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Nexus 6 |OT| Moto takes the L

kmfdmpig

Member
Lol what the hell is going on in here?

Camera: Go look as some damn shots in the reviews. Anything but the darkest situations looks phenomenal. Downright beautiful pictures. Is it as good as a Note 4? Nope. Is it still amazing? Yep.

Battery: I'll attribute this to some unfinished bugs. How else could some users be reporting great battery life? MKBHD went so far as to say it was better than his Note 4.....

Display: Still up in the air about this one. Some are looking at the raw numbers and saying it's terrible, others are just plain using it day-to-day and say it's beautiful.

The reviews seem positive, but also point out that the Note 4 is better in those three areas. Also, Camera, smoothness, and Battery should get quite a bit better on Note 4 in a few weeks (months?) once they get the Lollipop upgrade.

Worse than Note 4 does not mean bad. If you really hate Touchwiz then Nexus 6 seems like a great option. For those that don't hate Touchwiz and want SD card or better battery life then Note 4 seems like a great option. I think I'll hold pat until next year's phablets.
 

th3dude

Member
Like anything, I think it comes down to personal priorities. The Note is becoming more appealing to me now because I really love the notification LEDs, the ability to replace the battery and physical buttons. And now it seems clear that it has as good or better screen quality, battery life and camera. So Touchwiz sucks, obviously (I own a S3), but the plus column for the Note 4 is stacking up.

Totally agree.

I've actually found the notification LED to be annoying over the years, so the ambient display is something I'm very excited about.

Benchmarks tell a story, for sure, but for me it comes down to features that I want and will improve my daily use, like turbo charging, wireless charging, ambient display, front facing speakers.

Unless the reviews say that this thing is completely broken and unusable, I'm set on it.
 

todd360

Member
So is the googleplay store still getting new stock up today? I thought they would be all gone for sure by the time I got home from work.
 

Crateman

Member
With the lukewarm Nexus 6 reviews, I'm seriously considering getting a Moto Maxx (or, as you US based friends know it, Droid Turbo). Thankfully, here in Mexico Motorola is selling it unlocked and free of any bloatware.

My only concern is knowing how committed is Motorola to update it past Lollipop. I mean, the Maxx ships with Android 4.4.4 and it's pretty much a given it will be updated to 5.0... right?
 
I would love to know if the memory is actually slow or if there is a bug in the software. Have a note 2 and thinking of jumping off the Samsung bandwagon as I dislike touchwiz.
 

Vyer

Member
Ars technica review paints it as a pretty bad premium device.

Pink screen at lowest brightness would been a "-gate" on an iPhone.

pink.jpg

30 page GAF thread
 
it could have blue light disabled for night time viewing, which is a good thing, just bad for making photo comparisons

bit of a leap though, not sure this is the case
 

gcubed

Member
it could have blue light disabled for night time viewing, which is a good thing, just bad for making photo comparisons

bit of a leap though, not sure this is the case

this is exactly what it is. Its for ultra low light use cases, and is only there in a setting that isn't available with manual brightness settings.

Its only bad for making photo comparisons when all context is removed
 

todd360

Member
Seriously though. Did googleplay store already sell phones today or not? lol. I need to know if I have hope still for today.
 
I guess people are just comparing against the best camera on an Android phone. Is that the Note 4?
Yes it is. The camera on the Note 4 is fantastic and rivals the iPhone 6's camera.
With the lukewarm Nexus 6 reviews, I'm seriously considering getting a Moto Maxx (or, as you US based friends know it, Droid Turbo). Thankfully, here in Mexico Motorola is selling it unlocked and free of any bloatware.

My only concern is knowing how committed is Motorola to update it past Lollipop. I mean, the Maxx ships with Android 4.4.4 and it's pretty much a given it will be updated to 5.0... right?
Yes the Moto Maxx will get Lollipop. It's essentially a flagship phone and Moto supports its phones well. No need to worry about updates.

Probably intentional. Warming the colour temperature is optimal for viewing in really dark areas/rooms/environments.
What really got me is the maximum brightness. It's so LOW compared to every other flagship out there. Seriously disappointing.
 
