Nexus 6 Midnight Blue 32 GB Hands on review

It took me a couple of months to decide which smartphone to buy to upgrade my Nexus 4. I was confused between the Oneplus One, iPhone 5S, HTC M8 Eye and Nexus 6. I was not too sure of Oneplus One's brand and warranty, iPhone 5S was basically getting a lower config for a higher price, HTC M8 was a great camera phone but overall looked expensive and finally the Nexus 6, well was out of my budget and too big.

And then, I came across Flipkart's offer on the Nexus 6. Rs.10,000/- flat off on exchange of my Nexus 4! Meaning, I had to pay Rs.34,000/- instead of Rs.44,000/- for the 32 GB variant. Without any further hesitation, I placed my order!

My Nexus 4 was faithful to me for 2+ years, but the battery and camera were starting to test my patience big time! The courier guy picked up my Nexus 4 while delivering the Nexus 6.

Key Features of Google Nexus 6 (You can view the full list of specifications here)
3220 mAh Battery
3 GB RAM
13 MP Primary Camera
Android v5 (Lollipop)
2.7 GHz + Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Quad Core
6-inch QHD AMOLED Screen

The box 

The box is a neat white one, with the number 6 engraved in big. There is a manual, warranty information booklet, the turbo charger with separate data cable and voila! A pair of earphones! The Nexus 4 & 5 shipped without any earphones, so I wasn't expecting one but there is! I guess making the phone so expensive, they had to add them.

Turbo charger + Data Cable

Motorola In-Ear Headset

Now coming to the phone itself. It's a beauty! After using the front and back glass body, a metal finish was a pleasant change. And the ergonomic shape of the phone makes it fit comfortably in the hand and is not bulky at all. Love the crisp display on this big screen!

Front

Back

Side

In - hand

What I loved-

1. Dual Front Facing Speakers - No more issues of the sound getting dimmed because you kept your phone on a flat surface. The dual front facing speakers remind me of the first HTC One, and are powerful. A great thing for music and movie lovers!

2. Ultra-Quick Charging & 3220 mAh battery

With the turbo charger that's included, a 15 minute charge can give a battery backup of 6 hours. That's a great thing when we're in a hurry or forgot to charge the phone and don't have enough time. One drawback, only the special turbo charger allows you to do that, so you would have to carry it with you or get 2 of them in-case you want to use one at work.

The battery backup is great when on Wifi. I use the phone constantly, and it drains only after 14-16 hours of use. 

3. Dual LED Flash & 13 MP Camera

The beautiful round flash that runs a perimeter around the back camera has a dual LED flash, resulting into better photos! The 13 mp back camera takes really decent images, and using any external app, you now have the power to even click RAW images on Android 5.0

4. Pure Vanilla Android

This goes without saying, you will be the first one to get android updates! YES!

5. 6" Quad HD display

The big display is simply awesome for viewing apps, playing games, watching movies or anything! It does have a disadvantage, your privacy is totally gone while commuting or sitting very close next to someone. They can easily read what you're typing or see what you're doing.

What I don't like:

1. Battery not very great when using internet on 3G

I'm a social media addict, and constantly putting out updates, chatting or checking notifications. On constant use, the phone's battery dies in 6 to 8 hours when you're on 3G. That is a disappointment for me.

2. Slow shutter speed

Though the camera and flash are great, the shutter speed is achingly slow. I could hardly capture my new born baby's expressions. Then motorola sent me this tip to reset camera settings to default. I've also installed a third party paid app called 'Manual Camera' that has a great shutter speed.

3. Front Camera

I had absolutely skipped checking this while buying. The front camera is a mere 2mp, which is a disappointment for any selfie lover. You'd expect a minimum 5 mp front camera, specially when you're paying such a price.

4. Body

The midnight blue back metal gathers fingerprint marks like magnet. You might have to keep cleaning it if that bothers you. Also, if you wish to protect your phone, it might get pretty bulky. I got a defender kick-stand case and tempered glass because with a new baby in the house, you need the top-most protection. The case has made the phone very bulky and the tempered glass lifts up a little around the edges for some reason.

5. Price

As compared to the Nexus 4 & 5 being in the 30K range, the Nexus 6 seems expensive being in the 40K range.

Some tips and suggestions:

There is a hidden LED for notifications behind the upper speaker. Android has not activated this, apparently because they think the ambient display that lights up when you get a notification is sufficient. You can enable the LED if you root your phone.

The 'double tap to wake' feature is also disabled and not available. I really wanted this one because otherwise eventually the hard button gets worn out with constant usage, that happened on my Nexus 4. This feature also can be enabled on rooting your phone.

The phone is huge and it might be troublesome to take pics with one hand. Now many of you might already know this, but I was not aware. You can use the volume rocker buttons to click images when your camera is open.

Verdict:

As a loyal Google, Nexus and Android person, I'm still overall happy with my decision. But maybe you want to explore some other phone since you're paying this amount.