
Google Nexus 5x and 6P - tmlee
http://www.google.com/nexus/
======
shadeless
As an owner of Nexus 5 I must say I'm a bit disappointed with this
announcement. I was looking forwards to upgrading my almost two year old phone
to Nexus 5x, but there doesn't seem to be a good reason unless Nexus 5 stops
getting new Android updates.

They have the same resolution, same amount of memory, same amount of storage.
I don't shoot video, and I probably won't use fingerprint reader - but I do
use wireless charging every day.

~~~
mkozlows
So the thing is, the Nexus 5 was a near-perfect phone (especially considering
it was released two years ago), and it's totally reasonable to think it's
still doing the job very well -- it is.

But that's a fact about the N5, not the N5X/6P. I mean, what would you want
from a new phone that would show up on a spec sheet?

Faster? Check, both of these are. The 808/810 aren't gigantic generational
leaps over the 800, but they're significantly faster + 64-bit.

Better screen? They're both bigger; >1080p resolution seems irrelevant on a
5"-ish screen (though obviously welcome on larger screens where 1080p would be
under 400 dpi).

More storage? Well, the 6P gives that to you, though the 5X doesn't.

USB Type-C and faster charging? Check.

Better camera? Check.

Bigger battery? Check (2300 mAh for N5, 2700 mAh for 5X).

More RAM? Check on the 6P, the same on the 5X.

Plus the fingerprint thing is probably a bigger deal than you think. Loss of
wireless charging is definitely a minus, though.

So that's one downgrade, two specs that haven't changed on the 5X, and six
that have; eight of those specs are better on the 6P. That's not a small
upgrade, it's just that you have no reason to bother with an upgrade.

~~~
munchbunny
Interestingly my problems with it are exactly three things that aren't
addressed in the new models:

1\. The wireless charging, while seemingly a small thing, was to me a huge
improvement in my experience of using the phone. The fact that I can sit down
at my desk, plop the phone down, and it'll just work, and when I get up to
leave I can just pull it off my desk. Removing the USB cable interaction made
the phone a much more invisible and organic part of my day. Might not be
important to others, but I would very much miss it.

2\. Lack of removable storage. Small deal but it was a nice quality of life
feature.

3\. Battery that's hard to replace. My phone upgrade cycle is very long,
usually longer than the lifetime of the battery. I'm feeling it in my Nexus 5
right now.

But the main thing that might prompt me to upgrade is just software
performance creep. The latest software updates have really turned my phone
into a slideshow, and that's getting really frustrating.

But the spec improvements are certainly both appreciated and necessary.

~~~
dmethvin
I really like the wireless charging on my Nexus 5 as well. Going back to the
cable would be fine with me but I would prefer something that takes a little
less effort to insert and I'm always concerned about breaking the connector. I
just found a really interesting MagSafe-like connector for the classic micro
USB [1], maybe they will make something soon for the new USB3 that the 5X
uses.

And before some of you say that MagSafe has patents on this, remember that the
magnetic catch for a power cord was used on deep fat fryers YEARS before
MagSafe [2].

[1] [http://www.dxsoul.com/product/wsken-micro-usb-metal-
magnetic...](http://www.dxsoul.com/product/wsken-micro-usb-metal-magnetic-
adhesion-charging-cable-w-metal-plugs-white-901408130)

[2] [http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/102855/Fryers-
DeepFat.pdf](http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/102855/Fryers-DeepFat.pdf)

~~~
hatsix
I backed this kickstarter for a magsafe-like usbc connector:
[http://www.znaps.net/](http://www.znaps.net/) We'll see if it follows
through.

~~~
_pmf_
Smells like a patent lawsuit:
[http://www.google.com/patents/US7311526](http://www.google.com/patents/US7311526)

------
AdmiralAsshat
Why did Google bother with all of that work to fix SD storage in Android M[0]
if they're still not going to put an SD card in their Nexus phones!?!

I was holding out hope that I would finally have a reason to buy a Nexus phone
with the 5X or 6P, but now that we have the final spec sheet, I think I'm
going to just grab an HTC One M9 or something. The lack of expandable storage
really kills it for me.

[0][http://www.android.gs/android-m-feature-spotlight-sd-
cards-c...](http://www.android.gs/android-m-feature-spotlight-sd-cards-can-be-
used-as-internal-storage/)

~~~
BinaryIdiot
They did the work for third parties to keep it an an option for the lower end
market. The higher end market has shown it doesn't care about SD cards and,
honestly, I think for good reason: their user experience has always been
terrible.

Internal storage is faster and more reliable so I think you're always going to
see more and more phones, especially flagships, not offer expandable options.

~~~
JohnTHaller
The thing is, internal storage isn't necessarily faster. Sure, it is on the
top tier $750 and up premium-priced phones like the iPhone 6s (which has very
fast internal storage). But we're talking about a _much_ less expensive phone
here. Let's compare:

64GB Nexus 6P: $549

64GB iPhone 6S+: $849

So, you really shouldn't expect the Nexus 6P to be using the top-tier internal
storage solutions Samsung rolls out as used in the iPhone and Samsung phones.
Yes, a lot of that $300 price difference is for the Apple name, especially
when you factor in the lower resolution 6S+ 1080p screen. But quite a bit of
it is used for the polishing bits that make the phone faster... like much
faster storage.

As a data point, the high-end Sandisk 64GB microSD cards are about $50 and are
around 3x faster than the internal storage in my Nexus 6. They're hitting 95
MB/s read, 90 MB/s write now.

While a microSD won't top out at the 200 MB/s you get from last year's top-
tier storage available in the Samsung S6 and iPhone 6 (not to mention the
twice as fast Samsung storage in the new iPhone 6s and upcoming Samsung
phone), they'll perform better than the internal storage in most mid-tier
phones and all low-tier phones, which is all most folks need for photos and
videos.

