones featuring the faster Snapdragon 810 CPU. Sure, it gets a bit warm when you fire up a demanding game such as Dustoff Heli Rescue, but it never gets uncomfortable to hold.

There’s no payback in battery life, however. With moderate use – that is to say, not pounding the battery constantly with games and streaming over 4G – you’ll get a day out of it, and nothing more. This is a phone you’ll need to charge every day.

That isn’t all that surprising given the comparatively middling 2,700mAh battery capacity, but to discover that it performed less well than the OnePlus 2 is more than a touch disappointing.

The positive news is that those moving up from a Nexus 5 will experience significantly better battery life, and it’s also worth noting that the 5X charges supremely quickly. In my tests, it hit 20% charge in the first ten minutes, which is seriously impressive. After half an hour, the level of charge rose to 48%, an hour saw it reach 84% and the phone was fully topped up in 1hr 40mins.