No, the slow storage sounds like the major drawback. Ars said it's so slow the Nexus 5 seems faster. Moto dun goofed. Six hundred forty nine US dollars doesn't buy what it used to.
Yeah, what is the deal with that? It's shit slow compared to the Moto X in Ars Technica's read/write tests - less than a third as fast in the read test. Do you think it might be some kind of software issue, maybe a compatibility issue with the app used to do the tests? Or did Moto just use slow memory for the phone? Seems odd if it's the latter.

Anandtech's review says: -

To test NAND performance on the Nexus 6 we attempted to use Androbench and Andebench, but both gave results that could not have been accurate and so we are unfortunately unable to test this aspect of the Nexus 6 at this time.
 

clav

Member
Yeah, what is the deal with that? It's shit slow compared to the Moto X in Ars Technica's read/write tests - less than a third as fast in the read test. Do you think it might be some kind of software issue, maybe a compatibility issue with the app used to do the tests? Or did Moto just use slow memory for the phone? Seems odd if it's the latter.

Resigning the contract for production materials (in this case memory) at a lower price is a cost cutting move.

I think the Kingston V300 recently did that, so the reviews tanked for the recent iteration of that SSD.
 

gcubed

Member
Yeah, what is the deal with that? It's shit slow compared to the Moto X in Ars Technica's read/write tests - less than a third as fast in the read test. Do you think it might be some kind of software issue, maybe a compatibility issue with the app used to do the tests? Or did Moto just use slow memory for the phone? Seems odd if it's the latter.

its the same controller as the Moto X 2014... and ars was the only outlet to say anything near the fact that its slower then the Nexus 5. I'd assume more people would have tested by now to correlate what Ars found.
 
its the same controller as the Moto X 2014... and ars was the only outlet to say anything near the fact that its slower then the Nexus 5. I'd assume more people would have tested by now to correlate what Ars found.
I edited my post above after you replied, but Anandtech's review said this: -

To test NAND performance on the Nexus 6 we attempted to use Androbench and Andebench, but both gave results that could not have been accurate and so we are unfortunately unable to test this aspect of the Nexus 6 at this time.
 

giga

Member
Moto needs to fire their display team.

Terrible brightness.

68986.png


Terrible saturation accuracy.

68989.png


I was highly disappointed by these results. Like I said earlier, we've seen great improvements in the quality of AMOLED displays as of late, and Google took color calibration very seriously with the Nexus 5. The Nexus 6 shows significant regression in color accuracy from the Nexus 5, and the maximum brightness is much lower. It should also be noted that despite its higher resolution, its larger size means that compared to the Nexus 5 the pixel density only increases 12% from 441 PPI to 493 PPI. The use of a PenTile RGBG subpixel layout also means that there is actually an overall decrease in subpixel density.

Overall, the Nexus 6 display is quite poor relative to the displays on other smartphones like the Galaxy Note 4, iPhone 6, and HTC One (M7). It's also a definite regression from the display on the Nexus 5, which is concerning given the fact that the Nexus 6 is $300 more expensive. It has been speculated that Motorola is unable to source the latest generation of panels from Samsung Display, which would explain why many of the panel characteristics are similar to previous generation AMOLED panels in the Note 3 and Galaxy S4. Although the efficiency of AMOLED displays when displaying black helps to reduce power usage with features like Ambient Display which wakes up the phone when notifications arrive or it is picked up, I don't believe it's worth the trade-off if it involves such heavy sacrifices in color accuracy and brightness.
 

gcubed

Member
I edited my post above after you replied, but Anandtech's review said this: -

seems confirmed to be the encryption...

https://plus.google.com/+ArtemRussakovskii/posts/G93J5QELVyj

Moto needs to fire their display team.

Terrible brightness.

[IM1G]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8687/68986.png[/IMG]

Terrible saturation accuracy.