~~~
danieldk
_and are around 3x faster than the internal storage in my Nexus 6. They 're
hitting 95 MB/s read, 90 MB/s write now._

Even the Moto G has that read speed. More expensive phones are much faster...

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/9525/the-
moto-g-2015-review/3](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9525/the-
moto-g-2015-review/3)

Also, I wonder what SD read/write speeds are in practice.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Not quite. A more recent chart comparing them is here:
[http://anandtech.com/show/9662/iphone-6s-and-
iphone-6s-plus-...](http://anandtech.com/show/9662/iphone-6s-and-
iphone-6s-plus-preliminary-results)

Note that everything tested is below the 90 MB/s sequential write speed of a
high-end microSD except the iPhone 6s Plus.

From a review, here's the numbers on the 64Gb Sandisk Extreme Pro microSD
using CrystalDiskMark:

Sequential Read : 95.325 MB/s

Sequential Write : 90.660 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 89.314 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 75.971 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 7.492 MB/s [ 1829.0 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 2.441 MB/s [ 595.9 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 7.472 MB/s [ 1824.3 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 2.380 MB/s [ 581.0 IOPS]

Note that Ars Technica is using Sequential Read/Write values on 256K which is
flawed. It should be larger to be accurate.

------
rsync
I am finally in the market for a new mobile phone - my trusty MOTO FONE
(F3)[1] finally died after three years.

One of my absolute no-compromise feature needs is removable media ... an SD
card slot that can accept the new 128 GB cards. This is because my current
music collection is 68 GB in size and carrying the entire collection is one of
my use-cases.

But ... I also want a non-crapware, pure android phone, and the nexus
"reference model" idea always appealed to me.

So here's the new phone, and I need one, and click through, ready to pre-
order. And then I see my storage choices are 16 and 32 GB. Like it's 2010 or
something.

So I'm ready to purchase, card in hand, full price ... and willing to add on
$250 or whatever clown-markup they have for the (non-existent) 128 GB model.
And unfortunately we can't do business at all.

Maybe next time.

[1] The best phone I ever had -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone)

~~~
victorhooi
Let me ask you a question - how long would it take you to listen to 68 GB or
128 GB of music?

My hypothesis is, you don't actually _need_ 68 GB of music around with you. In
fact, it doesn't confer any meaningful advnatages.

Using [http://www.richardfarrar.com/song-capacity-calculator-for-
mp...](http://www.richardfarrar.com/song-capacity-calculator-for-
mp3-players/), I can see that 64 GB of music at 256 KBps is around 559 hours
of music - I really doubt you'd listen to any meaningful portion of that in a
month.

See, I used to have a 64 GB MicroSD card, and keep music with me. But then I
just ended up using Google Music, and streaming everything. I can pick
anything I want, and just listen to it on demand.

Let's be honest, most people can't tell the different quality wise anyhow, so
the quality argument is moot.

And it's not like streaming music chews up that much bandwidth.

Doing it this way means I can listen to my music on _any_ device - my desktop,
my laptop, my phone, tablet - etc., my playlists are synced, my most recently
played lists etc. And I don't need to worry about having to backup my music (I
used to do it on my NAS), or worry about syncing up new files.

It's *incredibly convenient - and I can't see any meaningful disadvantages.

~~~
wstrange
Fully Agree.

Google Music makes it easy to pin music to the device for the occasional time
when you are on a flight and have no wifi.

There is simply no need to cache more than 2-3 GB of music on the device.

~~~
tomgg
What if you've resolved to only use free software? That means _Google Music_
is not an option.

~~~
lucian1900
Then you're not very likely to use any phone, since at least the baseband will
be closed source.

Only free software is not practical in the slightest.

------
rl3
The Nexus 5X is built by LG. The 6P by Huawei.

It's only been a few years since CBS/ _60 Minutes_ went on a veritable crusade
_[0][1]_ against Huawei, alleging security and espionage concerns.

However, it's been confirmed since that the modus operandi of Western
intelligence has been to simply to own everything in the telecommunications
sector _[2][3]_ , so it's not a large leap of logic to imagine they probably
have copies of every single IC schematic and piece of software that goes into
a Huawei product anyways.

By that logic, a sound conclusion might be that the 6P renders you no more or
less vulnerable to Western intelligence, but perhaps far more vulnerable to
Chinese intelligence?

This might not be a concern for the average user, though it's something to
consider for anyone high-profile or powerful. Of course, doing anything
sensitive on your smartphone is generally not a good idea to begin with, but
not everyone is tech savvy (or careful). Besides, if a phone is compromised,
its owner can still be tracked and recorded against their will anyways.

[0] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huawei-probed-for-security-
espio...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huawei-probed-for-security-espionage-
risk/)

[1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/update-on-
huawei/](http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/update-on-huawei/)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/22/nsa-huawei-
chin...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/22/nsa-huawei-china-
telecoms-times-spiegel)

[3] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/nsa-gchq-
sim-...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/nsa-gchq-sim-card-
billions-cellphones-hacking)

~~~
cbsmith
There is always the black phone...

------
davidw
In terms of the software, the Nexus phones are some of the best I've ever had,
because they don't mess around with Android to try and 'improve' it, and
because they get regular, timely upgrades. My Nexus 4 is still going strong
several years after I got it. I'm tempted by the 5x, though I wish it were a
bit smaller.

~~~
acconrad
Another Nexus 4 owner! My girlfriend has been giving me crap about how my
phone is going to be 3 years old in a month and how I need a new phone. I
don't. They are all plastic/glass bricks with the same Android operating
system in them. I wish my battery life were better, which I guess would
warrant a new phone.

