Huawei Nexus 6P (2015)

[hiryu]

No. Apple charger is wrong standard, because 14v. Wait for Anker, aukey, choetech

Thanks Michael.
I read the xda link you gave an is still a little blur lol
Getting old liao.

 

[doki81]

Ah, I'm all for selling my S6 to get the 6P. But its still relatively new, and my CFO (wifey) says nope.

the only way to get approval is to bribe her with your s6..and then you get N6p~...i am going to use my G4 to bribe my CFO~

 

[contacted]

the only way to get approval is to bribe her with your s6..and then you get N6p~...i am going to use my G4 to bribe my CFO~

LOL won't work if she's already using a S6 also.

 

[anodiz3soh]

LOL won't work if she's already using a S6 also.

Lol... like tat cannot help u liao. My wife very nice to me. Will taken over my N5 and I will get n6p. Got to ditch her redmi note 4g

 

[antitrust]

I am suddenly nonsensically worried. Am on reservist next week. What happens if the preorder comes out when I am in the forest!!!!

Give your bro money to buy.

hmmm... is this a hint?

 

[Skyy]

So is everyone buying new C-C cables or just adaptors? Chargers which is should I aim for? Apple?

i bought both, usb c cables plus adaptors cos i got a ton of microUSB cables which i still want to use

 

[Skyy]

No. Apple charger is wrong standard, because 14v. Wait for Anker, aukey, choetech

This is a good article on fast chargers. Seems like those on QC 2.0 can't fight with Google's original charger. Think must wait for the QC3.0 type

http://www.droid-life.com/2015/10/19/nexus-6p-nexus-5x-quick-charge/

 

[batboyz]

Can't really say can't fight per-se, since they're not the same method, i.e., Nexus QC and Qualcomm QC2.0 are not the same.

 

[Alexz_Hong]

My dev phone is unlocked. Fingerprint unlock works but Android pay app will not install. So don't worry it's OK. I don't know whether custom ROM will work though.

Warranty on root is gray area, but for nexus you have simple factory images for you to flash the phone back to stock if you need to claim warranty. So don't worry here.

is there a flag that will be triggered once the device has been unlocked? On Nexus 5 and Nexus 6, even flashing factory image wouldn't change back the "tempered" status. hahaha. Will HW be so pedantic as to refuse service because of that? just to be sure.

 

[TheSacredSoul]

Marques Brownlee on Twitter
‏@MKBHD
Confirmed: When you plug Nexus 6P into Nexus 5X via USB-C… 5X starts charging. Good guy 6P becomes a battery.

 

[batboyz]

Yup, saw that ytd on one article (I think on droid-life, he used 6P to jump start OP2).

 

[sdchew]

Marques Brownlee on Twitter
‏@MKBHD
Confirmed: When you plug Nexus 6P into Nexus 5X via USB-C… 5X starts charging. Good guy 6P becomes a battery.

Nice option to have but I won't recommend you doing it often. Frequent discharging of the battery will wear it out.

 

[gaityr]

Dafug every nexus fan plays tsum tsum?
Skill 3 birthday AnnA

3.5m

I use Birthday Anna too and she's AWESOME - but not my top score-getter, which remains Maleficent. Glad to hear all Nexus fans also enjoy Tsum Tsum!

Just wanted to say thanks for the great review, Michael - I've been stalking this thread for weeks and reading up on the Nexus 6P! I was contemplating an upgrade from my HTC One M8, which is starting to die battery-wise - after the Lollipop update several months ago, it's been all downhill from there and I can't get the same incredible battery life I used to have when I first got the phone. Also starting to get tired of the camera.

Was at first looking at LG G4 before news broke about the Nexus 5X - the vanilla Android and dual front-facing speakers definitely drew me to it! After getting the M8, I couldn't do without the front-facing speakers, which make so much more sense to me than other placements. But I realised that the 5X specs are pretty similar to the M8, and I started reading up on the Nexus 6P. Better future-proof lah! The glowing reviews have helped a lot, and your comments on real-world usage are much appreciated.