[IM1G]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8687/68989.png[/IMG]

they don't have a display team, they get Samsungs scraps
 
Damn it, I was hoping that reviews were awesome, but now I'm really worried about the display and the long time opening of apps. I was planning on dumping my Note 3 for this, but now I'm starting to have some doubts... Decisions, decisions! :/
 

Cheebo

Banned
Jeez...I finally watched that Ars video showing the Nexus 5 being faster in all their various tests finally. What happened? Note 4 is really looking like the go-to Android phone this fall it looks like more and more.
 
Damn it, I was hoping that reviews were awesome, but now I'm really worried about the display and the long time opening of apps. I was planning on dumping my Note 3 for this, but now I'm starting to have some doubts... Decisions, decisions! :/

It's hardly a long time to open apps, check out Ars Technica's comparison video against the N5. The N6 is definitely slower, but it's a matter of less than a second on most apps. Honestly it seems like something you won't even notice unless you use a second phone that's faster. Farther, I have to wonder what performance on running apps that have already been launched and were idling in the background is like. The video is after a reboot, so it's all cold launches. It may be that resuming a suspended app is perfectly fine. Additionally if it is possible disable encryption somehow, then we should definitely see improvements there that will likely surpass the N5.

I also wouldn't stress out too much about the display. Yes, objectively when looking at benchmarks it's worse, that's undeniable. But unless you spend a lot of time using your phone outdoors the lower brightness should be fine, and the inaccurate colors is again something you probably won't notice on daily use (well, unless you're an artist or someone who needs accurate colors).
 

thuway

Member
Jeez...I finally watched that Ars video showing the Nexus 5 being faster in all their various tests finally. What happened? Note 4 is really looking like the go-to Android phone this fall it looks like more and more.

Lollipop is in it's infancy. This is Google's personal flagship, they'll squash out whatever bugs they have to. Nexus 5 had an equally rocky launch. As for the display, I'm sure they will have to do some sort of temperature adjusting, but my guess is- they were too busy squashing final release bugs for Lollipop and not spending enough time fixing whatever software issues remained in the Nexus 6.

Once Lollipop launches, I'm sure all hands on boad will be working on the Nexus 6 to get everything up to snuff.
 
Reviews be damned, I'm all in and am super excited for my Nexus to arrive! I had a Nexus S and then a Galaxy Nexus when I was on Sprint but switched to a Note II when I moved to AT&T. I love my Note II and don't really mind TouchWiz but I do love that pure Android experience.

Can't wait.
 
What, are you kidding me! I kept checking the thread whenever I could at work to make sure I didn't miss it. How fast did it sell out?
Sorry bud it was gone quick. It was available for some time on the Motorola store,the Midnight blue 32gb version at least, but it's out of stock there too.
It's hardly a long time to open apps, check out Ars Technica's comparison video against the N5. The N6 is definitely slower, but it's a matter of less than a second on most apps. Honestly it seems like something you won't even notice unless you use a second phone that's faster. Farther, I have to wonder what performance on running apps that have already been launched and were idling in the background is like. The video is after a reboot, so it's all cold launches. It may be that resuming a suspended app is perfectly fine. Additionally if it is possible disable encryption somehow, then we should definitely see improvements there that will likely surpass the N5.

I also wouldn't stress out too much about the display. Yes, objectively when looking at benchmarks it's worse, that's undeniable. But unless you spend a lot of time using your phone outdoors the lower brightness should be fine, and the inaccurate colors is again something you probably won't notice on daily use (well, unless you're an artist or someone who needs accurate colors).
You see the problem is that this phone costs $650-700. You shouldn't have to make excuses for certain faults. For example, the maximum brightness is way too low no matter how you slice it. It shouldn't be that low in 2014 let alone a flagship by Google. This is a Motorola issue since all of their phones have terrible displays in terms of maximum brightness. Same deal with color accuracy. Apple makes sure that their displays output accurate colors. Google did too -the Nexus 5- so why this is happening with the 6 is baffling. The speed issues seems to be caused by encryption so that can be fixed. The same for battery life.