I don't like that the battery is under 3000 mAh but it is only $380...though I
guess others are saying that the Moto X Pure and the Xperia Z3 are around the
same price point but better?

~~~
davidw
The Nexus 4 had great battery life initially - you could get through nearly 2
days with it. After a lot of use, mine is not so great any more, but still
quite usable - I don't have to worry about whether it'll make it through the
day.

~~~
cheald
My N4's battery life is really hit-and-miss. If I wander into an area with
poor HSPA+ coverage the battery just _tanks_.

~~~
MrBusch
Same here - actually the Nexus 4 still is a great solid phone. But besides the
battery life, storage space for apps is a problem for me. Since the latest
Android updates, apps got a lot bigger and I regularly need to delete stuff to
be able to get all the app updates. Maybe it's time for a new phone now.

~~~
cheald
Since Lollipop it's been agonizingly slow for me. Apps take 4-6 seconds to
open, opening a web page can render the phone unresponsive for seconds at a
time. My wife's has become unstable, hard-locking and/or rebooting several
times a day. Using the camera in particular seems to cause it to misbehave,
which is unfortunate as she loves taking pictures.

It's been a great phone, no doubt, and we've loved ours, but it feels like
it's time to move on to the next thing.

------
thom_nic
Minor gripe: Who thought it was a good idea to make a charger with a permanent
cable attached?
[https://store.google.com/product/usb_c_charger](https://store.google.com/product/usb_c_charger)

Also, does anyone have full specs? I don't see it anywhere.

~~~
mmastrac
I agree that it's not a great idea, but I assume it has something to do with
the abnormally high current that it can provide.

~~~
gouggoug
This is probably right.

They mention: "15W of power so you can charge your USB Type-C enabled phones
and tablets quickly. _Also works with large USB Type-C devices, like
laptops_.¹".

And the footnote: "¹Wattage is optimized for smaller devices, like phones and
tablets. Larger devices, like laptops, will take longer to charge. Delivers
maximum charge speed to Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. Charge time depends on USB
Type-C device. Larger devices, such as the Chromebook Pixel, will typically
need more charge time with this adapter (Pixel estimated charge time is 5.6
hours at 15W with system off)."

~~~
baddox
So does that mean that normal USB A connector for some reason can't handle the
current? That seems odd.

~~~
sbierwagen
Yes, in fact. USB1 tops out at 2.1A, USB3 here is 3A. (Watts is volts times
amps. 15W/5V = 3A)

USB Power Delivery chargers can deliver quite a lot more.

~~~
baddox
I'm only talking about the physical connector.

~~~
sbierwagen
Well if you go by the _spec_ then USB1 and USB2 can only deliver 0.5A. Apple
seems to have settled as 2.1A as the most current you can run through a USB
connector without getting it too hot.

~~~
Dylan16807
The power delivery spec requires special cables but allows 5 amps over normal*
type A connectors.

*except for a detection mechanism for higher-power cables

------
chdir
My biggest gripe with Nexus series has been the camera. None of the releases
has made a quantum leap in terms of picture quality. I don't care about
gimmickries like HDR, live photos, sphere etc., all I want is a $300 Point &
Shoot quality. Something that won't make me feel guilty for using a camera
phone for preserving spontaneous memories. Please Google :)

Samsung has done a great job with the S6, the others like G4 & Moto aren't far
behind.

~~~
mkozlows
DXOMark is the gold standard of photo-quality evaluations. Their evaluations
for mobile phones show the Nexus 6 to have been very good for when it was
released (it's #12 now, but most of the phones above it are newer); the Nexus
6P is ranked #2 right now:
[http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles](http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles)

~~~
nullrouted
I can't believe they don't show you any picture results at least.

~~~
dagw
DXOMark is all about shooting specific test targets under controlled lighting
conditions and automated algorithmic analysis of the results. Basically
they're trying to scientifically measuring the maximum potential of a given
sensor under ideal conditions. They don't produce any interesting images to
look at.

Sites like connect.dpreview.com on the other hand are all about the actual
photography and cover things like handling, UI and real life performance and
results

------
oblio
Google, please, please, just let me see the stupid page even if I'm not in the
US. Just put a huge, red warning sign saying that the product is not available
in my country.

~~~
ljk
Now I'm curious, what does it look like outside of U.S.?

~~~
elboru
For Mexico it shows what it seems like a broken CSS page, with the previous
models:

[http://snag.gy/DCtTt.jpg](http://snag.gy/DCtTt.jpg)

------
dantillberg
And unsurprisingly, it's half a foot tall (159mm, or 6.2 inches). My hands
continue to cry. Is it what the future holds, that we should eventually hold
mainframes up to our heads?

~~~
rsync
Exactly. In 2015, even the small phones are huge.

I cannot believe there is not a (huge) market for small, portable phones that
you could put in your pocket without altering the way you sit.

~~~
dpark
Maybe stop sitting on your phone? I've got a nexus 6 in my front pocket and it
doesn't affect the way I sit.

There isn't a huge market for small portable phones because most people
shelling out $500+ for a smart phone want to actually use it as a smart phone.
They play games, watch shows and movies, read full novels, and browse the web.
These are all experiences that are enhanced by having a larger screen. My wife
upgraded to the iPhone 6s from her old phone (5s maybe?) and one of the first
things she said about it was that the screen was small, despite it being
considerably larger than her old phone.

I cannot understand how the "I want a small phone" crowd don't realize that
they are in the minority.

~~~
qdog
Maybe we are all fatties that can't fit a big phone in our pocket.

Or, don't use the phone that much but like access to a decent browser and apps
when we do need them.

I have a 4, but actually miss my ancient G2 with an actual keyboard. Damn you
kids and your touch screens, you ruined everything!

~~~
dpark
What does being fat have to do with fitting a large phone in your pocket?

I totally understand why some people want a small phone. But the "I mostly
make calls and only occasionally need a browser/apps" is becoming a very niche
market.

