The Nexus 5X – One Year Later and Still My Primary Device!

In September of 2015, Google announced the Nexus 5X.  It came out one month later in October of 2015. I got it that same month.  It is now one year later and I am still using the 5X as my primary device.  When it first came out the Nexus 5X met a lot of resistance.  It took a lot of flak for what many considered to be subpar specs.  Over the last year, I’ve flirted with other devices, including the Nexus 6P and the Honor 8.  Despite my flirting with other devices and the initial bad reviews, I stuck with my Nexus 5X.  I haven’t looked back.

Not only have I stuck with it but I still recommend it to just about everyone.  The Nexus 5X is a solid phone that has served me well.  There are several reasons why I’m still recommending it that I will cover here for you today.

Let’s take a quick look at the specs of the Nexus 5X before we jump into why it is that I recommend it to everyone.  The Nexus 5X comes with a 2,700 mAh battery that provides fairly decent battery life.  My Nexus 6P with a larger battery seemed to always die twice as fast as my 5X with the same usage.  The screen is a 5.2 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 1080×1920 resolution.  And it looks very sharp at any brightness level.  It comes with a hexacore processor that houses four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 processors and two 1.8 GHz Cortex-A57 processors.  The Nexus 5X comes with 2GB of memory.  There are two cameras, a 12.2-megapixel rear camera, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

The very first thing I love about the Nexus 5X is the fingerprint scanner.  It isn’t the first device I’ve used with a fingerprint scanner.  But it was the first device I’ve used that pulled it off right.  Rather than being one of the awkward scanners on the front of the device, it is on the back.  At first, the positioning seems odd but I have found it is actually the perfect spot.  Gone are the days where I have to contort my thumb into a weird position or need two hands to unlock my phone.  The Nexus 5X not only has a conveniently placed fingerprint scanner but it was insanely fast.  No delays, no hassle and no issues.

Another aspect of the back that I love on the 5X is the soft touch back.  It not only looks nice but it also provides a great gripping surface.  In the one year, I have used this phone I haven’t dropped it a single time!

When I was first trying to decide between the Nexus 6P or the 5X I had a really hard time making up my mind.  As far as specs go the 6P appeared superior in almost every way.  After a while, I decided on the 5X because I wanted a phone I could use with one hand.  The 5X is the perfect size and I can do everything on it with just one hand.  I don’t need to stretch my thumb to unnatural lengths to reach my notifications, I don’t need two hands to send a text and I don’t have to switch hands regularly because it weighs too much.

When I first got the 5X I was not happy with USB-C.  The phone only came with a USB-C to USB-C cable and this was the only device in my house that used USB-C.  It drove me nuts that I only had one charger and had no way to transfer files between my computer and phone.  USB-C was super inconvenient and bugged the heck out of me.  I gave it a few weeks and I quickly accumulated a collection of USB-C cables and adapters.  Soon I found that USB-C was actually becoming very convenient.  I love that I don’t have to worry about plugging things in backward or upside down.  It goes right in and I’m good to go.  USB 3.0 (the standard for USB-C) is also blazingly fast and I hate going back to USB 2.0 or 2.1.

Another thing I love about the Nexus 5X is the regular updates.  The Nexus 5X originally came with Android 6.0 but was quickly updated to 6.0.1.  It was one of the first devices to be updated to Android 7.0 (Nougat) and should receive 7.1 soon.  Not only does it receive the full Android updates on time but it also gets the regular security updates every month.

Now, I will be the first to say that as great as the Nexus 5X is it isn’t without a few flaws.  There is no removable battery, no external storage, and the speakers are not the greatest.  The good news is that there are fixes for all the flaws.  A removable battery would be nice but the 5X does support rapid charging.  Plug it in with a compatible charger and with ten minutes of charging you can charge it for between 15% and 25% battery.  The external storage can be remedied by using Dropbox or Google Drive and the 32GB has proven to be enough for me 90% of the time.  The speakers are a bit more difficult to work around.  However, if you root your device there are mods you can install to give yourself dual speakers and enhance the quality.

All in all, I am very happy with my Nexus 5X and will continue to recommend it to everyone.  It is a great device that has come a long way since it was initially released.  If you are looking for a solid device that will meet all of your needs the Nexus 5X might be the device for you.  Order one from Amazon here: Nexus 5X