It shouldn't be on par with the Nexus 5. It should've surpassed it easily. Especially with the premium price tag.
 

thuway

Member
Just last night, a new image of Lollipop was pushed to the Nexus 6. The problems all sound software based. The device is using an AMOLED panel alongside the most high end specs imaginable. It sounds like most of these nagging issues are more to do with software and color temperature calibration.
 

todd360

Member
Sorry bud it was gone quick. It was available for some time on the Motorola store,the Midnight blue 32gb version at least, but it's out of stock there too.

You see the problem is that this phone costs $650-700. You shouldn't have to make excuses for certain faults. For example, the maximum brightness is way too low no matter how you slice it. It shouldn't be that low in 2014 let alone a flagship by Google. This is a Motorola issue since all of their phones have terrible displays in terms of maximum brightness. Same deal with color accuracy. Apple makes sure that their displays output accurate colors. Google did too -the Nexus 5- so why this is happening with the 6 is baffling. The speed issues seems to be caused by encryption so that can be fixed. The same for battery life.

It shouldn't be on par with the Nexus 5. It should've surpassed it easily. Especially with the premium price tag.

Thank you for answering my questions. I'm not sure if I should get this phone now. There seems to be a lot of small problems that shouldn't be there for the price. I would like to see what everyone here thinks when they get their phones. I think I might just wait now. Maybe missing the new stock was actually good luck. I was so excited to get a nexus phone. I waited or the new one over getting 5 and now I don't know what to do lol.

edit: Is it possible for them to update the screen brightness or is that a hardware issue? I don't really know how that works.
 

gcubed

Member
Just last night, a new image of Lollipop was pushed to the Nexus 6. The problems all sound software based. The device is using an AMOLED panel alongside the most high end specs imaginable. It sounds like most of these nagging issues are more to do with software and color temperature calibration.

The screen won't be as good as a Note 4 in brightness or calibration, so if we are all ok with that, then the rest sounds software based.
 
Thank you for answering my questions. I'm not sure if I should get this phone now. There seems to be a lot of small problems that shouldn't be there for the price. I would like to see what everyone here thinks when they get their phones. I think I might just wait now. Maybe missing the new stock was actually good luck. I was so excited to get a nexus phone. I waited or the new one over getting 5 and now I don't know what to do lol.

edit: Is it possible for them to update the screen brightness or is that a hardware issue? I don't really know how that works.

I only sound harsh towards the Nexus 6 because it was supposed to be the chosen one. My current phone needs to go and I was set with the Nexus 6. I still am, but I'll just wait and see what happens.

I'm not sure about your last question but I hope it can increase. It's ridiculously low.
 

Talon

Member
It's hardly a long time to open apps, check out Ars Technica's comparison video against the N5. The N6 is definitely slower, but it's a matter of less than a second on most apps. Honestly it seems like something you won't even notice unless you use a second phone that's faster. Farther, I have to wonder what performance on running apps that have already been launched and were idling in the background is like. The video is after a reboot, so it's all cold launches. It may be that resuming a suspended app is perfectly fine. Additionally if it is possible disable encryption somehow, then we should definitely see improvements there that will likely surpass the N5.

I also wouldn't stress out too much about the display. Yes, objectively when looking at benchmarks it's worse, that's undeniable. But unless you spend a lot of time using your phone outdoors the lower brightness should be fine, and the inaccurate colors is again something you probably won't notice on daily use (well, unless you're an artist or someone who needs accurate colors).
You really shouldn't need to be making excuses for a phone at this price point.

The display is bettered by its predecessor that sold at $350 by both measures. That's shameful.
 

Draper

Member
I ended up picking up an iPhone Plus last week thinking I'd return it should the reviews for this be stellar. Guess I'll be keeping it...god I fucking HATE the OS, but the hardware side of things are great.
 
You really shouldn't need to be making excuses for a phone at this price point.

The display is bettered by its predecessor that sold at $350 by both measures. That's shameful.
That's what really burns me about this phone. Hardware issues like that aren't a MAJOR deal, but when you're coming in at almost twice as expensive as the last model which was noticeably better in this particular category, it makes you feel somewhat shafted.
 
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