------
Someone1234
I have the Z3 which is also 5.2" and has a 3100 mAh battery compared to the
2700 mAh battery in this. And seemingly that costs you no thickness as the Z3
is actually slightly thinner (7.3 mm vs 7.9 mm for this). They're both 1920 x
1080 LCD at 423 ppi.

In my experience 3000 mAh at 5.2" is the sweet spot, as below that you might
rarely run out of juice under heavy usage. Above that no matter how heavy your
usage is you'll get that whole day (and multiple days under light load).

You can buy an unlocked Sony Z3 for $400 right now (32 GB storage).

~~~
chetanahuja
Where?

A simple google search yields links like this:
[http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1091325-REG/sony_1289_...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1091325-REG/sony_1289_4869_xperia_z3_lte_phone.html)
which is $560.

~~~
Someone1234
This person has 70 to sell, Buy It Now, New, unlocked, 32 GB, for $420.90
(free shipping offered, from Texas). Well reviewed for selling similar items:

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-XPERIA-Z3-D6616-32GB-Black-
GSM-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-XPERIA-Z3-D6616-32GB-Black-GSM-UNLOCKED-
Smartphone-/252060108280?hash=item3aaff405f8)

------
NiekvdMaas
Link for non-US people:
[http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/nexus/](http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/nexus/)

------
rjbrock
16gb and 32gb? Why is storage always so low?

~~~
patrickaljord
Because most people don't need that much, especially with the new auto-delete
of photos that have been copied to the cloud in Google Photo, love this
feature.

~~~
untog
I listen to music on my (underground, subway) commute to work, so I really
need that storage.

~~~
onion2k
Half the memory of the basic model is enough to hold about 100 albums. Is that
not enough? Maybe you could listen to some of them twice.

~~~
untog
If I had absolutely nothing else on my phone - no apps, no photos, no videos,
sure.

~~~
onion2k
That's why I said half the memory.. The other half would be for apps and
stuff.

It'd be very interesting to see how much music people store on their phone
when they use services like Spotify. I use it on a Nexus 4 and I've never had
a problem with running out of space, but I don't have lots of games or
anything on there. I honestly doubt it's much more than 2 or 3GB.

~~~
saiya-jin
just because you personally don't have a need to store more things in the
phone, doesn't mean other people won't have usage for these.

I don't like fragile cloud solutions, so my music is offline. I find it
amazingly stupid to tell other people to "just delete some of it, because you
probably won't listen to it twice". My offline car navigation takes more than
10 GB, and no thank you, I won't use google maps which are not that accurate
in places I go, and require constant connectivity (which makes them useless in
foreign countries, or in mountains). My DCIM folder is cca 5 GB after 1 year
of usage, and I shoot almost no videos which would make it explode.

FFS, it's almost end of 2015, having 32 GB model as your highest offering
is... pathetic.

------
Navarr
I really need to see a comparison between 6P, Moto X Pure, and current 6.

Those are the phones I need to decide between. Current 6 only b/c it should
get cheap and the Snapdragon 820 comes out next year, but I'm not sure I can
wait a year with my aging Moto X 2013.

~~~
binarycrusader
I would not recommend the Moto X Pure. I have last year's Moto X Pure, here's
my short summary (my personal opinion, so feel free to _reply_ and explain why
you disagree):

pros:

    
    
      - good feel in the hand; not easy to drop
      - like the choices for back, etc.
      - decent camera for an Android device
      - reasonable price
      - superfast charging with Quick Charger
      - mostly-stock android UI (read on though)
      - Motorola UI customisations can usually be disabled
        in favour of Android stock version (e.g. Lock screen)
    

cons:

    
    
      - Motorola software updates significantly lag behind nexus
        devices; took a long time to get stagefright security
        fix
      - over a dozen spontaneous phone reboots for no apparent 
        reason during last year (i have very few apps
        installed, so it seems unlikely to be due to that, and
        apps should never be able to cause that anyway)
      - catastrophic and mysterious phone shutdown which lead to
        rebooting to a black screen, which the only option for
        recovering from was a factory reset (which meant I lost
        all of the data I hadn't backed up yet, which for me,
        was some pictures I had taken but hadn't backed up)
      - poor battery life
      - signal strength / reliability not as good as my spouse's
        iPhone 6 plus; they often have data when I don't, even
        though we have same carrier (AT&T)
      - Some Motorola add-on software not removable
      - Some Motorola customisations conflict with Android 
       standard customisations which leads to weird UI
       interactions problems sometimes (mostly the lock screen)
    

My previous phone was a Nexus 5, which the software experience was generally
better on since I got updates on a timely basis. However, the hardware
experience was pretty poor (made by LG) and I went through two replacements
due to GPS issues.

~~~
aetherson
I have the Moto X not-pure for Verizon. I've had I think three spontaneous
reboots, no catastrophic shutdown, seemingly identical signal strength to my
iPhone, and while the battery is indisputably not a strength of Moto X, I
reliably finish my day with 40% charge or so (and I run an app that
continuously samples and sends my location in the background).

The Motorola software is indeed annoying, I wish it updated Android editions a
bit faster, and specifically the lock screen doesn't interface that well with
Android stuff.

------
fenaer
The US prices are reasonable, but the UK prices are just horrendous. £500 for
the 6P brings it out of the range of "I'm due an upgrade anyway" into luxury
territory.

I think I'll stick with my Nexus 5.

~~~
buffoon
£160 gets you a nice handset these days in the UK sim free. I couldn't put
down £500; too painful.

------
tedunangst
> 518 pixels per inch

To the moon! Considering it's a six inch phone, how close to my face am I
going to be holding this thing?

I wonder what's coming next. 240Hz refresh rates?

~~~
caskance
If they're serious about putting your phone in a headset to use it as a VR
display, that wouldn't be a bad idea.

~~~
megablast
A feature maybe 1% of people would do.

------
huangc10
Successor to best Nexus phone ever. The LG Nexus 5.

