9to5 Google claims this is the Nexus 6/X.

[poofyhairguy]

Wow, XDA confirmed AT&T version has AT&T boot up screen/animation... guess I shouldn't be surprised they messed with it. My excitement level dropped a few notches, but I definitely wasn't paying full price for this phone.

Edit: and it has AT&T branding on the phone. Lol I thought Nexus was pure Google. Oh well.

The Big question is if the At&t version has a hard locked bootloader.

 

[lopri]

Let us know how it goes, Red Storm. I still can't let the thing off of my mind despite all the negative PR it received. I hope all the reviewers got defective initial batch. :biggrin:

 

[lopri]

Wow, XDA confirmed AT&T version has AT&T boot up screen/animation... guess I shouldn't be surprised they messed with it. My excitement level dropped a few notches, but I definitely wasn't paying full price for this phone.

Edit: and it has AT&T branding on the phone. Lol I thought Nexus was pure Google. Oh well.

Ugh. I saw the pic and that is so stupid. It won't affect me though - I am definitely buying it outright from the Play store if I decide on it anyway because AT&T told me subsidized phones will raise my monthly fees. (not NEXT plan but regular 2 year contract) I can never understand on what criteria carriers change their billing amount. I just do not want to disturb what I am paying now which is A LOT less than what I used to pay.

 

[sze5003]

I don't understand how people with the same white 64gb model from Motorola are getting theirs shipped already and have a tracking label but I got an email saying mine is delayed until 12/1..such crap.

 

[jiggyest]

I don't understand how people with the same white 64gb model from Motorola are getting theirs shipped already and have a tracking label but I got an email saying mine is delayed until 12/1..such crap.

The original delivery estimate for my order was 12/2, I hope it doesn't get delayed.
Silver lining as we wait for delivery, we get more and more hands-on feedback from other users who got their phone earlier. Also, feedback from people rooting their phones and disabling the default encryption (supposedly the phone is much much faster).

 

[KeithP]

I went to a T-mobile store to check out a Nexus 6. I have been trying to decide if I wanted to go back to iOS (6+) or stick with Android.

I was hoping the Nexus 6 would feel too big and make my decision easier, unfortunately that didn't happen. I compared it to my HTC DNA and it really wasn't that much bigger, certainly not enough for it to be consider "too big" IMHO. For such a large screen, the device was really easy to use and very comfortable in hand.

One thing I did notice, depending what was on the screen at the time, the color does seem a bit artificial (for lack of a better word). Although when I was looking at photos, it didn't see to be much of an issue.

-KeithP

 

[Red Storm]

Currently at 78% battery with just over an hour of screen on time. Did some Chrome browsing, Flipboard and Play News browsing, tried out a couple of games (Arma, Breach, Galaxy on Fire), and streamed some music for about 20 minutes on my way to work. At my work it's all Edge or zero service for T-Mobile, so battery drain is a little worse. Will be interesting to see how it is after lunch where I usually stream half an hour of Netflix over LTE/3G.

Something interesting to note: I mentioned in the Inbox thread how I liked using it on my work issued iPhone 5S, but on my desktop I preferred the standard conversation list layout. With the Nexus 6, I find myself preferring regular Gmail over Inbox. Part of this is because I'm currently fielding a lot of CL offers for a few things, and it's easier to keep track of conversations in regular Gmail in my opinion, but I feel it's also the larger screen. This thing feels more like a mini tablet than a large phone, and that's a good thing.

 

[Red Storm]

Okay, close to one day through with the Nexus 6. Here are some of my impressions:

I do not like the Moto X design on the Nexus 6. I feel that the Note 4 is easier to hold, which by itself isn't surprising because it is thinner than the N6, but the sharp edges on the Note are actually better for gripping than the more round N6.

I do not like the volume key placement (on the same side as the power button, right under it), it is just bad design IMHO. Right where the volume keys sit is exactly where you want to grip the phone with your thumb (when using the right hand). I have adjusted to it, but it's still an annoying little quirk.

