The Nexus 6p is perfect for the next stage of technology.
Every year or two, we come up against the same question: Should I upgrade my smartphone to a new(ish) model? Assuming that your device isn't suffering from physical damage, a depleted battery, or the ever-popular "It's gotten so sloooow!" malady, the best reason to upgrade is for new features and functionality.
Many phones come to market with small, incremental improvements that don't fundamentally change your smartphone experience. However, when you get a new phone — particularly a Google flagship (in the Nexus family) with a major new Android release, new USB connector type, leaps in camera features, and full Google Cardboard virtual reality (VR) support — maybe it's time to take a closer look at the total value package. Here's a phone that's worth upgrading for.
Huawei launched the Nexus 6P in September 2015, although it remains the latest Nexus phone model to date and one of a select few poster children for the still-in-beta Android N operating system. Our focus here will be on the VR side of the Nexus 6P experience, but to get there we should circle back and recap the handset and what makes it so suitable to this cutting edge application.
External Overview
Huawei's Nexus 6P phone delivers outstanding build quality without sacrificing class. The all-metal body shows almost no flexion under reasonable twisting, and the monolithic black, Gorilla Glass 4-coated front is only subtly broken by stereo speakers located at the top and bottom. Beyond the polished metal accent edging, the phone's back and sides come in four colors: matte gold, aluminum, frost, and graphite. The 6.27" x 3.06" x 0.29" dimensions make for a larger handset but still allow for a comfortable grip with just enough texturing to avoid feeling slippery.
The 5.7" AMOLED screen, with 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) resolution at an impressive 518 pixels per inch, offers a sharp, high-contrast display with whites that don't blind and blacks that nearly match the thin bezel even at max brightness. Colors impress with depth and richness without looking oversaturated, and we found almost no color shifting even at nearly perpendicular viewing angles. When used for VR, adds up to a remarkably vivid — literally in your face— display that preserves its integrity against the inevitable light leaking in from around the headgear's edges.
And what of the audio? Phone manufacturers have three basic options: terrible sound from terrible speakers located behind (hopefully) two pinholes, a decent down-firing speaker or two, or stereo front-firing speakers at the top and bottom of the devices. This last option is definitely what you want for the most immersive VR experience possible without resorting to external speakers. While Marshall's London phone may arguably have today's most audiophile-optimized design in this regard, the Nexus 6P puts up a good fight on overall audio quality without giving up so many other qualities, as Marshall did. The 6P performs well through the highs and mids, stays undistorted through all but the toughest tracks at maximum volume, and makes a token push at representing bass ranges, which is still more than most phones attempt. Best of all, you get a broad physical separation of stereo channels, so the sound engulfing your head actually feels true to life rather than purely mono or artificially stretched into pseudo-surround.
Huawei rightly extends the 1mm lens bubble across the breadth of the phone so that the device rests wobble-free on a flat surface. The 12.3MP rear camera is widely praised for its low light sensitivity, dual flash, and 30 fps 4K capture capabilities. The 8MP, f/2.4 Sony IMX179 front-facing camera takes selfie quality to a new level while delivering much more professional results for videoconferencing.
Last but not least on our external tour, the Nexus 6P comes with a USB Type-C connector on its bottom edge. We're strongly of the opinion that all phones should now adopt Type-C, if only for convenience and future compatibility with high-performance client systems. However, the Nexus 6P, like the 5X before it, backs its Type-C port with USB 2.0, not USB 3.1. Of course, the true allure of Type-C is its fast charging and ability to let host devices, including the Nexus 6P, act as a charging source for other devices, such as your friend's phone that's diving into the red of imminent shut-down.
Internal Overview
Huawei outfitted the Nexus 6P with the 2.1 version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC, an octo-core firecracker clocked at 2.0 GHz and backed by 3GB of LPDDR4 DRAM. The 800 series tops Qualcomm's mobile processor line, and within the 810 rests the Adreno 430 GPU, which for a time topped the phone graphics benchmark lists in 2015. Needless to say, VR is one of the most graphics-hungry apps you can throw at a smartphone, so this core processing setup becomes crucial. Huawei also built in a second processor subsystem to handle all of the phone's sensor traffic in order to offload that burden from the CPU. Good call.