~~~
INTPenis
I still have that phone and I can't imagine upgrading. Anything 5" and up
doesn't fit well in my hand, and I'm a relatively big guy. The specs are more
than enough for my needs, phone, work, messaging, music.

~~~
noir_lord
I'm still on a Nexus 4, I'll upgrade when it breaks or the battery dies,
neither of which seems to be likely.

It's a cracking little phone and does everything I'd want.

------
johnward
My Nexus 4 was the best phone I've ever had. I've been suffering with the HTC
one since and it is awful. Now I'm stuck because I like the Nexus and vanilla
android but I have an upgrade through my provider that would get me a Galaxy
s6 for $129 with two year contract.

So far as I can tell these Nexus devices won't be released on a carry and I
don't think AT&T gives you any discount for not using your upgrade. It would
be nice to save $10 a month if you don't subsidize a phone but since I can't
I'm leaning towards the S6 because it's $250 cheaper than the Nexus 5x.

Also, did everyone abandon Qi charging? It wasn't necessary but it was one
like that was cool about the N4.

------
fumar
Google did a good job of avoiding the lack of OIS on both the 5X and 6P. I
don't mind not having wireless charging capability, but OIS has proven to be a
helpful feature when taking photos in less than ideal situations. I think, if
size isn't an issue, the Nexus 6 is still a solid option at the reduced price
point.

~~~
cheald
The 1.55 micrometer pixel sensors are interesting. If they actually do what
they're supposed to, then exposure times should be decreased which would
theoretically reduce the usefulness of OIS. I guess we'll see once the reviews
start coming in.

~~~
mtgx
Only partially. OIS is still useful for video stabilization. Bigger pixels
won't help there.

~~~
bitmapbrother
DxOMark has already ranked the Nexus 6P as 2nd best behind the S6 Edge.

[http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles](http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles)

~~~
shostack
Is the S6 identical to the S6 Edge? Looks like their Edge review had some
comments questioning it, and while they confirmed the cameras are the same,
they never confirmed on the comment regarding many S6's shipping with inferior
Samsung sensors.

------
diakritikal
UK Pricing seems to be £339/£379 (5X) - £449/£499/£579 (6P)

That's the same numerical point, but gouged for living in the UK. The cheapest
phone to purchase in the UK is about $515 dollars. Yeah, no thanks Google.

~~~
nicktelford
You're forgetting sales tax. US prices are quoted excluding sales tax (as it
varies state-to-state), whereas UK prices include VAT (currently 20%):

Excluding VAT, the UK prices are a bit closer to what you'd expect.

As an example:

The 16GB Nexus 5x, excluding VAT: £282.50 US price, converted to GBP: £249.65

So while there's definitely an inflation to the price, it's not nearly as much
as it seems.

Well, not until you realise that sales tax in most (all?) states is
dramatically lower than the 20% we have in the UK. But we only have our
government to blame for that.

~~~
tfinniga
That's a good point. There's also another issue - profits made outside of the
US can't be used in the US without paying a separate US repatriation tax,
which can be as high as 35%.

------
wnevets
Is there really no qi wireless charging?

~~~
cheald
The metal body apparently precludes it.

~~~
josu
Qualcomm Becomes First Company to Enable Wireless Charging for Mobile Devices
with Metal Cases

[https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2015/07/28/qualcomm-b...](https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2015/07/28/qualcomm-
becomes-first-company-enable-wireless-charging-mobile-devices)

~~~
Sanddancer
The press release on that is only two months old. This phone was probably in
or near final testing by then, and definitely laid out. Components like this
usually take at least six months to start to flow into end devices, because of
the lead time required for manufacturing complex devices.

------
knappe
As someone who purchased a Galaxy S4, I'll _never_ purchase another Google
phone. The entire reason I purchased a google phone was to avoid the lack of
updates, like I had when I was at the whim of Motorola with my Droid2. I was
stuck on 2.3 and never saw an upgrade in the time I owned the phone. I figured
that Google would be a better actor and actual push updates, but boy was I in
for a wild ride.

When I saw that 5.0 had been pushed, I upgraded, thinking that Google had
vetted the release. Instead what I had was wifi that never stayed connected
and seg faults ALL over the place in virtually every app that I used on a
regular basis, including apps developed by Google (hangouts, photos [which
were trapped on the phone unless I wanted to connect external and download
them], my SMS app, WeChat, Strava, Kindle ect). They broke my phone, no way
around it. It was miserable and I stuck with it, because I paid for a premium
device and wasn't about to go blow another $650 on another device. Three weeks
ago I got the 5.1 upgrade, just shy of a year after it was released. I'm now a
firm believer of the shit phone. [https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-
story-a44e6643480...](https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-
story-a44e66434807)

Buyer beware.

------
sologoub
The placement of the fingerprint reader on the back of the phone strikes me as
a bit odd. I get that they had to not copy iPhone placement, but this means
you have to pickup the phone to unlock it, as opposed to just touch it.