My only concern is that the phone will be the biggest I've ever used... and I have very small hands. How to play Tsum Tsum with so much screen real-estate?

Many thanks!

 

[||||||||||]

is there a flag that will be triggered once the device has been unlocked? On Nexus 5 and Nexus 6, even flashing factory image wouldn't change back the "tempered" status. hahaha. Will HW be so pedantic as to refuse service because of that? just to be sure.

You can restore factory stock, which include the unlocked bootloader. I did that in my nexus 5.

They cannot see the difference.

 

[MichaelTan]

Playing tsum tsum is optimal on the 5.7" for me. My hands also quite small.

My left hand holds the phone, my 3rd finger below the volume button, hold is secure. I dry my fingers and just flick away. Never felt better playing tsum on any other phone. There's a slight groove you can feel between phone metal and glass unlike the gflex2, that helps feel the limit of the screen.

 

[MichaelTan]

You can restore factory stock, which include the unlocked bootloader. I did that in my nexus 5.

They cannot see the difference.

Yes. That's the way I do my other nexuses also.

 

[KForlife]

qns. how does nexus 6p compare with xperia z5. prices are quite similar 949 vs 998. any inputs?

stuck on the fence wit this 2 phones. Thanks

 

[fi3ry_icy]

I've been using the Nexus 6P for a month, and updated 2 firmware sets. This is a mini review, but unlike other reviews on the net, I've been using it for longer than most people who will write (the rest are engineers and insiders who won't). Also don't forget that I'm a vendor. Suffice to say, I'll try to concentrate on those weird geeky things which people won't write about, for your benefit.

Chargers

First off, is how much the Nexus 6P's USB-C socket affects the post-purchase world for you. You need to buy the cables NOW, good cables which don't break the bank. If you buy offline the cheapest I could find was S$19 in Sim Lim Square 6th floor shop. I bought several cables, including an Apple original 2m for S$22. But I'm doing testing, see? I need cable for work, home study, car, bedroom, and power bank. I bought a lot of cables.

The stock charger which comes with the Nexus 6P is a 5V 3A one. This supposedly charges your batt from zero to hero in 57 minutes. I read that and I bought the 29W charger from Apple just to try.

Pic of the new USB-C charger from Apple which powers their Macbook Air
http://i.imgur.com/qZBRHDK.jpg

Result: I don't know. I also have a Qualcomm QC2 certified Choetech 60W and an Anker. The apple delivers 14.5V at 2A which is not supported currently by the Nexus 6P, and the other voltage is 5V 2.5A which it dutifully delivers. As a result, it doesn't charge real fast. Surprisingly the Choetech 60W actually pumps 3.1A at a time over 5V, which is beyond the rated ability of the Choetech in non-QC charge mode.

If you want to know more about type C charging please refer to this http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/usb-type-c-vs-usb-3-0-3-1-vs-usb-2-0-t3221676

Battery

I am using it as my main phone so I don't do batt testing. It charges plenty fast though so I top up wherever I can. The pattern of my usage, with whatsapp, viber, line, wechat, skype, hangouts, facebook messenger beeping off the hook, an insatiable additiction to the internet with BOTH Facebook and Google+ and work email, viber and line voice and vid call, skype multiparty call, and google maps all the time when I'm in the car to optimize the route with traffic redirection, suffice to say if my eyes are not on my laptop they are on the phone.

That being said I am a prepared guy with even a high amp Innergie charger in my car. I'm never without power. I even went to Myanmar and forgot about all my cables (only had one attached to my laptop power brick) and in Myanmar signal is weak, internet is weak, so the battery just burns, and yet I never had a problem with batt power finishing because I had gear like a 10K Samsung batt pack (which I rarely used).

And one more reason why I can't test battery life - the model I have is the USA model. That model does not have the optimal band frequency support set for Singapore, so at indoors the cellular signal is weak and that burns through battery.

That's a lot to write about - I'm not sure about battery life and I prefer you read the run down tests which others do. I've had a Note 5 and Edge S6 before and I'd say that the batt life is comparable to Note 5 and Flex 2 but far superior to Edge S6.