Nexus 6P models cover 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB of storage. Other noteworthy specs include:
Broadcomm's BCM 4358 Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5.0 GHz) 2x2 MIMO dual-band antennas Bluetooth 4.2 NFC Digital compass Carrier-unlocked across GSM, UMTS, CDMA, LTE, and CA DL 3,450 mAh nonremovable battery
Huawei quotes a battery life of up to 440 hours in standby and 23 hours of talk time. In our everyday use, we clocked in the range of 10 to 13 hours when under frequent use with moderate brightness and all primary radio services active. Naturally, video playback will drop you under 10 hours, and VR will drain your battery even faster.
However, we should note one observation here about our VR testing with the Nexus 6P. We tested using the LeNest VR headset, which provides some but not a ton of ventilation. It didn't take more than 10 minutes for our phone to get quite warm when running demanding VR apps within the headset. Regardless of whether it was the software load or the heat (or both) accelerating battery drain, we found that recharging became a more common necessity during VR enjoyment. Good thing we had fast charging via USB Type-C.
We won't bother with rehashing benchmarks and such here. Suffice it to say that the Nexus 6P is not the fastest phone on today's market, but it's dang fast. More to the point, it feels just as fast as today's fastest handsets, with none of the screen swipe and app switching lag that so frequently plagues lesser devices. The Nexus 6P runs like a fluid dream under common use, including gaming and HD video. It has the horsepower where and when it counts.
Android N
Huawei launched the Nexus 6P with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but the beauty of the Nexus brand is that it's Google's baby and thus at the front of the line for OS updates. Marshmallow's successor, still known only as Android N as of this writing, is due for final release in the third quarter of 2016. Developer previews appeared in March and April, and Google announced that the May 18 release, which we reviewed, had achieved beta caliber. More importantly, the beta now delivers VR Mode for Android.
What makes Android N noteworthy? Let's start with the trite: a lot more emojis — over 1,500 of them, in fact. Then, we can look at the small but handy, such as how notifications now appear in stacked bundles. This is a thoughtful compromise between shutting off messages and notification overload. You'll see at a glance who recently messaged you and expand it if you like with a two-finger swipe. No more having to go into Messages every time you want to reply to someone. Better yet, if you hold down on a notification, it brings up a slider bar allowing you to select application importance ranging from "Never show these notifications" to "Show at the top of the notifications list, peek onto the screen and allow sound." We love this.
In another signal that big smartphones are looking to edge further into the small client space, Android N expands multi-window support. In short, if you find keeping multiple windows open and visible to be useful, you now have the ability to do so easily under Android N. Imagine being neck-deep in a new Jessica Jones episode while wanting to keep a Skype chat running simultaneously without constantly switching away from your video every time a new message arrives. Multi-mode does this, although we may have chosen a bad example. Netflix, like many other apps we tried, pops up a warning about possibly not working in multi-mode. Sure enough, when we tried to watch a video, the right half of the display showed as a black bar. Keep in mind that this is still betaware and may have some of these kinks worked out by late summer.
Google has made several subtle improvements that should help incrementally with battery life, from reducing system requirements (less demanding components can translate into lower power consumption) to expanding on Marshmallow's Doze functionality, which puts the system into a deep sleep state much earlier than before. File sizes are expected to drop considerably under Android N and install much faster, both of which will help slightly with resource loads. And did we mention that Android N takes a big jump in allowing apps updates to download in the background without annoying pop-ups prompting users, including major system patches? It does.
