[Nexus 6P Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] seh6183:
I have both the 6p and Note 5 in my posession right now. I've had the Note 5 since launch and the 6p for a week. The 6p is going back.

Between the two phones there is a lot to do with personal preference. First of all I love the multi window function and can't live without it, but others may not use it at all. I personally use it for two very important things. When I'm watching lengthy videos on Youtube I can have the phone in portrait with the video playing on the top half of the screen while I use chrome on the bottom half to research what I am watching. Again, some people may have no need for this. Also, I play a couple games a lot and it is a REAL pain having to exit a game just to reply to a text. Google messenger has quick reply, but only in portrait mode and it's not the same as a floating window that you can minimize at anytime which gives you full access to the app. Also something that others may not care about, but important to me. The pen I like as well and surprisingly use it for all kinds of stuff. My real estate agent sends me electronic documents to sign all the time and its a breeze using the pen rather than my stupid finger.

As far as performance goes, the 6p scored higher overall on 3dmark, but the Note 5 won in certain areas. In real world testing however the Note 5 seemed to launch apps a bit faster and there seems to be slightly less lag in gaming. I will point out that I have a rooted Note 5 with a custom kernel and the Nexus is on a custom rom with kernel as well, so take these results with a grain of salt.

Now heres the good part. The Nexus 6p is flawed out of the box (the Note 5 isn't perfect either). The Nexus has audio imbalance from the top and bottom speaker, which is annoying when watching videos in landscape. I corrected this with a custom kernel and adjusted the gain between the two to balance it out. I then noticed it wasn't bright enough in direct sunlight, so I also corrected that using my custom kernel and enabling "high brightness mode". This got the screen even brighter than the Note 5 is capable surprisingly. It sucks that I have to manually toggle it when I go outside rather than it automatically do it like the Note 5 does. I can live with these annoyances, because I can fix them.

Heres what I can't fix and why the phone is going back. The auto brightness on this phone does not work in low light conditions. I have removed the stock autobrightness of the phone and took it over with Lux, and it still did not resolve the problem. If I am sitting in a dark room the brightness of the screen will constantly adjust from darker to brighter. Sometimes it doesn't do it at all, sometimes its random, and others it just sits there flashing back and forth from dark to bright. I can't stand it and shouldn't have to disable auto brightness to fix it.

Go with whatever phone fits your needs, but I would take these points into consideration.

---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:33 PM ----------

Just tested again and the Note 5 actually gets brighter. I was missing the light sensor with my LED flashlight. So yet another point to consider.