Google’s own-brand phones are a bit like buses. Wait a year for a Nexus handset, or two years for a decent one given 2014’s lacklustre Nexus 6, and suddenly two come along at once – the 5.2in Nexus 5X and 5.7in Nexus 6P . It’s Christmas come early then for Android purists, who are happy to pay up front for a smartphone that isn’t cluttered by the various apps, features and services offered by the likes of Samsung, Sony and HTC.
If that all sounds good to you, then for the first time since the Nexus brand began, you’ve got a choice of two handsets – the LG-made Nexus 5X and the Huawei-made Nexus 6P. Now given that LG made the greatest Google handset yet, the Nexus 5, and Huawei are responsible for some iffy Android handset you’d think it would be a done deal, but it’s worth remembering that most our issues with Huawei phones are down to their iPhone-like implementation of Android, and freed of that problem the hardware itself is rather smart.
So with Android levelling the playing field let’s see how the new Nexus handsets square off.
Design
From what we’ve seen so far it would be fair to say that neither handset is a looker. While the Nexus range has always had a slightly workhorse-like appearance, the new handsets are a long way off the lithe looks and sleek materials of the iPhone 6S and Samsung S6.
The Nexus 5X is pretty conventional-looking really. The curved rear panel of soft-touch plastic is though broken up by an alarming number of bits and pieces. The camera bulge is pretty chunky for starters, then there’s cutouts for both a dual LED flash and laser focus system. Below this is a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Then there’s the odd decision to write ‘Nexus’ in big letters down the back (yes the Nexus 5 did this, but that was black-on-black and even then it wasn’t its best feature). It all adds up to a lot of clutter. It measures roughly 147x73x8-to-9.8mm.
The Nexus 6P is an odd-looking beast too. The camera, and the flash unit, are both housed in a handset-wide bulge at the top of the phone. Below that again is a fingerprint sensor and again the word ‘Nexus’ in big letters. Despite the bulge at the top, it’s actually our favourite of the two. It measures roughly 159x78x6.6-to-8.5mm.
Display
The Nexus 5X has a Full HD display, and with a 5.2in screen now confirmed that amounts to 424 pixels-per-inch. The Nexus 6P on the other hand uses a bigger 5.7in display with a higher 2,560x1,440 resolution for 518 pixels-per-inch.
The bigger difference is that the 5X uses an LCD/IPS display while the 6P uses an AMOLED panel. As we’ve discussed a million times before, the LCD will probably be brighter and have more accurate colours, while the AMOLED will have better contrast and more saturated colours. Of course it will largely come down to how big a phone you want in your hand, and in your pocket. We narrowly prefer the best AMOLEDs over the best LCD displays, but we’ve were really impressed by the LG G4’s IPS Quantum panel, so if that makes an appearance here, the 5X could be a winner.
Performance
The Nexus 5X uses a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset running at 2.0GHz. That’s the same chipset as is found in the LG G4 but running at a slightly higher clock speed. The 6-core chipset isn’t quite a match for its 8-core competitors but we didn’t have any complaints about the speed of the G4.
The Nexus 6P is confirmed to have an eight-core Snapdragon 810 chipset. We don’t yet know how fast this is running, but with phones like the Sony Xperia Z3+ and HTC One M9 using the same chipset, we don’t have any worries about performance.
Battery: The Nexus 5X will use a 2,700mAh battery, compared to the 3,450mAh battery on the Nexus 6P. However, given the latter phone’s larger screen size the battery size difference is likely to be nullified. As there’s different screen technologies and different chipsets in play too, we’re not going to stick our necks out and guess which will last longer.
One thing we can say is that the raw battery capacities compare well with their competitors, with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 using 2,550mAh and 3,000mAh batteries respectively. And both phones use the new reversible USB Type-C standard for charging and data transfer
Camera: Both phones are using the same 12.3 megapixel camera, with bigger-than-usual 1.55um pixels for less noise in low light conditions. The 6P is using a bright F2.0 aperture lens, with the 5X settling for a slightly less wide F2.2. Either way, camera performance should be pretty similar, with no optical-stabilisation on either phone.
Storage and price
The Nexus 6P will be available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB models, costing £449, £499 and £579 respectively. Prices for the Nexus 5X start from £339 for 16GB and probably £389 for 32GB (tbc).
Verdict
Until we see both phones in the flesh, so to speak, later on this evening it’s too early to come to a final conclusion. Obviously some will make their pick based on screen size alone, but the competing screen technologies will also be a big factor. We're erring towards the more reasonably-priced 5X at present.