I do not like how the screen is slightly off center. By that I mean the bottom bezel is smaller than the top bezel. I know why they did it, the small bottom bezel + the nav bar is about equal to the bigger top bezel and the status bar. So when you're using the phone in portrait the screen (minus the nav bar portion) looks perfectly centered. However, once you use the phone in landscape for anything, it's odd seeing the screen be off center (especially for video), and because of the Moto X design traits, the top of the phone is thicker than the bottom, so in landscape the side with the larger bezel also has a thicker back. Symmetric design is best, especially for phones that will be seeing a lot of landscape usage. Now is this a deal breaker? No, I can and will get used to it, but it is annoying and I notice it every time.

I love the speakers. They are nice and loud, but it's not just about being loud, the quality of the sound is simply better because it is being evenly directed to you from both sides, rather than shot out the back or only on one side. I'd say it's quite a noticeable difference.

I do love the display. It looks great, it isn't too dark as some reviews mentioned (though it did feel pretty dim in direct sunlight, this was with auto brightness turned on), and it does not appear to be overly saturated like Samsung's default settings for AMOLED. I'm not really much of a display snob though, but I'd say it's a great screen. Not as good as the Note 4, but still gorgeous.

I love the size. I don't think it's perfect, but that's because of my issues with Moto's design choices. I do not think I could comfortably go any bigger, this is about as big of a phone as I personally would want. Honestly I don't even think of it as a large phone, in my mind it's a mini tablet, and the horizontal Nexus writing on the back only affirms that feeling. Watching video, web browsing, and playing games on this thing compared to my work issued iPhone 5S is a night and day difference, I could never happily go back.

I like the nav buttons as shapes. When you go landscape the circle and square obviously don't need to change form at all, just the triangle needs to shift its pointy end slightly, but it looks nice in either portrait or landscape.

I like the camera. I used the Nexus 6 to take some photos for a soon to be Craigslisted item and the pictures came out very well. Again, like with displays I'm not a camera snob either, but I did notice how poorly the Nexus 5 and last year's Moto X were at taking pictures, to the point where I would never use the camera on those phones, but I feel confident taking pics with the N6, the results are pretty good. It is by far the best camera we've ever seen with a Nexus, without a doubt.

I neither love nor hate the battery life. It isn't bad, certainly not as bad as the Nexus 5, but it's also not quite as good as the top phones. I think they still have some work to do especially with it being a new phone on the new OS, standby drain seems to be a bit too high at the moment. The battery metric that matters the most to me is screen on time combined with an explanation of how that time was used. Here is a screenshot from my use today:

21% left with over 4 hours of screen on time, not too bad really. That's with an hour of Netflix streaming, an hour of music streaming, around an hour's worth of Twitter, Snapchat, news and web browsing, some gaming, a lot of app re-downloading from the Play Store, 20 or so texts, around 30 emails, 4 phone calls, and some Hangouts chatting as well.

All in all, I am very happy with my purchase. Everything looks fantastic on this phone, pictures, video, and text are sharp and clear - and most importantly - big! Sound is loud, even, and nice. I do think the Nexus 6 is right at the limit of how big I prefer my smart phone to be. Now all this thing needs is official Multi Window (and we know Google has been testing it). For someone like me who enjoys stock Android with no carrier bloat, who doesn't want to root and rom their phone (but still likes to customize and tinker with things to a degree), who enjoys the larger size of phablet phones, for that type of person the Nexus 6 is an awesome phone, arguably the best you can get IMHO. It's not for everyone, but I am glad Google went with a phablet sized phone this round. Hopefully next year we'll get two sizes so more people can be happy.

 

[sze5003]

They say if you place your index finger on the dimple in the back of the phone it makes it easier to hold. Looks like battery should not be an issue for me. I don't do any Netflix streaming or use a ton of apps except tapa, browsing, some music, other forum apps.

 

[Wingznut]

Okay, close to one day through with the Nexus 6. Here are some of my impressions:

Excellent write-up, RS! It sounds like the only real issues you have with the phone are the design choices. And, if I'm going to be optimistic, it sounds like many of those issues, one would eventually just get used to.

 

[chimaxi83]

Thanks for your impressions Red Storm! Definitely looking forward to getting my phone

 

[lopri]

I played with it today at a T-Mobile store for over an hour and came with a mixed impression. Battery was not as bad as I expected but the screen made me worry about its longevity. I took some screenshots and beamed them to my phone. I will post them later.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Thanks for that information. That was very helpful. I may get this phone myself after that. 4 hours screen on time with the usage you had is not too terrible. I would have access to a charger before it gets that low I think.

