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iPhone 6 Plus > Nexus 6

maka344

maka344

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Nov 4, 2009
2,146
1,316
London, UK
Hey all. So I recently tried the S6. I've been a long standing Apple/iPhone lover and still do love their products, I have a range of Apple hardware but I'm just becoming bored of the iPhone and it's limited OS. I don't really want to JB to get the features that should be present, it's like having a Rolls-Royce but being restricted to 40mph. It will get you there in comfort and style but it will be a boring ride though a solid boring ride at that.

I want more freedom, more choices and more feature rich options right out of the box but Apple don't want to offer that, yet. I love iMessage, keychain and iCloud for the ease of use and the fact that all my family use iPhones etc. I also love the support network; if I damage my iPhone or it brings faulty, I can book an appointment and have a new device same day. No sending off, no waiting weeks for a repair and no bulls*it (most of the time).

I recently tried the S6 but felt that screen size was a compromise, I'm used to the bigger real screen estate. Fantastic phone, slick and amazing specs but I didn't like the fact that updates could take 6 months from release and didn't like TW in the menus etc. the battery was also not that great for be compared to my iPhone 6 Plus so I returned it. It was not a bad phone, just not for me.

I think if I'm going to switch then I'd prefer a device with a native OS, is it just the Nexus range that provide this?

For people who have done what I'm considering, what's your verdict? Is it a good switch? I'm willing to depart from the Apple Ecosystem but want to make it a worth while switch. What's the battery like, can you get a full days use out of it with heavy ish use? What about size? It is really 'that' much bigger?

I'm so confused, I like the lure of Google's OS, and becoming tired of Apple's iOS.
 
I have all of those devices right now

The Nexus 6 is same height but its not height that impacts how big it feels but actually 'width' and its here that the Nexus 6 feels massive even compared to the 6+

The nexus 6 screen although QHD isn't as good as either the S6 or 6+. Its a good screen but its noticeably dimmer and suffers from yellow tint without you manually compensating for it.

Stock android is excellent IMHO. Ram management is great with apps often requiring the user to refresh content as it can keep a lot in memory compared to Samsung's heavy ram usage which often makes a 3gb phone operate with as good memory management as a 1gb iPhone in my experience. Both my S6e and iPhone 6+ would refresh content about same despite massive memory size difference, whereas the Nexus 6 you actually notice the extra memory.

If you want stock android with the barest extra's the Moto X 2014 is a great device and its 5.2" screen is between the S6 & 6+. It has a great screen to bezel ratio and thus feels very small especially compared to its bigger brother the Nexus 6.

Moto's extras are all worthwhile additions and although its only 2gb compared to 3gb with stock android you likely won't notice unless you are pausing multiple games in the background.

That being said if you do like big phones the Nexus 6 is excellent and its camera can produce excellent results but maybe not quite as good as either of the S6 or 6+ - but the difference for me is more marginal than massive.

Battery life on the Nexus 6 with Andrpid 5.1 is noticeably better than my S6e - but maybe still not quite as good as the 6+ which does have stellar battery life and standby time.

I wasn't sure whether I liked the Nexus 6 at first because it is so big, but I've adjusted so that its my main android device when I'm at home but I use my S6 edge as my phone, camera and mp3 player when out and about. Its just easier to carry and hold.

My 6+ isn't really being used too much at the moment but I swing back and forth so it could be my daily driver at any given stage.
 
maka344 said:
Hey all. So I recently tried the S6. I've been a long standing Apple/iPhone lover and still do love their products, I have a range of Apple hardware but I'm just becoming bored of the iPhone and it's limited OS. I don't really want to JB to get the features that should be present, it's like having a Rolls-Royce but being restricted to 40mph. It will get you there in comfort and style but it will be a boring ride though a solid boring ride at that.

I want more freedom, more choices and more feature rich options right out of the box but Apple don't want to offer that, yet. I love iMessage, keychain and iCloud for the ease of use and the fact that all my family use iPhones etc. I also love the support network; if I damage my iPhone or it brings faulty, I can book an appointment and have a new device same day. No sending off, no waiting weeks for a repair and no bulls*it (most of the time).