Wonder how phone cases are going to handle that placement.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Why is it odd? That's where your fingers are - the back of the phone when
holding it.

~~~
shostack
I can't think of a single use case where you are using your phone without
touching the front of the screen in some way, whereas I can think of plenty
where you have zero need to touch the back (ie. any time you have it in a
mount or on a flat surface).

Seems like a PITA.

------
rl3
As nice as the new fingerprint sensors are, they come with some nasty
drawbacks[0]:

Namely, your defense against legally compelled decryption is significantly
weakened via use of a fingerprint sensor, since the phone's unlock mechanism
is the same authentication system that the phone's encryption mechanism uses
(it would be really nice to have some sort of separation there).

The last drawback, I'll simply quote verbatim from the article:

> _What would happen if some government “asked” phone manufacturers to create
> a back door to store or send it fingerprint information, and to lie to the
> public with denials of the existence of such a program. Considering the news
> of the past few years such a scenario seems far from impossible._

On that note, I wonder how compatible smartphone fingerprint data is with data
you'd find in a fingerprint database. If not immediately compatible, would it
still be possible to convert it to a standardized format?

[0] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2015/03/05/wh-
yo...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2015/03/05/wh-you-should-
not-use-the-new-smartphone-fingerprint-readers/)

~~~
redxdev
I'd argue that the fingerprint sensor has no effect on your second scenario,
as manufacturers could make a backdoor to send the government your normal
password too. The fingerprint sensor doesn't make that bit any easier.

~~~
rl3
The point was more the notion of fingerprint data itself being collected, and
not necessarily for device access purposes.

------
legulere
I wonder how the fingerprints will be stored. Secure from access by the
operating system? Or will they be uploaded to Google like wifi passwords?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I would imagine they implemented it exactly like Google in that they're stored
only on the OS and it needs your code to decrypt them. Anything else just
doesn't sit right.

~~~
mtgx
Ugh. First off they need to only store _hashes_ of fingerprints, not the
fingerprint images themselves. But I hope they are smart enough to do that by
now.

Second, it's not supposed to be "on the OS". It's supposed to be in TrustZone,
the "secure world" _separated_ from the OS. I _hope_ that's what they did, but
I worry they may have adopted a more "universal" solution that's a little
higher level and _less_ secure (even though TrustZone should be in virtually
all ARM chips).

~~~
thaumasiotes
> First off they need to only store hashes of fingerprints, not the
> fingerprint images themselves. But I hope they are smart enough to do that
> by now.

That sounds pretty impressive. How would this be done? You're not going to get
_the same file_ by scanning the same physical finger twice.

Fingerprints are recognized by comparing an image to a stored record of
salient features, not to another image. But as far as I can see (and I have no
further knowledge of the area), you kind of need the actual record, and the
identifying information it contains, in order to see if an image matches it.

~~~
dagw
There are lots of algorithms that take an image and produce a so called
perceptual hash that matches all images that 'look' the same. phash.org is a
popular open source implementation of one such algorithm

------
bigpeopleareold
Nexus 5x: Now with a slightly better power button that will not fail after the
warranty expires.

~~~
dangrossman
My Nexus 4's speaker failed just after a year. I replaced it with a Nexus 5,
whose speaker and microphone failed after 7 months. I did a warranty exchange
and the refurbished Nexus 5 now in my pocket's speaker and microphone just
went out about a week ago. They share a flex cable that runs under the battery
and seems to go bad somehow. I messed with the connection but it didn't fix
it. I've preordered the 5x, but this time with the 2-year warranty.

~~~
chetanahuja
Huh... bought a bunch of Nexus4's 3 years ago for family members (a mix of
younger and older people). Some of them are still in use, some of them
upgraded. Not a single complaint about random hardware failures (except for
worsening battery life of course). Also haven't heard this particular
complaint about Nexus devices on the forums etc. Are you sure this is not
something specific to your use patterns?

~~~
tdkl
> (except for worsening battery life of course)

Compliments of 5.0 Lollipop. It's sad they're going to leave the N4 with that
abomination.

~~~
nly
The N4 has 5.1.1, and it'll get M via community ROMs for sure.

------
smacktoward
The Nexus 6P appears to be up now too:
[https://store.google.com/product/nexus_6p](https://store.google.com/product/nexus_6p)

The Google Store doesn't do a great job of indicating which kind of customer
would prefer one of them over the other, surprisingly.

~~~
newjersey
They've changed the link to go to google dot com slash nexus.

I don't want to whine but if the guys are reading can you please swap out to
https if possible?
[https://www.google.com/nexus/](https://www.google.com/nexus/)

------
jordanthoms
Three interesting bits of hardware that are in both of these new phones -
Nexus Imprint (the fingerprint sensor), the Android Sensor Hub (which appears
to be a new chip, but no confirmation on what it is or who designed it), and a
very nice camera module which seems to be performing nicely.

I've long felt that a major disadvantage for the Android ecosystem is that the
OEMs simply don't have the resources to compete with Apple when it comes to
designing new hardware, and it leads to situations where the iPhone is years
ahead for certain features. One solution for that is for Google to invest in
these technologies and make them available to all the OEMs, a bit like Android
but for hardware too. I wonder if that's what is happening here? Looking
forward to a teardown.

------
tuananh
Huawei seems rather sketchy. Or basically, anything from China.

My phone recently died and i'm in market for a new phone. The 5X looks like a
decent one.

~~~
rifung
Why's it sketchy? They seem to be highly reviewed; as far as I know a lot have
been actually hoping they would finally enter the US market as they sell a lot
of nice phones we don't get. It actually seems like they have better quality
and use better materials than most of the non Chinese manufacturers

~~~
pjc50
I had a Huawei Ascend P1 LTE for a while, and it was _rubbish_ : flaky wifi
and screen delaminating.

~~~
GFischer
That's a 2012 phone. I saw the Huawei G610 in 2013 and chose not to buy it at
the time, due to very bad reviews concerning their software mainly, but also
due to some hardware problems. I chose an LG G2 mini that had much more
reliable hardware, but ironically their software was incredibly crappy (and
some incredibly idiotic decisions like their volume keys on the back of the
device).

Huawei are making their phones a LOT better these days, I have an Ascend P7
that's been working extremely well.

------
unsignedint
Was looking at 6P (and I was very close to press an order button), but it
turns out both 5x and 6P won't cover T-mobile VoLTE / Band 12, at least at its
launch, which is a bit disappointing. [1]

At least it seems to be supporting Wi-Fi calling, but makes me curious about
their time frame, if ever, VoLTE / Band 12 will be supported on these devices.