 

[sze5003]

rossgr, yeah, windows doesn't need autoexec.bat or config.sys. so make backup copies of those files and then delete autoexec.bat and config.sys. then boot to dos again and see what happens. better yet, post your autoexec.bat here

With his battery at 15% or so the turbo charge will charge it to 40% which claims to give 6 hrs. You also have the power saving feature too. But I'm surprised by the on screen time with his music streaming, games, netflix, those media apps. I don't use half of those so this should easily last me all day.

Please post some pics of the phone. Is it the white edition?

 

[Red Storm]

I have the Midnight Blue model.

Quick pic next to my work phone:

SOOO glad I'm done browsing the web and using apps on that tiny screen.

Let me know what exactly you want pictures of and I'll try and take some.

 

[sze5003]

It looks a bit much more taller than a droid DNA. I know what you mean about browsing on a big screen. I read a lot of articles at work and a screen like that helps. Do you notice any yellowing on the screen?

I guess a pic of it being held so I can tell how large it seems. I have big hands so it should not be an issue.

 

[lopri]

Here are the screenshots I talked about earlier.

The store was kind of empty so I totally had the Nexus 6 for myself over an hour. I disconnected the charger and started using the phone, starting battery at 100%. The phone was by a very brightly lit area with its brightness set at 100%. I played with the brightness settings and noticed that the slider did not change a lot. Lowering brightness to 50% did not make the phone look half bright. It was more like 20% reduction on other phones. I did not learn how the auto brightness setting works because the phone was chained to the wall thus I could not take it to different lighting conditions.

So I started playing with it after setting the brightness at approx. 50% and auto setting on. Being a Google phone, the phone is quite simple and feels even barren after the initial tour. But I guess that is a good thing. It appeared the phone was not used at all for anything other than making a few phone calls. I made a Google account and downloaded some apps - CPU-Z, Antutu, NYTimes, Speedtest.net, and HBOGo. For the next hour I simply went through every part of the phone and did some browsing to gauge the speed. Watched silly Youtube clips for a few minutes and opened/closed all the apps (there aren't that many on stock lollipop).

By the time I opened Google Maps/Earth the phone got slightly warm and the performance suffered a bit. Then again I don't think I have ever seen Google Earth running perfectly smooth on any phones, so there's that. Ran Antutu just for the kick and it scored 47K+ which is lower than what I have seen elsewhere but I would not put any stock on it either way.

Something was wrong with T-Mobile's firmware where the signal seems to be LTE (45ms /15 Mbps down) but on notification bar "H" was showing. The phone already had an updated downloaded but I did not run it while I played with it. I made sure "LTE preferred" is checked and APN is set to fast.t-mobile.com. Phone status showed "HSPA." Every other phone in the store was on LTE so I assume it's a bug in firmware.

 

[kpkp]

Apparently there is a LED light(s), it's complicated, read about it on XDA.

 

[Red Storm]

I forgot to talk about Ambient Display. The implementation on the Nexus 6 is not as good as it was done on the Moto X (Note, I am comparing to the 2013 Moto X). For starters it doesn't have the ability to wake Active/Ambient display by waving your hand over the camera (or the light sensor, I forget which it is exactly...) like on the Moto X, so on the Nexus 6 it's only activated by motion. Also, it does not seem to work quite as well as the Moto X, sometimes it's a second or two delayed in turning on Ambient Display compared to the Moto X which from what I remember was almost always right on time.

One of the most common positions I find myself in is working at my desk with my phone laying on the desk near me. Since Ambient Display is only motion activated, I have to grip the phone and press the side power button to turn it on in this scenario. Tap to wake is very nice to have in situations like this, but even in other scenarios (out and about with your phone) it's useful and more efficient because with tap to wake your finger is already in position to interact with the phone after you turn the screen on, whereas with the button press your thumb has to go to the side of the phone, and then to the screen. Again, like my issues with the off center display this is not a deal breaker, however I think every single smart phone by now should have tap to wake capabilities, not having it is a definite negative.