I recently tried the S6 but felt that screen size was a compromise, I'm used to the bigger real screen estate. Fantastic phone, slick and amazing specs but I didn't like the fact that updates could take 6 months from release and didn't like TW in the menus etc. the battery was also not that great for be compared to my iPhone 6 Plus so I returned it. It was not a bad phone, just not for me.

I think if I'm going to switch then I'd prefer a device with a native OS, is it just the Nexus range that provide this?

For people who have done what I'm considering, what's your verdict? Is it a good switch? I'm willing to depart from the Apple Ecosystem but want to make it a worth while switch. What's the battery like, can you get a full days use out of it with heavy ish use? What about size? It is really 'that' much bigger?

I'm so confused, I like the lure of Google's OS, and becoming tired of Apple's iOS.
Click to expand...

For the reasons I bolded, you should just stick to your iPhone.
 
Check out this thread as I just made the switch and lots of discussion going on in there as you click back on the pages.

I've had it for 2 days and still tinkering to get it to exactly like I want it. Dont want to give it a full review yet but I will say it is a great device to go to coming from a 6+.

2 biggest things you are sacrificing from very early impressions. Battery and camera quality/processing/snap speed.
 
Cnasty said:
Check out this thread as I just made the switch and lots of discussion going on in there as you click back on the pages.

I've had it for 2 days and still tinkering to get it to exactly like I want it. Dont want to give it a full review yet but I will say it is a great device to go to coming from a 6+.

2 biggest things you are sacrificing from very early impressions. Battery and camera quality/processing/snap speed.
Click to expand...

This is why I wanted to get the views of others - thanks guys.

How are you getting on without the finger print scanner and in terms of battery, how much worse is it compared to the iPhone? I love my iPhone 6 plus battery life, never have to worry about having a charger with me. I can go on long haul flights and not have to bother charging it etc.

Screen quality etc?

----------
mattopotamus said:
For the reasons I bolded, you should just stick to your iPhone.
Click to expand...

I get that - I'm just bored of stock iOS. It does feel more polished than the S6 though. The keyboard is also better or better because of the bigger screen.
 
Camera is just okay just depends on lighting.

Battery could be managed if you root the device but iP6+ is so much better when compared.
 
I'd stick with the iPhone 6+ personally.

If you want to stray look at a Note 4.
 
maka344 said:
Maybe the best of both worlds for me would be a Android Tablet of some sort?
Click to expand...

Personally if I was going to go down route of having both os's as a tablet & a phone. I'd choose an android phone and an iOS tablet.

iOS on tablets is still way better for optimisation than Android & tablet app optimisation by some distance.

Phone apps are pretty even at this stage though....
 
MRU said:
Personally if I was going to go down route of having both os's as a tablet & a phone. I'd choose an android phone and an iOS tablet.

iOS on tablets is still way better for optimisation than Android & tablet app optimisation by some distance.

Phone apps are pretty even at this stage though....
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply and input above also. I have thought about what way round would work and my logic is having an iPhone as my phone and the Android as my tablet is that I could then keep the very few things I use lots and love about the iPhone (iMessage, FaceTime - globally and keychain, iCloud) while getting use of features like multi window in a tab form.

I'm still thinking about the S6 that I returned, it was a fab device. I'm just so confused ha. First world problems I guess.

I wish that I could pick and take from both OS's and have a mixture of hardware too.
 
maka344 said:
Thanks for your reply and input above also. I have thought about what way round would work and my logic is having an iPhone as my phone and the Android as my tablet is that I could then keep the very few things I use lots and love about the iPhone (iMessage, FaceTime - globally and keychain, iCloud) while getting use of features like multi window in a tab form.

I'm still thinking about the S6 that I returned, it was a fab device. I'm just so confused ha. First world problems I guess.

I wish that I could pick and take from both OS's and have a mixture of hardware too.
Click to expand...

To be honest .... It's why I rock both phones :D (heck I rock tooooo many phones).
 
Past six months I've owned three large phones; OnePlus One, iPhone 6 Plus, and now the Nexus 6.

The iPhone 6 Plus is a very nice phone with excellent battery life, but that's it. I really dislike iOS, feels so outdated and extremely limited.

The OnePlus One was great too, easiest of the three as far as size and one handed use. With probably the best battery life of all three.

But I like my Nexus 6 the best. Just great OS, nice screen, pretty good battery life.
 
Tig Bitties said:
Past six months I've owned three large phones; OnePlus One, iPhone 6 Plus, and now the Nexus 6.

