Hands on

[john30308]

Initial impressions. Bigger than I thought - that's the only negative. Absolutely LOVE the fingerprint reader. So damn fast. Don't have to turn the phone on or anything, just touch it and the phone is on, open and ready to go. The camera is very good - best on a Nexus device so far. (maybe not 6P). The Fi Network is working great so far. Activation was easy as could be. Screen is also very nice. So far, it's a keeper!

 

[xpavar]

Not as big as my 6, thankfully, and not nearly as heavy, either. Fingerprint reader is slick. However, I need to test it's security by having someone else to try to unlock the phone with the reader.

 

[SiempreTuna]

As John says, the phone is ridiculously big - massively bigger than the missus' iP6, Apple's equivalent 'small' phone. That's a strange design choice, given it was specifically created because of the dismal failure of last year's barn-door sized N6. Having said that, I've already gotten used to the size after just 2 days.

Like John, I love the fingerprint reader. The placement works really well in every day use, though it is difficult to access when the phone's in a bracket during use as a GPS.

The camera also seems good, though the new app is a tad flakey and kinda spartan - there are absolutely no effects (unless you count the 120fps slo-mo). The videos I've taken have been rather gorgeous, though - way better than anything I got from my N4 (and controversially, I thought the HD video from that was OK). Not sure if the camera is actually better than the one on the missus' iP6, but at least it's comparable - which I don't think could ever be said of a Nexus' camera in the past.

Speed seems fine - despite the miserly 2GB of RAM - and the screen looks really good (again, I'm coming from a 3 year old, middle-of-the-road phone here). I have the 32GB model which means just shy of 25GB free space. Compared with my 16GB N4 that effectively means almost 2.5 times the storage - which seems great to me.

Battery life appears OK (this is only day 3 so hard to be sure), though not spectacular. The snooze function works well and keeps consumption under 5% overnight. Combined with fast charge - which is definitely fast - that means, instead of charging overnight I can pop the phone on the charger when I get up and it's at 100% by the time I leave the house. Which is kinda cool.

Otherwise, Android 6.0 seems a bit meh. There's clearly new stuff under the hood but it's really hard to spot the differences with the latest cut of 5. I eventually found the app access control stuff which is nice to have, though few non-Google apps seem to support it yet. The changes to how USB mode is controlled though, are a PITA as (so far as I've been able to find) you have to manually enable MTP from the status bar each time you connect. The biggest change I've noticed is that I now get an extra column and two rows of icons per screen (which means I now have everything I need on a single screen) compared to my N4 - and I'm sure that's a function of the screen size rather the O/S version.

Reception seem to be on a par with the N4, which means OK but not great.

The main downsides are that it does feel a bit low-rent - particularly compared to the missus' iP6 - and here in the UK, it's really not cheap: the 32GB version I have is £379 which is $583. Bit of a rip-off compared to the US price - if my N4 hadn't been on it's last legs, I probably wouldn't have bought it.

The other big downside is sound quality which is frankly, a bit pants. Particularly on calls - probably the worst call sound I remember having on a phone, at least this century - though it is still perfectly usable. The front-facing speaker is reasonably loud at least - I can even hear it in the car.

Overall, I'm relatively happy with the phone. It's definitely not the bargain the N4 and original N5 phones were, but as a phone, it does seem to do the job. Having said that, I am categorically not a power user so YMMV.

 

[theartfullodger]

Well it failed, partially, after less than 5 days.

Delivered Monday 19th. Quite happy with it, still getting to understand it.... happily making/receiving calls & txts, 4g, internet & wifi all fine...

But today Friday 23rd no 'phone signal, can't use make 'phone calls: but am still getting TXTs... and 4g still works so the SIM is partly working... weird or what?? Wifi still fine...

Went out & bought another SIM - stuck it in, didn't recognise it at all. So I've concluded the physical Nexus 5x 'phone is busted somewhere, so I'm about to exercise my (UK) legal right to return within 14 days of delivery & get refund. If Carphone Wh*rehouse argue I shall see them in court... (there are times when being retired with some spare time & money pays off!).

The message I get is "Mobile Network no Available" and since the wife has her 'phone on the same network I know the network is available.

Not sure now if I'll get another - although I was quite happy with the 5X, especially GPS pick-up speeds - probably due to those nice Russians and GLONASS. Currently waiting for the network to be switched back to my old Nexus Prime, still with the old, big, SIM in it.

Best regards to all

 

[john30308]

I'll second the comment on the sound. Worse than either the N4 or my N5. Was watching movie trailers this morning trying to decide what to see tonight and it was actually hard to hear with volume turned all the way up.

Also, even though the speed charge does works great, after only two days I'm already missing my wireless charge.

For what it's worth, I'm also using the N5X on Google's Fi Network. So far, seamless. No different than any other network I've used.

 

[SiempreTuna]

Bummer about the phone, Artful.

A couple of hours after I set mine up intially, I tried to restart and it just refused. Got to the 4 startup icons and just sat there. I contacted Google Support via this link and they (eventually) had me do a factory reset. Since then it has been good as gold.

Support were fairly helpful and I only had to wait about a minute to get someone on-line - might be worth contacting them?

 

[theartfullodger]

Thanks: Yes, should have mentioned I'd already done both a network reset then a complete factory reset, no change.

Good to hear yours is OK..

 

[SiempreTuna]

Ah well - hopefully, CPW will sort you out with a replacement (or alternative) in a hurry. Phone companies are usually really fast with replacements if you're still within the 14 days

 

[SiempreTuna]

So did you get a replacement or did you go for something else, artful?