[1]: [http://www.tmonews.com/2015/09/nexus-5x-and-nexus-6p-dont-
su...](http://www.tmonews.com/2015/09/nexus-5x-and-nexus-6p-dont-support-
band-12-or-volte-but-google-said-to-be-working-on-it/)

------
quasse
The price is certainly right, but I really don't feel like the specs are any
kind of leap that makes me want to upgrade from my Nexus 5.

Hexa-core is neat, but honestly I'd rather have software polish that meant
rotating my phone while using the camera in video mode didn't mean some
probability of a system reboot. Unfortunately my experience with both the
Nexus 4 and 5 is that the stability is either never quite there or actually
decreases dramatically as OS updates come out and Google's focus shifts.

~~~
georgefrick
Yes. With only 32GB, the "Use the cloud, Luke" is a bit pushy. The only thing
selling me is the desire to get the USB Type C.

I've experienced what you are talking about, every time I get an OTA for the
Nexus 5; the performance seems to degrade dramatically.

We're looking at spending $400 every 2 years to stay every other gen Nexus?
That isn't horrible (55 cents a day or so). But if we pay for services to
avoid storage on the phone, the cost rises.

Nothing about the CPU/Etc makes me think it's time for an upgrade.

~~~
quasse
Honestly the cloud push doesn't bother me, although I'd suspect I don't go
about it the way Google wants.

I host my own Subsonic media server which means that I can just set a cache
size in Android (5GB right now) and let it automatically download my media as
I consume it and push old stuff out of the cache.

Combined with Dropbox camera uploads I generally don't use much more than 10GB
of storage on my phone.

~~~
trampi
Just out of curiosity: what mobile network traffic do you have? Over here in
germany, i would certainly kill my free 1 gigabyte per month, even with cache
size set to ~ 25 gigabyte.

------
kozukumi
Honest question: why would I get a 5X over a Moto X Play which is cheaper or
Moto X Style which is only £20 more (in the UK at least) and has better specs?

~~~
ihsw
You shouldn't -- they intentionally gimped the 5X in order to make the 6P more
appealing.

And it's working, I wouldn't be surprised if first-day 6P purchases outnumber
5X first-day purchases by a magnitude.

~~~
rjbwork
I'll tell my reason for going 6P: I loved my N5, but the lacking battery life
was annoying, and a total bricking after a full discharge (not eligible for
another repair, since it was already fixed from being dropped in a puddle a
few months earlier...) brought it's life to an end.

I've been scraping by on a Nokia Lumia 530 for about 3-4 months now. Great
little phone for 40 dollars, but I'm getting tired of the subpar GMail,
HipChat, SubSonic, etc clients that come with having a Windows phone. I figure
that as long as the 6P is as good as the original N5, with a better battery
life, I should be satisfied for a good long while. I didn't go with the 5X
because I am genuinely worried about the subpar battery life again.

------
upbeatlinux
The Nexus 5 was the best Android phone I've owned. I upgraded from a Nexus One
which was an upgrade from the original G1. The only reason I'm upgrading to a
5x is because my Nexus 5 died and is no longer covered under LG's warranty.
Coming from the Nexus One (Cyanogen) and loosing SD expansion was a bit
unsettling at first but the automated camera backups were a huge win. Wireless
charging was an added bonus from a usability perspective but non-essential.
The best part though is Nexus Protect - to some this might seem unnecessary
but for heavy users is a must. Almost a year to the day I purchased my Nexus 5
my battery died. Google replaced it for free. The SIM card slot on the
replacement stopped working a few weeks ago and it would've been nice to be
covered under a plan like Nexus Protect. For me Nexus Protect makes up for the
lack of SD or wireless charging. My only hesitation pulling the purchase
trigger is fingerprinting which IMO, whether encrypted or hashed locally, is
simply an invasion of privacy.

------
pfalke
What's the price? Couldn't find it on the page, only the "join the waitlist"
button. Any help appreciated

~~~
aianus
Did they announce when Canadians can pre-order?

~~~
fizzbatter
I don't think they have any preorder dates, do they?

~~~
aianus
Americans can preorder today.

~~~
fizzbatter
Weird, when i looked it wasn't available. Ordered mine later that day though,
thank you

------
darklajid
Any known statements about CyanogenMod support in the future for those? Nexus
devices should be fine, right?

~~~
chillydawg
I'd be very surprised if CyanogenMod isn't ported very, very quickly.

(that's lots of very's)

------
digitalzombie
On Nexus 4, this is disappointing.

Nexus 6 is too big.

Finger print is not a big deal. They steal your finger print you can't exactly
change it. I also get cuts from my fingers when I work out so bandaid and all
that would suck badly if I need to verify via fingerprint.

SD card is something I really want not the cloud. Not everybody got unlimited
data or even good signal.

There are tons of people that takes pictures, videos and selfies that would
like to have a large memory (sd enable this).

All they had to do was a good camera, good battery, fast charge and sd card.
The screen could be amoled for bonus.

I have to skip this phone now. Waiting to see black berry priv.