 

[sze5003]

I forgot to talk about Ambient Display. The implementation on the Nexus 6 is not as good as it was done on the Moto X (Note, I am comparing to the 2013 Moto X). For starters it doesn't have the ability to wake Active/Ambient display by waving your hand over the camera (or the light sensor, I forget which it is exactly...) like on the Moto X, so on the Nexus 6 it's only activated by motion. Also, it does not seem to work quite as well as the Moto X, sometimes it's a second or two delayed in turning on Ambient Display compared to the Moto X which from what I remember was almost always right on time.

One of the most common positions I find myself in is working at my desk with my phone laying on the desk near me. Since Ambient Display is only motion activated, I have to grip the phone and press the side power button to turn it on in this scenario. Tap to wake is very nice to have in situations like this, but even in other scenarios (out and about with your phone) it's useful and more efficient because with tap to wake your finger is already in position to interact with the phone after you turn the screen on, whereas with the button press your thumb has to go to the side of the phone, and then to the screen. Again, like my issues with the off center display this is not a deal breaker, however I think every single smart phone by now should have tap to wake capabilities, not having it is a definite negative.

Check the settings for ambient display. When a notification arrives, your display should light up when one comes in. This should happen regardless of if you are holding the phone or it is sitting down. There has to be some settings for this because the review videos I have seen, when an alert or notification comes in, the display lights up the icon of the notification.

As for tap to wake, its been on many phones that don't have ambient display. It can easily be added via a custom kernel. My HTC one M7 has had tap to wake for as long as I've owned it. But it was included in the Rom I'm running and my android devs usually rebase the Rom each time an update comes out.

 

[Red Storm]

Check the settings for ambient display. When a notification arrives, your display should light up when one comes in. This should happen regardless of if you are holding the phone or it is sitting down. There has to be some settings for this because the review videos I have seen, when an alert or notification comes in, the display lights up the icon of the notification.

As for tap to wake, its been on many phones that don't have ambient display. It can easily be added via a custom kernel. My HTC one M7 has had tap to wake for as long as I've owned it. But it was included in the Rom I'm running and my android devs usually rebase the Rom each time an update comes out.

No it does turn on automatically when a notification comes in, that part works fine. I'm saying I would use Active Display to access my Moto X when it was laying on the desk, no need to press the power button, just wave your hand over the top portion of the phone. This doesn't work on the Nexus 6, and there's no tap to wake option either.

Another thing with Ambient Display. On the 2013 Moto X, Active Display kept the screen off and only the notification part on through the whole process. When you touched the app icon you would see a preview of the notification (first line of an email for example), you could then swipe left or right to either go to the app or dismiss the notification. If you dismissed it, the screen remained off. On the Nexus 6 this is not the case. As soon as you touch the notification the whole screen turns on, even if you just want to dismiss it. Little details like this are noticeable to me, on the Moto X Active Display really felt like an efficient technology that maximized battery life, on the Nexus 6 it just feels like a quick way to access notifications, not a feature to reduce unnecessary full display activations.

 

[sze5003]

I'm sure it can be altered with software. I'm pretty sure reviewers mentioned that you can dismiss notifications without having to light up the whole screen, or view them.

What happens if you hold the notification? Do pixels around it activate so you can read it? If you hold and drag it down?

I feel like each app needs to have its own display settings for ambient display use. I really wish mine was here so I could mess with it.

 

[Red Storm]

As soon as you touch the notification the whole screen turns on, even if you're just swiping it away. The status bar lights up, the phone and camera shortcuts at the bottom light up, the lock screen clock is also on, even the background comes on, so it's the whole screen activating. On the '13 Moto X the whole screen would only turn on if you swiped to go directly to the app. I would prefer the Nexus 6 to behave the same.

 

[sze5003]

Pretty soon developers will be able to implement display features like that in custom kernels. If people complain enough Google may even do it later. The one thing about android is if the hardware is there, the software is not impossible to mimic previous functionality. Not just android but software in general, but this phone will have developer support and tweaks as soon as things start to settle. I expect it to be greater than other phones too.

I've had features on my m7 that you would never expect to have on it because it didn't come with stock features.

I hope you are enjoying it, it sounds like it is lasting you properly throughout the day.

 

[Red Storm]

Oh I'm definitely enjoying it. The fact that my major complaints are all about minor things is proof of that. It's a great phone and I definitely recommend it.