Speed and performance

AIDA64 CPU info:
i.imgur.com/vcfoIO6.png


This Nexus 6P runs the Qualcomm 810 2.1 at full 2Ghz for big core, not the gimped 1.5Ghz of the Flex 2 and the 1.8Ghz of the 1+2. Together with stock Android, it NEVER EVER lags. Using this phone, I was able to get the Tsum Tsum scores which broke my all time records within hours of using this phone, WAY better than the Note 5 I had even considering my 2% more points boost I had because of levelling. WAAAAY more points than using the stupid S6 Edge which the edge totally screws up your Tsum Tsum game because your fingers get caught on the edges... (only Tsum guys need bother understanding this statement).

On the Flex2 if I'm out of the office waiting for people in our 34C ambient, the phone will lag until cry and abandon the tsum game. On Note 5 even through the glass the Exynos will burn through and heat your hand up considerably. On the Nexus 6P the alu back distributes the heat fine. (actually where got people use stupid glass back one? I thought Nexus 4 already showed everybody that it was STUPID!)

Real Racing 3 NEVER lags. Need for Speed NEVER lags. Hearthstone never lags. UI NEVER lags. And a 2 layer share - Camera share to Snapseed, Snapseed share to Whatsapp - doesn't slow down the phone the same way it totally throttles the Flex 2 and sends the Note 5 to jerkiness mode.

Suffice to say, real world PERFORMANCE is MUCH BETTER than any phone I regularly use. I don't use fruit. But I've used what previously was the king - Note 5 - and it is just smoother, animations I didn't even bother to turn off because everything so smooth - yes, the first thing I do with any phone after 10 minutes is to `become a developer' just to deactivate the animations. On the Nexus 6P I leave it at 1X so happy.

Camera

hahahahaha! The fun times I have spent with the camera. First firmware camera was good but hopeless in real world use. 2nd firmware camera ... good. My firmware still not the latest - I saw Marques Brownlee firmware build one build above mine. And I know there are more firmware rev to come, what the reviewers have today are not final.

I wanna show you some pics.

Beer glass. I don't know if the focus is right. Disregard if you think unfair. But take note of the way it handle complex lighting.
Nexus 6P http://i.imgur.com/p7fzZIL.jpg
I6S+ http://i.imgur.com/PUTflTu.jpg

Alley shot
Nexus 6P http://i.imgur.com/2oN16Hw.jpg
I6S+ http://i.imgur.com/7uNBFUD.jpg

Judge for yourself. Even if you think not better, the I6S+ is considered the king of real world usage, and to be even 50-50 comparable with it is saying that the N6P camera rox. And very soon we will get Camera 3.0 from Google and it will be better in usage than even now.

Handling

After you use the fingerprint at the back, you will think that everyone else is stupid never to think of that. Even king of back functions LG never thought of it, stupid.

The fingerprint (1) unlocks and (2) authenticates security. WOW. Does that less than a second. NEVER fails. The S6 edge is BAD. The Note 5is better than the S6E but not by much. The fruit has to press unlock and then authenticate, and it's also not so fast. But this Nexus 6P fingerprint scanner, this is gamechanger technology. It's so fast so accurate. No horse run, really. I SERIOUSLY save minutes a day by not needing to draw pattern anymore. I don't think I can use a phone without rear fingerprint scanner anymore. The fruit phone fingerprint scanner is now like dinosaur liao to me.

OK Google when off and noise reduction

With the new Google Android Sensor Hub hardware, when the phone screen off and phone sleeping, you supposed to be able to say `OK google' and then it will give you Google's listening ear. In practice with my firmware, it works most of the time, much like the Note 5 fingerprint scanner. When the phone screen on, it works ALL the time no fail. I found myself talking much more to this phone, because it is so convenient now and I can unlock the phone so fast, and because it is so accurate. In the car, I can dictate using Google Voice Typing and my Plantronics Edge headset and it is very accurate.

