[Nexus 6  General] spartanm99:
I do not own the phone but I used one from a friend who recently came in from the US (32 Blue).

My time was just over an hour so this review is not that deep, but some facts I found. (I will compare with the Note 4 and iPhone 6+ as these two phones I have a load of experience with).

SCREEN:

Bright, but not extremely bright. Better than the Galaxy Nexus I'm currently stuck with using (Nexus 5 died) but that isn't saying much. It is noticeable less bright that the Note 4 and iPhone 6+. The colours are less vivid than the Note 4 and the colour balance is not as good as the iPhone 6+. If the Note 4/6+ where next to the Nexus 6 in store with all having maximum brightness, the Nexus 6 would easily fail to convince the prospective buyer that it has a decent screen. The screen is decent, but flawed. It is not super engaging - just ok. It does the job indoors. I did not test outdoors. In terms of sharpness I found it equally sharp compared with the much lower resolution 6+ but not quite as sharp as the Note 4.

The size of the screen initially made me not want it, then I considered it would be ok but after using it I love the 5.95 inch screen and I wish it was a solid 6 inches and closer to the bezels. I do not like how the bottom bezel is slimmer than the top, but what can you do! The size of the screen feels great.

5/10 in my opinion. Respectively I'd give the 6+ 7/10 and Note 4 8/10.

BUILD/BODY:

Build quality on the blue Nexus 6 seemed good; the metal frame is a nice addition and the blue is really dark (or that could just be from memory). Not as bad as I was expecting. If you dropped it I think it would be less damaged than your iPhone 6+ or Nexus 5. Not a bad phone to hold either for it's size. The 10.1mm thick point however is a bit of a joke. The battery is very average and the camera could've easily fit into a 7-8mm thin body - in my opinion it is just too fat. It feels super fat and it looks super fat, next to the 6+. It just feels fat to me. My opinion. Also the rounded back makes it impossibly annoying to leave and using while resting on a table.

Build quality: Seems like 7.5/10 - materials do not feel or look as good as an iPhone 6+ but feel better than the Note 4.

Thickness: 1/10 - really did not like it at all, it just felt thick to me. This is my personal opinion however!

CAMERA:

Fast, good quality and an improvement on the Nexus 5. HDR+ is still too slow for quick use. I thought the stock camera app was extremely underwhelming. Hardly any good options and no RAW photos out of the box. The video mode I did not try apart from 4K (which was not as good as the Note 4). Standard pictures indoors in normal light were good, but not great. Note 4 and 6+ beat it hands down. No matter what picture I took with the Nexus 6 none impressed me that much. Shutter speed for normal photos was decent, but slower than the iPhone 6+ (noticeably, especially when the camera occasionally lost focus and tried to refocus - it took about 2 seconds on average when this happened). Also, for the sheer size of the phone I was recommended by a photographer (my girlfriend) that the aperture could've easily been 1.2 to 1.5/3 for the size of the phone and that would've produced better images. She mentioned that the flashes overexposed my images (which they did when used) and that is due to being too close to the lens; also an xenon flash would've been a better choice for this phone.

Camera: 5.5/10 - good, improvement on the Nexus 5 but nothing to write home about. I'm sure with better software you will be able to use this camera well. I feel like it was let down by terrible software (this is 2014/15 guys...the camera software should be more optimised).

SOUND:

Speaker sound of course dominates the iPhone 6+ or Note 4; not as good as the HTC Boomsound but still loud and clearer then most phones I've used. Noticeable good loudspeaker sound when playing music back. I did not get to check what it sounds like when using speaker phone when making a call, but I assume stereo speakers for voice calls (loudspeaker) would be a great improvement. I think that my biggest problem is that they are ugly (the speaker grills) to me on the front of the device, but that is again a personal opinion. They work well.

The music player playback through headphones is NOT good. The volume is too low, the sound quality is average (a bit better than the Nexus 5 but not by much - 99% of people would not tell the difference). I used to work heavily in music production so I have an idea of what I'm talking about here. The music playback quality in the phone is not down to software (I'm sure software could help it a bit here) but hardware. I do not believe the phone has a dedicated music chipset (or whatever it is called) in the phone (correct me if Im wrong). The sound playback is not amazing and not premium. iPhone 6+ is better and even the Note 4 was better for playing music back through headphones.

