I'm going to offer a different opinion and say that I'm disappointed overall with the Nexus 6P. It's still by far the best Nexus phone I've used (and I've used all of them as dailies for the last 5 years since the Galaxy Nexus), but I feel it's a bit overrated. Long rant upcoming. TLDR: Best bang for buck flagship Android phone, best Nexus ever, but Google really needs to improve battery life and camera experience to keep me from going iPhone next time.
I recently used a 4.7" iPhone 6s for a week, and I was surprised at how much i really liked it. I thought the small screen would annoy me but it really didn't (although 5-5.2" is the sweet spot I think). There is just something great about being able to one-hand a device again after using a Nexus 6 and 6P for the past two phones. iOS may be "boring" but I'm at the stage where I don't want to root and mod anymore. I found myself spending less time needing to tweak/fix and more time just USING the damn device. Battery:
I'm getting annoyed with Google and the fact they never fix their battery draining bugs. The most egregious being their wakelock generator aka "Google Play Services" running amok. Do they really need to ping my location every minute if I use Google Now?
Mobile Radio Active bug STILL being there after its introduction in lollipop? It's getting old needing to root and use Xposed and Amplify to tame these problems. This thing has a 3450mAh battery and should have ridiculous battery life out of the box...but it's quite average at best and it's not only because of the 1440p screen (although that doesn't help).
From my usage, the 6s battery was surprisingly on-par with the Nexus 6P. Both last me 16h/day and about 3.5-4h screen on time, but the battery just tanks on the 6P when browsing unless using some amoled dark theme that I don't want to bother with. Doze is useless for me because where I work, I keep my phone in my pocket all day; not on a table or in a drawer. Standby time on iOS was awesome even in my pocket and a welcome change from my usual Android experience. If I'm not using my device, I expect minimal idle drain. Android does not deliver here year after year.
Overall, I strongly believe a 1080p screen is "good enough" and 1440p is really not needed and the hit on battery life is not worth it. Camera:
The iPhone 6s camera was far quicker and more consistent at grabbing focus than the 6P which just leads to a better experience for me. The 6P just doesn't focus lock very well especially while framing a shot. It's been a continual problem with Google Camera since the Nexus 4.
I also get blurrier shots more consistently with the 6P and it tends to have trouble sometimes focusing on a foreground subject despite manually focusing on it. Really noticeable when I eventually look at the pics on my computer. The Google Camera app is garbage. The actual hardware is likely good. When you take your time, the 6P can take great photos, but more often than not, I miss spontaneous shots on it or it turns out blurrier than expected.
Video stabilization is significantly worse and the lack of 60fps 1080p video is also a sore spot. It was posted as a feature request on the Google Product Forums recently and an "official" google team member said there is no intention to add this in the future. Inexcusable for a flagship 2016 phone.
Overall, I feel like it's about time to move away from Nexus devices. Every single Google App works great on iOS and they get app updates FASTER than Android...wtf.
I might actually pay the +$500 "Apple Tax" difference for the next iPhone rather than going Nexus. Never thought I'd say that.
/rant |