Huawei Nexus 6P review: uncommon USB Type-C, photo processing can be slow, but great camera, fast and accurate fingerprint reader, the best Android phone yet
Context & Ripple Effects
The review lands two months after leaked photos confirmed the phone's camera bump, Snapdragon 810, and USB Type-C port, turning rumor into verdict: Dieter Bohn's call is that Huawei built the best Android phone yet, with a great camera and a fast, accurate fingerprint reader offsetting slow photo processing. It ships alongside its smaller sibling, the Nexus 5X, which reviewers praise for value and the same quick fingerprint sensor but ding for mediocre battery.
What makes the verdict matter is who made it: Huawei, until now a marginal name in the US, delivered Google's flagship. By December, AnandTech independently concurs that the 6P is the best use of the troubled Snapdragon 810 and hits a price-performance sweet spot in the US — evidence the design wasn't a one-reviewer outlier.
First-order effects
- US buyers picking between the two new Nexuses get a clear split: the 6P wins on camera and overall polish while the cheaper 5X competes on value, with both sharing the fast fingerprint reader as table stakes.
- Huawei exits the review cycle with flagship-grade credibility in the US market it had never held, validated independently by The Verge and later AnandTech.
Second-order effects
- The 6P's uncommon USB Type-C port puts adoption pressure on other Android makers, who must either match the connector or explain why they haven't.
- The camera praise sets the benchmark rivals must answer — a bar Huawei itself raises further when its own P20 Pro is named best Android phone of 2018 with exceptional low-light imaging, showing the Nexus work fed directly into its own-brand camera ambitions.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Nexus program functions as a credibility ladder for manufacturers: Google's brand legitimizes a partner's hardware, which the partner then converts into standalone flagships — exactly the arc from this 6P to the P20 Pro.
- Camera quality and biometric speed become the durable axes of Android phone differentiation, outlasting chip-cycle marketing; even Google's own 2022 Pixel 6a is still judged against the fingerprint-sensor standard these Nexuses set, and dinged for falling short of it.
The trend: Google's Nexus program is shifting Android's center of gravity toward contract manufacturers becoming first-tier brands, with Huawei the clearest case of Nexus legitimacy converted into its own flagship line.