SPEAKER QUALITY: 8/10

PLAYBACK (HEADPHONES) QUALITY: 4/10

SPEED AND OS:

The phone is faster than the Nexus 5 for normal use. I had heaps of windows open and no lag. Really smooth and the animations of the OS look great. Android 5.0 feels like they hired someone from Apple to improve the feel of the OS, without limiting your customisation options. It's great, so much better than Jelly Bean (which I'm currently using on my Galaxy Nexus). Sometimes when opening large apps (Asphalt 7: Heat) the phone slowed down noticeably. It look over 10 seconds to open this app, twice it didn't open after 10 seconds and crashed. There are some serious slow down issues with large apps here. These issues did not exist on the Note 4. In terms of everyday use - if you are coming from a stock, clean Nexus 5 - you will not notice a huge speed difference, if any. From memory the Nexus 5 was just as quick in everyday use (phone calls, text messages, accessing the gallery). The Nexus 6 might be quicker but not enough to make a lasting impression. This is just down to the RAM/Snapdragon 805 combo - yes it is the latest from snapdragon but not as snappy as the iPhone 6+ (which feels a bit more streamlined and quicker). The Note 4 felt slower than the Nexus 6 though overall, but not by much. As I said above, despite feeling a little heavier than the Nexus 6, it was faster to open apps (sometimes significantly faster).

OS: 8/10 - great step up from previous Android OS versions.

SPEED: 7.5/10 - a quick phone, but has serious slow down issues.

BATTERY:

From an hour of use I can't tell how good it is but it did dip nearly 30% from my use with it which included web browsing, photos, music playback and some video watching as well as a phone call. The call quality was normal, I didn't have a problem with it. Volume was good too (but that could just be because I was indoors with minimal environmental sounds bothering me). I can't rate the battery based on this brief amount of time with it however I do suspect that if you used this phone heavily you will not get more than 15 hours of use; screen on time of more than 5 hours - I can't see it lasting. Competitively the Note 4 that I've used lasts about 5.5 hours with heavy use and constant screen on time, the iPhone 6+ lasted well over the 6 hour mark. I was left with an impression that the battery should've could've been bigger in this phone.

CONCLUSION:

I didn't spend long with this phone but from what I can tell it was good. It was NOT worth the $970+ for the 64gb version here in Australia (delivered, off-contract price). This felt like a solid $500 phone. Yes it was overall better than the Nexus 5, but it was not that much better. It was not $570 better than the Nexus 5. Sorry to say it, but it is true. I liked it better than the Note 4 but that is because I hate TW. If the Note 4 was stock Android, the Nexus 6 wouldn't survive. The iPhone 6+ (I've never liked iOS) held its own against the Nexus 6 in terms of camera quality, screen quality, premium looks/feel and speed.

I was planning to buy three Nexus 6 phones (one for me, one for my girlfriend and one for my mother). I purchased her a 6+ because I couldn't wait around for its release. Still in the market to buy myself a new phone and my girlfriend a new phone. The Nexus 6 is not in our price range or scope. Too expensive and not enough phone for the price. If you are talking pure specs - Asian phones (VIVO etc) offer the same processor/RAM combo with 8mp FF camera with flash and 16MP rear facing camera with dual LED flash in a waterproof body thinner than 7mm with a battery 3500-3900mh. Let's ignore the OS on the Asian phones as you can easily install stock Android onto them (the Chinese dev community for them is huge) - just focusing on hardware. You are trying to tell me that some Asian manufacturer can produce overall better specs in a phone and sell for $300 cheaper (for me) than Google can? What a load of BS. Google should've tried harder and put more into it for the price. Software is good, but it fails in big departments (e.g. camera).

Yes this is a long conclusion but this is a conflicted phone. I wanted to love it and spend my money on it but for what it is, I can't do that. The stock OS is nice but not worth so much money. I don't have money to burn and so I cannot afford to burn what I have on a phone which makes me feel like they held back...more than they should have.

If you want stock Android experience I can't tell you to buy the Nexus 6 as the Nexus 5 would do the same job for you. Sure the camera and battery is worse on the Nexus 5 but I would still go with it. Hold out with that phone for a few months until the Nexus '7' (or whatever the next stock Android phone is called) gets released. The Nexus 6 just is not worth all that extra money for the upgrades it has. Good phone, nice phone, solid and I like the 6 inch screen but not nearly a $1,000 phone at all.