Nexus 6 review: great display, top-of-the-line processor, more unwieldy than other big phones
Prepare to pay for the biggest Android Lollipop powerhouse — The Good The Google Nexus 6 has a razor-sharp and expansive display, a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 805 processor …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Nexus 6 caps a rollout arc that began with the Motorola-built 5.9-inch QHD reveal and continued through The Verge's hands-on calling it supersized even by phablet standards. CNET's verdict lands alongside AnandTech's own review — which crowned it the best-performing Android phone while flagging display calibration and battery-life trade-offs — and the sibling Nexus 9 Lollipop tablet review, making this the moment reviewers reconcile Google's flagship hardware ambitions with Lollipop's software debut.
First-order effects
- Buyers face a clear trade-off at launch: a razor-sharp QHD display and Snapdragon 805 performance in exchange for a device more unwieldy than rival big phones, and a premium price for a Nexus line historically pitched as affordable.
- Google's flagship positioning shifts — the Nexus is no longer the cheap developer phone but a spec-leading halo device competing directly with Samsung and Motorola's top-tier hardware.
Second-order effects
- Rival Android makers must answer both fronts: matching the QHD-plus display and raw Snapdragon 805-class performance while differentiating on ergonomics, where the Nexus 6's size leaves room to win over buyers who find it too much phone.
- Review consensus that the hardware outpaces its polish (calibration, battery life) pressures Google to iterate quickly — a cycle that culminates in the Nexus 6P refining the formula around the Snapdragon 810 roughly a year later.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Nexus program permanently abandons its budget roots, becoming a reference-design showcase whose role is to set the spec bar — display resolution, silicon tier, charging speed — that the broader Android ecosystem then races to commoditize.
- Phablet-size flagships normalize: once even Google's own 'pure Android' device ships at nearly six inches, large screens stop being a niche segment and become the default template for premium phones industry-wide.
The trend: This review marks the point where Google's Nexus line pivoted from affordable developer hardware to a full-price flagship benchmark, accelerating the industry-wide shift toward oversized, spec-maximal premium Android phones.