VR and Daydream
To us, everything we've mentioned so far is only a prelude to the real reason to grab a Nexus 6P: virtual reality support. Of course, the headliner name in VR today is Oculus, now owned by Facebook, and its Rift headset. The Rift is the Cadillac of modern VR. However, a fleet of would-be rivals — competitors on the order of family sedans and econo-compacts — have emerged to give Oculus a run for the VR future, and nearly all of them are fueled by slip-in smartphones rather than integrated screens. The idea couldn't get much simpler: Your smartphone screen gets divided in half. One half shows an image for your left eye, the other half an image for your right. Voila — you've got 3D. Add in 360-degree panoramic imagery set within a virtual 3D space and you have bona fide virtual reality, just like the VR you might have seen in 1990s malls, only 100 times cooler and for 1/100 of the budget.
Google understands that VR is going to be a very big deal for consumers and possibly for business niches, too. If nothing else, VR poses a lucrative opportunity for value-added content likely to draw eyeballs, and those eyeballs can see lots of Google ads. No matter its motivations, Google now finds itself looking for ways to push VR into the tech mainstream as quickly as possible, and no better vehicle exists than Android.
With this writing on the wall, Google launched its Cardboard platform in June of 2014, principally for VR application developers. Cardboard entails a series of software developer kits, including one for iOS, and apps began to proliferate in earnest by 2015. To help people experience Cardboard, Google released specifications for a headset viewer made, of course, out of cardboard. The apparatus folds up into an enclosure designed to accommodate smartphones with up to six-inch screens. With included Velcro tabs and a pair of 45mm focal length lenses, you can find DIY kits for sale online for under $5. Our amply padded, more durable headset from LeNest shipped from Amazon for $25. Part of why we chose this unit was because it advertised being large enough to accommodate eyeglasses. In reality, this was stretching the truth. Moreover, it turned out that we could see just fine by using the set's interpupillary and focal distance adjustment knobs. Be aware that, unlike the basic Cardboard headsets, the LeNest and many like it lack a magnetic switch for indicating an input selection. You may need a handheld Bluetooth controller to get around in some applications.
We spent many hours roaming around in the Nexus 6P's virtual worlds, which, aided by the phones exceptional 1ms display refresh time, looked crisp and fluid. On a whim, we grabbed some nearby grade schoolers and gave them their first taste of VR. The reactions were exactly what you see in countless YouTube clips: slack-jawed, wobbly-headed expressions of wonder and joy. Our impromptu test crew especially enjoyed the Cedar Point VR roller coaster app and Vanguard V, an outer space third-person rail shooter. With an excellent soundtrack driving Vanguard V, this visually vibrant title in particular really showcased how strong the Nexus 6P can be with VR.
Google Maps with Cardboard is undeniably impressive. A 360˚ panorama of world monuments is impressive, but not as impressive as feeling you're inside the scene. (We can't wait for platforms such as Google Jump to get more popular and broadly showcase live motion video for affordable VR hardware.) Similarly, Cardboard-enabled YouTube videos can look anywhere from breathtaking to awful. At worst, you're going to see a jumbled mess of widescreen content crammed into 4:3, but for the best check out this YouTube playlist from the 360° Videos channel: Immersive Videos With Spatial Audio. Almost literally, this is what the outstanding graphics and audio capability of the Nexus 6P was made for.
Taken all together, though, our VR testing on the Nexus 6P convinced us that VR is here to stay this time. Google currently boasts eight phone manufacturing partners that are now or soon will be Android VR-certified, but the Nexus 6P was the first device to earn certification status. When Android N finally launches, Google will likely transition Cardboard into a platform named Daydream. With Daydream, we should have Netflix that actually works, along with Hulu, IMAX, Lionsgate, CNN, HBO, and many other content partners. We don't know if we're ready to jump up and down for conventional movies and shows seen in 3D VR, especially since that jumping would be very uncomfortable while wearing VR headgear. But for next-gen, interactive content? The kind hardly anyone has thought of yet? Oh, yeah — bring it.
If you want into this VR future today, grab a phone like the Nexus 6P and dive in. The content is there, the hardware is ready, and it's all just getting started.
This post was sponsored by an independent company and does not reflect the opinions of Android Central or its editors.