Slashdot Mirror
Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P Reviews Arrive (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A few weeks ago, Google announced its new Nexus phones — the 5X built by LG, and the 6P built by Huawei. The phones are starting to ship, and reviews for both devices have landed. So far, they're largely positive. Ars Technica calls them the Android phones to beat, though criticizes them for having fairly large bezels and no wireless charging. Android Police says the 6P's form factor is an improvement over the Nexus 6, being slightly narrower and taller. Meanwhile, most publications report that the 5X does a good job at carrying on the legacy of the excellent Nexus 5. It's their lower end phone, and most reviews mention that it feels that way in the hand — but battery life is reportedly excellent. The Nexus 6P's battery is capable, but doesn't last as long. Fortunately, the worries about overheating with its Snapdragon 810 chip seem overblown.
" Starting at $379 for a 16GB version, the Nexus 5X is nearly as cheap as the 2013 Nexus 5, which started at $349."
I wish Nexus had taken a different tack than Apple, marketing a 16GB phone as entry level when few people are going to be happy with that. I understand that some suits somewhere told them to hit a certain price point, but 16GB is not going to leave users happy.
And on the high end, only having a 16GB and 32GB option are not going to leave power users very happy. Some of us might want a lot of storage for music and other media, but not want a phone that's too large to use one handed like the "P" phones.
So, how long will a $400-500 phone last us?
Google supports Nexus phones with major updates for "at least two years" now, and security updates for "the longer of three years from initial availability or 18 months from last sale of the device via the Google Store," which is better than any other Android OEM out there. After the Stagefright vulnerability cropped up, Google instituted a monthly security update schedule, and so far Nexus devices have gotten OTAs in August, September, and October, right on schedule.
It's good to see this stated up front. I'm hoping that this becomes a trend in the industry. The expected lifetime of the phone is going to be a very important factor when deciding on my next one.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The manufacturers and carriers guaranteed that my first Android device would be my last, by failing to allow me to upgrade to the latest, most secure version of the operating system.
Yeah... android is worse than Apple.
I'm sticking with Apple devices from now on.
My daughters iphone 4 purchased in 2013 didn't get ios8 last year, nor ios9 this year. It stopped receiving security updates 15months ago... barely 9 months after we got it.
Sure it was nearing the end of its run when we bought it, and we new that. But Apple pretty much dropped software support for it completely -- while it was still under its 1 year warranty.
Apple's a better vender then most (all?) android vendors. But you still can get burnt. At least with android you can install alternative builds after the vendor forgets you exist; especially if you buy a popular model that has lots of support.
I like it because it doesn't create any wear on the USB connector.