[Nexus 6P Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] liqn7:
I've had a few more thoughts.

This might sound heretical but I'm actually considering the Note 5 over the 6P as it's the superior phablet in my mind.

Hardware

The Note 5 will undoubtedly have superior hardware.

The 14nm Exynos 7420 is miles ahead of the SD810 both in terms of speed and efficiency. Early benchmarks of the SD820 which is also 14nm are actually comparable to the 7420 which is a huge kudos to Samsung for having this chip out there 12 months before Qualcomm in the chipmaking world which runs on 6/12mth cycles. The SD810 in the 6P (even v 2.1) is going to get hot and then throttled as the system underclocks it to compensate. Its just a matter of when, which depends on Huawei's cooling. The SD808 even shares the same problem to a lesser extent.

TLDR: Exynos 7420 chip is miles ahead of the SD810 and has a degree of future proofing.

-NAND storage UFS 2.0 in the Note 5 vs. eMMC in the 6P. Yes its proprietary, but UFS gives much higher read/write speeds. -4GB RAM vs 3GB. More is better. The aggressive app closing that people have complained about in Galaxy's can be fixed to maximise the use of this for multi tasking.

-Best in class camera – the 6P sounds like it's going to have the best camera ever in a Nexus, but it's still below the S6 edge according to DxoMark, which is going to be below again the yet to be reviewed Note 5. OIS with manual settings is something else altogether if you know what you're doing. Eg http://i.imgur.com/LLp4WQS.jpg – I took this beauty with a super slow shutter speed whilst resting the phone on someone's head lol.

-Best in class screen – there is no way the 6P is going to get the Note 5's screen which has been rated best in class by displaymate and anandtech. Best case scenario is maybe the Note 4's screen which is better than the Nexus 6 , but still 40% less efficient compared to the current gen Note 5 (http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_Note5_ShootOut_1.htm)

Build – I'm not a huge fan of the slippery glass back on the Note, but kudos for the screen to body ratio and tapered edges to help with one handed use, while maintaining the same screen size as the note 4. I use cases for all my phones, so in a way build materials don't really matter. The aluminum build on the 6P also looks nice, but the bezels top and bottom bezels are huge (for the front facing speakers?) and is reflected in the relatively poor screen to body ratio (71.4% vs. 75.9%)

True compared to the Note 4, the omission of the mSD card, IR blaster and replaceable battery are disappointing. There are ways around lack of mSD (see below) and sadly it's a trend that a lot of other smartphone makers are adopting as well. The battery although smaller actually provides more juice compared to the Note 4 thanks to processor and screen improvements in efficiency. If you decided to keep the device for 3+ years, the sealed battery is actually replaceable – not super easy to do, but there are guides online. It's not as if the Nexus 6P has any of these features either.

Software

I'm the first to admit that I'm a huge pure android and nexus nut, but Marshmallow may be the first new version of android that I really can't get excited about. The touted features in Marshmallow are not ground breaking and represent disappointing incremental features which already exist in Lollipop with xposed and even 3rd party apps. True it's giving people who don't root their phones access to them for the first time, but for the power user there really isn't much there. See: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/android-6-0-marshmallow-thoroughly-reviewed/

TLDR:

Doze – can still be bypassed by developers of apps. Only affects standby time so will make no difference to the biggest drain which is screen, app usage and cellular reception quality. Can do similar already with greenify, amplified and other similar apps.

On tap – very hit and miss.

Permissions – nice and about time I guess, but already doable with 3rd party apps / a firewall

Google launcher changes – had these for months already with nova launcher

In context voice commands – nice if you use voice commands often. I don't know many people who do.

Xposed won't work for a while and there will undoubtedly be new bugs as always until 6.1.

All up, the maturity of android is making the latest and greatest pure android updates less mandatory.

My last experience with Touchwiz back with the Note 2 were pretty negative. However, with a dark material theme from the theme store, nova launcher and xposed, the gaudy bits of touchwiz are no longer as bad as they once were. Samsung have really pulled it back and you can do the rest with a simple debloating app or a modded stock ROM.

I'm not a huge stylus person, but some of the TW features like signing PDFs and better hand writing recognition seem genuinely useful. Multi window which was touted in the developer preview of Marshmallow but disabled at launch has been around in TouchWiz for years.

The cons of the Note 5 would be that updates are 4-6 months late and there will be no AOSP custom ROM support given it runs on exynos. This means updates for only 2 years at most. However, the maturity of android as an OS has meant that there are less "essential" features to upgrade to or problems for custom ROMs to fix. Xposed framework is a miracle in allowing a degree customisation that only customs ROMs used to be able to offer.

Samsung is also committed to monthly security updates for android, which is huge as you're no longer reliant on a nexus for this. http://www.androidcentral.com/samsu...urity-updates-every-month-its-android-devices

Price

Local RRP for the 6P is $899 which call it what you want (gouging, Australia tax, market factors) is a huge increase in the $499 US that US customers pay. The Note 5 for local AU stock can be had for $880 and I predict will hit $800-$850 mark by the time Christmas rolls round.

Samsung has pretty good price retention as well. Brand new Note 4s still retail for $650-$700. Resale value used is ~$500-550 on ebay compared to the Nexus 6 which is $400-450. When I got my Nexus 6 in December, I remember it actually cost more than the Note 4 (Paid $765 via Amazon France, Note 4 was ~$720 on a ebay sale).

TLDR

The Note 5 has undoubtedly miles better hardware and will be cheaper than the Nexus 6P at launch. The benefits of pure android and the latest android updates are no longer as important as they once were given the maturity of android as an OS as evidenced by only minor incremental updates in Marshmallow. Advancements in TouchWiz and xposed framework have made non pure android much more tolerable than it once was.

The only other major con I see with the Note 5 is the absence of a 64GB version in Australia, and if it does come it'll be ridiculously expensive. (+$300 over the 32GB currently from grey imports). There are ways around this with cloud storage. I uploaded my 20GB music collection to Google music and can stream it free. I run a networked storage drive at home for media streaming. You can also get USB OTG dongles for your mSD card which work well when you want to carry extra media locally.

I'll wait for reviews of the 6P of course while the Note 5 price gently trends downwards, but at this stage call me a heretic but I might be going back to Samsung and getting a Note 5 :)