The iPhone 6 Plus is a very nice phone with excellent battery life, but that's it. I really dislike iOS, feels so outdated and extremely limited.

The OnePlus One was great too, easiest of the three as far as size and one handed use. With probably the best battery life of all three.

But I like my Nexus 6 the best. Just great OS, nice screen, pretty good battery life.
Click to expand...

I'd love to rock two phones but it's not a waste, for me anyway.

This is why I started looking at the Nexus 6. The S6 felt almost the same size as the iPhone 6 and I have gotten used to the bigger plus and love the real estate screen size. It's perfect, has fantastic battery life (I get a full day) and is good quality but iOS is boring for me. It's a great OS but I just want more.

Maybe I'll just order the nexus 6 and have a play around with it.
 
maka344 said:
This is why I wanted to get the views of others - thanks guys.

How are you getting on without the finger print scanner
Click to expand...

This right now may be my biggest thing I am lacking coming from the 6+ to the N6. My work email requires a passcode and encryption so on the 6+ it was a mere touch ID open and I was good to go.

Now I am back in the stone age with having to enter a pin to access my phone or notifications or anything. Very annoying.

I wouldnt say this is a fault of the N6 as its my work email required settings but I really miss touch ID for that reason.
 
Cnasty said:
This right now may be my biggest thing I am lacking coming from the 6+ to the N6. My work email requires a passcode and encryption so on the 6+ it was a mere touch ID open and I was good to go.

Now I am back in the stone age with having to enter a pin to access my phone or notifications or anything. Very annoying.

I wouldnt say this is a fault of the N6 as its my work email required settings but I really miss touch ID for that reason.
Click to expand...
I use work email on my N6 and have the same concern about the PIN. My solution is to use a third party app called TouchDown which only requires the PIN when going into the app and not the rest of the phone.
 
Cnasty said:
This right now may be my biggest thing I am lacking coming from the 6+ to the N6. My work email requires a passcode and encryption so on the 6+ it was a mere touch ID open and I was good to go.

Now I am back in the stone age with having to enter a pin to access my phone or notifications or anything. Very annoying.

I wouldnt say this is a fault of the N6 as its my work email required settings but I really miss touch ID for that reason.
Click to expand...

Google just released some work specific apps but I haven't looked into them. They're supposed to keep things tucked away for work so that the way you use your phone for personal has no restrictions (supposedly).

The other thing with a Nexus is trusted devices and places. So long as you have this enabled, the lockscreen does not engage, I have this for home and my smartwatch so unless I put it down and walk outside of home, I never worry about the LS enabling unless I manually do so.
 
Dmunjal said:
I use work email on my N6 and have the same concern about the PIN. My solution is to use a third party app called TouchDown which only requires the PIN when going into the app and not the rest of the phone.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this. Are you using the free version or did you pay?
 
Cnasty said:
Does it allow just email for the free one and keep it unlocked?

This worked like a charm btw and saved my life from the annoyance of a pin. Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
I think there's limited features for the free version or the signature can't be changed. Get it to work the way you want and then pay for it. It's worth it.

Btw, there are other apps that do the same thing if you don't like this one.
 
I love the look of Nine but went back to TouchDown because of the extensive widgets.
 
Nexus 6 looks awesome... in fact, apart from the iTunes integration, I think that it is the better device than the iPhone 6 Plus. I still love my iPhone 6.
 
albertfallickwa said:
Nexus 6 looks awesome... in fact, apart from the iTunes integration, I think that it is the better device than the iPhone 6 Plus. I still love my iPhone 6.
Click to expand...
The camera and outdoor screen visibility are superior on the iPhone 6+.

The Nexus 6 is quite hard to use in sunlight. I find myself having to cup my hand to shield the screen from the sun at times. Nearly all AMOLED screens suffer in direct sunlight compared to LCD however there are software tricks that help. Windows Lumia devices have used a contrast boosting trick to compensate when outdoors and now Samsung does something similar with the S6 range. However the Nexus 6 doesn't and therefore suffers outdoors in bright light.

Likewise whilst I've been able yo take good photos with the Nexus 6, the iPhone 6+ does take more natural and overall better pictures. Google need to improve their software for Google Camera quite a bit too. Its perfunctory at best rather than being exemplary.
 
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