Google Nexus 6 reviews

The Motorola-made Nexus 6...is basically a small tablet that you carry around and occasionally use to make and receive calls. It maintains the Moto X's gently curved back and soft-touch plastic material. It's surprisingly comfortable to hold; it feels like it fits my hand and seems far less hefty than it actually is.

Design makes a major difference in usability. Still, big is big and the Nexus 6 isn't the type of phone you're going to be able to use single-handedly. The phone's 5.96-in. Quad HD AMOLED display is absolutely stunning, with strikingly rich and true-to-life colors and razor-sharp detail. It also excels when it comes to audio [from its] dual front-facing speakers. With a 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor and 3GB of RAM, the system is fast as can be. Battery life is commendable, too with three to four hours of screen-on time.

Motorola's Turbo Charger promises to boost battery life by as much as six hours in just 15 minutes. Like most Nexus devices, the Nexus 6 does not have an SD card slot. The camera is easily among the best you can find on a smartphone...crisp and clear with vibrant and realistic colors. Unlike the majority of Android devices, it runs a "pure" version with the guarantee of fast and frequent future OS upgrades. When consumers think of Google's Nexus devices, they think about the promise of receiving the latest updates for Android essentially as soon as they release. At $649 it goes up against essentially every other flagship smartphone.

Both the plastic back and the aluminum sides feel good in the hand, but...your hand tends to rest more on the back cover instead of arching over it, so it doesn't quite have the premium feel of metal devices like the HTC One (M8) and the iPhone 6. For some reason one of the parts I found myself really liking is its nano SIM tray and tray ejector tool. The tray has a better design than other devices like the iPhone, HTC One, or Nexus 5. It has tiny notches that hold the SIM in place.

The large display has minimal bezel but the increase in width is the most noticeable change from the Nexus 5.  It's a firmly two-handed device. Compared to other phablets like the iPhone 6 Plus and Galaxy Note 4 the Nexus 6 is somewhat more difficult to hold. This is a Nexus, and that means stock Android, and that means Google’s standard Camera app. It’s awful. The Nexus 6 hardware is up to snuff. It’s got a 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 sensor, f/2.0 lens, with optical image stabilization, and a dual-LED flash but the experience of taking photos is abysmal. No burst mode? No slow motion video? The shutter lag and shot-to-shot latency is way too long.

How is Google’s own Camera app...not a proving ground for what’s possible? It doesn't appear to take advantage of any of the new camera API features and other developers have not yet stepped up to the plate. It’s a shame to see the best Nexus yet, tarnished by once again delivering a lackluster photo-taking experience.