Google Nexus 6P Review: A Magnificent Marshallow Powered Flagship

Performance wise, the Nexus 6P sits atop the Android crowd. Its unadulterated edition of Android Marshmallow paired with Qualcomm's mighty Snapdragon 810 V2.1 posted to top-tier results across all our benchmarks, from browsing to gaming. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more elegantly performing device for under $500. Credit where it's due: the Google-Huawei duo has impressed, and given the results here, we wouldn't be surprised to see Huawei enter into the Nexus rotation more often.


The large format smartphone market is hotter than ever, and early smartphone owners are sizing up to newer, premium devices in droves. The 5.7-inch Nexus 6P is large, sure, but not unwieldy. It's rigid and dense, aided by its all metal construction. Being first to hop on the impending USB Type-C bandwagon is a plus as well, if only for faster transfers and quicker recharging. The rear camera is as good as any Android camera we've seen, and the 8MP front-facing shooter should please those who routinely video chat or value top-shelf selfies. Then there's its display; finally Google saw fit to go the way of AMOLED and they worked with Huawei to make that happen, which is somewhat of a rarity these days. It seemed as though Samsung previously had the market virtually cornered on the display technology, or at least had the cost structure in hand to bring it to many more of its handsets. Regardless, for the Nexus 6P, this checkbox item is a non-issue and it results in a much better display experience than anything IPS could offer. Simply put, it's gorgeous.


Though competitors like the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ may have a few extra bells and whistles like the S Pen stylus, it's tough to argue with the Nexus 6P's value proposition. For $649, the top-end 128GB Nexus 6P is very solid value. If you can get away with less storage, you'll get world-class performance in a wonderfully constructed handset for under $500, (though you may have to go to the Google store to find that price) unlocked and contract-free.

Lovely all-metal construction Crisp, clean version of Android 6.0 Great overall performance Beautiful AMOLED display $499 price point, unlocked	Could be too large for some hands