A lot of this `accuracy' I think, is the noise reduction. When you're using Viber Voice, you almost always thought you know when you are talking to a Samsung or Huawei phone - the noise reduction is excellent. With any other phone before, you do. The LG, Mi, etc. you can hear an echo of yourself even from the vibrations transmitted from the earpiece to mic - that's why with other phones, if you wanna use Viber without stress from the other side, you gotta use a top notch noise reduction bluetooth headset like the Plantronics Edge. With the Nexus 6P, the noise reduction from the stock mic is so good that the other side thinks you're in the office even though you're in the middle of traffic.

This translates to very good Google voice typing performance. Really important in the era before autonomous cars invented.

Navigation

For Navigation buffs, my oh my the Nexus log on like a crab grab your finger. It doesn't let go of the nav gps lock and it will lock on FAST. No bugs, perfect GPS.

Bluetooth

I'm use Bluetooth a great deal and I note every anomaly, if you don't use BT, don't bother this is too geeky. Still reading? Good. Typical bugs, specifically addressed below:

1. With many phones, when dialing with VOIP apps like Viber and Whatsapp and Line, phone will lose connection 10% of the time (estimate) and it will dial and think that BT is still connected. Solution is you have to switch off BT and on again, and you'll reconnect. For Nexus 6p - NEVER HAPPENED.

2. With many phones, when speaking on Viber on BT and a whatsapp message comes in, the phone speaker sounds and BT connection is lost and bluetooth is supposed to reconnect after phone speaker sound is over - I think this is Android design. Many phones DON'T MANAGE to do a reconnect. The Nexus 6P reconnects EVERY TIME using the new firmware. Old firmware did not reconnect 10% of the time, it's fixed now.

Font support

For people who need font support - I only know of my colleagues from Myanmar who have need for non-unicode support because Google was late to support them in Unicode and they're in a messy world of both Zawgyi and Unicode scripts - the Nexus 6P supports Unicode for burmese script perfectly but I can't hack the Zawgyi inside. iFont doesn't work, Zawgyi Samsung doesn't work. You need to manually root the phone and hack the Zawgyi one font inside. This phone doesn't yet support font selection (thank god I won't see normal Nexus 6P with comic sans!).

Bugs and crashes

There's once in few days the phone will slow down for 10 seconds like it's shitting in toilet, and then it'll be OK again. To me that's nothing. The abuse I put my phone through, those phones with custom skins will do the jittery slowdowns several times a day. Except LG. LG is fine.

Swiftkey had a font size problem. The suggested fonts were too small. I fed back to them and they fixed that in the latest version. Proof:





The Camera if you too aggressively long press the shutter release for the multishot, it might hang for a few seconds when it dumps pics from buffer to flash memory.

The new Galaxies have a problem with backswipe word deletion and it still remains unsolved. Unexplained crashes because of Exynos graphics. In short, compared to galaxies, this phone doesn't crash. I have to hand it to LG - the phone is as crashproof as the Nexus. I don't know how they will perform under Marshmallow but their Lollipop support was great. So relatively speaking, the Nexus is about the most crashproof phone I've ever used.

Overall impression

I'm keeping the phone. Any color will do. I'll take the 128GB version. I have to return my current set (it's not final hardware and firmware anyway and it's customized to lock after certain date I think). I think the phone will last me a couple of years. I'm happy that I've finally found `the one'. I'm returning to Nexus after 2 years with G2 and Flex 2.

Can't think of anything else to write about now. Any questions? AMA.

ps: mystery SIM tray. The SIM tray is damn long lor. .... long enough for 2 SIM but not long enough for 1 SIM + 1 SIM+MicroSD combo. I tempted to take apart the phone to investigate for circuitry for 2nd SIM but I dare not. Ifixit will probably try and reveal to us.

Thanks for the review! Battery life seems like no problem in this case then..

 

[anodiz3soh]

qns. how does nexus 6p compare with xperia z5. prices are quite similar 949 vs 998. any inputs?

stuck on the fence wit this 2 phones. Thanks

I help u. Z5. Nexus leave it to us...

 

[MGeaR356]

Mt, can run antutu benchmark for 10 continuous time and update us of the scores each time?

Can also compare with note 5 screen side by side and see if it's the same?