Google's Nexus 6 is a big one, that's for sure.
At a Google event today I got my first hands-on time with the Nexus 6, and its size really eradicates any other thoughts about it.
Like the iPhone 6 Plus, the Nexus 6 feels gargantuan. It's 6.3 by 3.27 by 0.4 — so, taller and wider than the 6 Plus. Also, like the 6 Plus, the Nexus 6's slim, curved design signals "phone" rather than "tablet." The phone looks and feels like a slimmed-down, blown up 2014 Moto X. It's strikingly thin, with a back that feels a bit like carbon fiber and bows out just a little in the middle.
Because the phone is so large, even its slim form can contain a 3220mAh battery (which I would have said is big before I heard about the 3900mAh cell in the new Motorola Droid Turbo.) Also like the Droid Turbo, it quick charges to about 25 percent in 15 minutes using a special charger.
This phone is in absolutely no way one-handed. Google showed how the Lollipop keyboard has improved swipe-typing, because swipe-typing is the best way to try to type with one hand on a device like this. But I just couldn't reach the right hand side of the screen without bracing the phone with my other hand. This is a mini-tablet.
Why is it so big? Google's making a statement, some of the reps said to me. With phablets becoming more and more popular as primary-computing devices — and with Google's 2015 focus on productivity apps — the company wanted to experiment with the form. At Google's event, several people wanted to tell me how they had done all of their work recently on Nexus devices,
The Nexus 6, like the Droid Turbo, uses a 2,560-by-1,440 Super AMOLED screen, which has the perfect blacks and glowy, supersaturated colors you expect from that technology. There are standard power and volume buttons on the side and a MicroUSB port on the bottom, but there's no memory card slot and you can't take the back off at all. Dual, front-facing speakers sit above and below the display — or to the left and right, when you're holding the phone in landscape mode.
Android Lollipop continues the trend towards abstract interfaces of bold shapes and panes of color. I especially like the richer lock-screen notifications. Since the Nexus 6 is a Motorola phone, Google showed how like the Moto X, it wakes up and shows your notifications as soon as you start reaching for the phone; you don't have to press the power button to wake it up.
I snuck in a quick Sunspider browser benchmark and got around 945ms, which was surprisingly a little slow for a 2.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor. The phone is a few weeks away from launch, though, so the Chrome browser is probably still being tuned. I didn't get to test the 13-megapixel main camera or make a phone call, as the demo models were only on Wi-Fi.
Because it's just so big, the Nexus 6 probably won't be competing to be a mainstream phone. Google was trying to convince me it would be, but is America ready to be carrying around something quite this large every day? I know I'm not.
Nexus 6 pre-orders start today; it's $649 for a 32GB device (25.98GB available, if you're curious) and $699 for a 64GB phone. The unlocked device will work on AT&T and T-Mobile, and it'll also be offered by Verizon, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular.