Nexus 6P – One Year Later and Still Worth It!

The Nexus 6P was released more than a year ago and it was arguably the best Nexus device ever released. In September of 2015, Google announced both the Nexus 6P and the Nexus 5X.  I got both phones within a few months of each other and enjoyed using both immensely.  The Nexus 6P, in particular, came with impressive specs and was better than many flagship devices available at the time.

The Nexus 6P came with a 5.7” Corning Gorilla Glass 4 AMOLED display and a resolution of 1440×2560 pixels. It came with an octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of memory.  For storage, it came with three different options, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB.  It also had a 3,450 mAh non-removable battery.  As far as cameras go, it came with a 13MP camera and an 8MP front-facing “selfie” camera.  It shipped with Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and is upgradable to Android 7.1.1 (the latest build of Nougat).

When I made the decision to get the Nexus 6P, I did it for a few reasons.  These reasons are the same reasons I still recommend it today.

My first reason for getting the Nexus 6P was the dual, front-facing speakers.  A lot of phones use rear or bottom facing speakers. Quite often these speakers are awkwardly placed and get covered when holding the phone in landscape.  The Nexus 6P comes with two speakers at the top and bottom of the screen.  The speakers sounded pretty good for a mobile device.  The fact that they faced the front, meant the sound was rarely muffled.  If I covered one speaker accidentally, I still had the other one playing.

The second reason was the metal body.  I like having a slim device that I can hold in my hands comfortably.  More importantly, I don’t want to have to worry about it getting ruined if I drop it.  The all metal body looked great, was quite durable and didn’t feel slick when I was holding it.

The third was USB-C.  I had already taken the plunge into USB-C with the Nexus 5X, so it was an easy transition for the 6P.  It had been a pain with the 5X because I didn’t have any USB-C ports on any of my machines and it only came with the USB-C to USB-C cable.  The 6P shipped with a USB-A to USB-C cable so I was able to plug it into my computer and root it right away.  The convenience and speed of USB-C make it hard for me to go back to any device without it.

Fourth, was the battery.  At 3,450 mAh the battery provided some great battery life.  Because it came with USB-C and the right chipset, it also supported rapid charging. Rapid charging allowed you to go from 0 to 50% in a half hour and to 100% in just over an hour.  So in those rare instances that the battery would run out, I would be back up and running fairly quickly.

Last was the price. Depending on the storage option you chose, you could get the Nexus 6P brand new, for between $500 and $650.  Now that it is a little more than a year later, you can find the base model for between $400 and $400 on Amazon.  At that price, you are getting a lot of bang for your buck!

And just throwing it out there as an honorable mention, I love that the 6P gets updates so quickly!  Google treats the Nexus and the Pixel lines the right way and unlike other manufacturers, you get your updates within a few days of them being announced.

As far as things I didn’t like about the Nexus 6P, there were only two real issues I had with it.

The first was the camera bar.  It is mostly just an aesthetics thing and I eventually got used to it, but in the beginning, that camera bar drove me crazy.  It felt like I was carrying around a bar code scanner like you would find at your grocery store or Wal-Mart.  Like I said, I got used to it, but in the beginning, I cringed every time I saw it.

The second was the weird size of it.  It was the perfect width to fit comfortably in the palm of my hand I could use it one-handed, as long as I didn’t want to reach the top of the screen.  The phone was so long or tall, that it was kind of awkward to reach the top of the phone with the one hand.  If I gripped it just right then I could do it, but it required a little bit of stretching.

Overall the Nexus 6P is a great device and is still miles beyond many other devices that have come out since its release in 2015.  It has stood the test of time and will continue to do so for some time.  Do I recommend it?  Absolutely.  For those of you that like devices with impressive specs, larger screens, great features and the latest version of Android, all at a great price, this is the phone for you.

Check out the video below for our video review.

Want the 6P for yourself?  Order it here: http://amzn.to/2ndhZ8X