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Chronicles

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Nexus 6: 6" Quad HD display, Snapdragon 805 CPU, 13 megapixel rear camera, turbo charger gives 6 hours of battery in 15 mins

Google's Nexus 6 is a giant phablet designed for Android Lollipop  —  Google is today introducing the Nexus 6, the latest in its line of smartphones designed …

The Verge Jacob Kastrenakes

Context & Ripple Effects

Two weeks after Android Police laid out the leaked specs of a Motorola-built Nexus 6 — a 5.9" QHD display and dual front-facing speakers among them — Google has made it official: the Nexus 6 arrives with a 6-inch Quad HD panel, a Snapdragon 805, a 13 megapixel camera, and a turbo charger rated at 6 hours of use from a 15-minute charge. The phone is positioned as the launch vehicle for Android Lollipop, giving Google's new OS a flagship-sized showcase on day one.

The story traveled widely: CNET, BBC, Businessweek, ZDNet and others all carried the announcement on October 15, and CNET's pickup added the commercial detail that matters most — preorders open October 29 at $649, alongside the Nexus 9 tablet and Nexus Player. That price point marks the Nexus line as a full-retail, premium-tier product rather than a budget reference device.

First-order effects

  • Motorola's Nexus 6 goes on preorder October 29 at $649 unlocked, putting Google's stock-Android flagship in direct price competition with carrier-sold premium handsets rather than beneath them.
  • The Nexus 6 doubles as the debut hardware for Android Lollipop, tying the OS launch to a single oversized device and making its display, camera, and turbo-charging claims the public face of the release.

Second-order effects

  • Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 now sits in Google's own flagship, giving the chip a marquee reference design that other 2015 Android makers will be measured against.
  • OEM partners shipping heavily customized Android on comparably sized screens face a stock-Android alternative at full retail, sharpening the question of what their software layers add at the same price.

Third-order effects

  • If each autumn's Android release keeps debuting on ever-larger Nexus hardware, features like six-inch Quad HD panels and 15-minute fast charging harden into the spec baseline OEMs rush to match the following cycle.
  • Google pairing its OS with a premium reference phone each year shifts the Nexus program from developer tool toward trend-setter, increasing its leverage over where the Android ecosystem sets screen size, silicon, and pricing.

The trend: Flagship smartphones are converging on six-inch Quad HD screens, and Google's move to a premium-priced Nexus shows the reference line leading that shift rather than undercutting it.

Related: Google · Snapdragon 805 CPU · This Is The Motorola Nexus 6: A 5.9" QHD Display, 3200mAh+ Battery, Dual Front-Facing Speakers · Nexus 6 hands-on: supersized, even by today's standards, with much improved camera · Nexus 6 review: great display, top-of-the-line processor, more unwieldy than other big phones

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