Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P review: true flagships with little-to-no compromise, all other Android devices are second class citizens
Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P review: The true flagships of the Android ecosystem — With little-to-no compromise, these are now the smartphones to beat.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two weeks after AnandTech crowned the Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+ the best Android phablets on the market, Ars Technica hands that title to Google's own hardware: the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, declared true flagships with little-to-no compromise. The verdict lands because it is corroborated across outlets — The Verge calls the Huawei-built 6P the best Android phone yet, Engadget flags its quick fingerprint sensor despite a mediocre battery, and AnandTech later credits the 6P with making the best of the Snapdragon 810.
First-order effects
- Samsung's Note5 and S6 edge+, reviewed as the Android benchmark on October 5, are immediately demoted to second tier by reviewers who now treat the Nexus pair as the phones to beat.
- US buyers get an unambiguous default recommendation at both size tiers — the cheaper 5X and the premium 6P — collapsing what had been a crowded flagship comparison into a two-device decision.
Second-order effects
- Huawei exits this launch with mainstream Western reviewer credibility as the manufacturer of the best-reviewed Android phone, a positioning shift from component supplier to brand contender.
- Features the reviews single out — fast fingerprint readers and the 6P's uncommon USB Type-C port — become table stakes that rival OEMs must match in their next cycles, while the 5X's criticized SoC, NAND, battery, and missing microSD slot give competitors a concrete spec sheet to attack.
Third-order effects
- Google's reference-device cadence — a fresh flagship pairing each fall — institutionalizes a yearly reset of the 'best Android phone' benchmark, structurally forcing Samsung and other OEMs to compete against Google's own hardware rather than only against each other.
- If reviewers keep treating stock-Android Nexuses as the ecosystem's reference point, OEM skins like Samsung's TouchWiz stay under pressure to justify their overhead against a clean baseline.
The trend: Android's premium hierarchy is consolidating around Google-controlled reference hardware built by manufacturing partners, with each fall release resetting the standard the rest of the OEM field must chase.