Moto X pure is seems good but their parent company Lenovo got caught with
spyware on mobile and laptop (thinkpad included). That's very sketchy.

~~~
transfire
Not to worry, in a few more years they'll force you to put everything on the
cloud. Who needs 32GB when 0GB will do?

------
ksk
It's kind of interesting to see this cycle of flexibility and consolidation
happen with software and hardware. I'd say that the ideal time to use a
technology is when it's at the consolidation stage i.e. when the Company
figures out which features to consolidate/cut/remove and creates a streamlined
version of their product. All the ways in which third party code (often buggy)
can plug into an OS have slowly been giving way to a more stable and robust
OS. Until we hit the next flexibility cycle and start seeing all kinds of
bloat.

------
voltagex_
$659AUD for the 5x, $899AUD for the 6P. Not bad considering the atrocious
exchange rate, but it puts the 5X out of "I accidentally a new phone"
territory.

------
Scarbutt
Does the Nexus phones have the "Active Display" feature of the Moto X? I love
these feature, there are apps that try to mimic it but don't come close, the
MotoX has specific hardware for this feature.

[http://www.motorola.com/us/Moto-X-Features-Active-
Display/mo...](http://www.motorola.com/us/Moto-X-Features-Active-
Display/motox-features-3-active-display.html)

------
Tsagadai
Unfortunately, Google Ireland (yes, that is who sells it) has priced the Nexus
6P at $899 AUD. That's a 25% mark up for absolutely no reason (Google isn't
paying sales tax in Australia because they are selling from Ireland and
charging under $1000 AUD). What a joke, why can't we just all pay the same
price?

~~~
eru
25% mark up compared to what?

------
beyondcompute
Poor website. It delivers no information, it does not convey the vision
(because there is no, probably) it does not create a product impression. What
are "Advanced photo and video features", for example? Why Google is so
brilliant in terms of engineering and so miserable in terms of design?

------
nradov
It's really a shame that they still won't offer replaceable batteries. Some of
us spend all day travelling around without access to a charger, and it's a lot
easier to carry a little spare battery and swap it instead of plugging in a
large bulky external power pack.

~~~
darkstar999
I have a little "lipstick-sized" charger that gives the Nexus 5 (old one now)
a full charge. It's less than $10, just search for "portable phone charger".
Honestly I'd rather haul this thing around rather than a spare battery.

~~~
apricot13
I think you're thinking of this:
[http://www.ianker.com/product/A1105011](http://www.ianker.com/product/A1105011)

I get about 5 full charges on my phone from this - my phone is a moto e though
so not exactly high capacity!

~~~
darkstar999
Yep, that's it.

------
adnam
I have a Nexus 7 which was completely bricked by the "upgrade" to Android 5.
I'm so furious I will never buy another Nexus device again. (I made the same
promise about Nike shoes 20 years ago and so far haven't bought anything
elseby that brand).

------
JimmaDaRustla
Canadian prices suck, they're higher than what our terrible exchange rate
equates to when compared to USD prices. Also sounds like they're going to be
locked to carriers? Nexus phones aren't the easy choice anymore.

~~~
cpncrunch
>Also sounds like they're going to be locked to carriers?

Nope.

"Phone is carrier-unlocked with wide-range band support for service providers
worldwide. Check with your service provider for more information."

------
riquito
In Europe is going to cost 479€ (16GB), it won't be a success there.

------
orf
This looks awesome, I'm looking to update my Nexus. I don't really see the
point of the 6p though, everything is slightly better than the 5X but not by
that much

------
intopieces
And the reference to Google-Fi is buried at the bottom of the page. Seems like
they'd want to promote this feature heavily. Makes me wary of their support.

~~~
bilalq
They do work with Fi:
[https://fi.google.com/about/](https://fi.google.com/about/)

~~~
intopieces
I suppose Google-Fi is still in it early, water-testing stages and they're
trying to be careful not to imply that the new phones _only_ work with Google-
Fi. Still, I'm ever wary of adopting an innovation from Google. I don't change
carriers often and I'd prefer not to adopt Google-Fi, only to have it be
shelved a year later.

------
conorwade
Hopefully the camera and battery life have had major improvements. They were
my major annoyances with the Nexus 5, everything else was great.

------
xd1936
I'm gonna be all over that 5X with Project Fi.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
+1 on Fi. It's the sleeper feature that justifies trading up to one of these
bad boys.

I spend much of my time in wifi, as does my wife, and I suspect we can shave
minimum $40 a month off our phone bills if we were both using Fi phones. It
wouldn't take long to pay for itself.

------
tcdent
Pretty insightful to compare this to Apple's recent release where they've
introduced a brand-new input method, in addition to the usual spec-bump.

Meanwhile, Google is still building phones that are trying to keep up with
what are essentially PC hardware specs (memory, clock speed, etc). I'm amazed
they think that protrusion for the camera is cool, too.

There are obviously two very different mentalities inside these companies. How
do customers get excited about buying a phone that was obsolete months ago?

~~~
drewrv
I switched to an iPhone recently and can't wait to switch back. Already
preordered the new nexus.

PC hardware specs are important, my biggest complaint about the iPhone is how
little RAM it has. My nexus 5 could support doing simple things like running
an email app, web browser, and maps app simultaneously. My iPhone is
constantly reloading stuff when I attempt this.

~~~
lmedinas
With the new iPhone 6s you shouldn't have this problem as they have 2GB RAM.
At least i have much more issues in my Nexus 5 than with my iPad Air 2 (with
2GB RAM)

------
shandddd
Why is there a special Hong Kong version of the 5X? Specwise it's missing a
couple bands the rest-of-world version supports.

------
rdl
Ordered a 5X because its cheap, to use for exploring ROMs. Curious if there's
a secure element for the Nexus Imprint thing.

------
lars_francke
I understand that I'm not the majority but I do not understand the big deal
about cameras on smartphones.

Yes, I take a few pics on the phone per year but that's it. Looking around
with friends and family I see the same. Again: I understand that there are
lots of people that really do take lots of pictures and videos but I can't
help but think that lots of regular smartphone users are not as concerned
about the camera quality as the marketing makes me believe.

~~~
tfinniga
I think there are lots of people who do use their smartphone cameras
extensively. For example, check out the Flickr most common cameras:
[https://www.flickr.com/cameras](https://www.flickr.com/cameras)

The best camera is the one that is always with you.

------
codemac
Does this work with Project Fi?

~~~
huangc10
Both 5X and 6P work with Project Fi.

~~~
codemac
I just checked the fi website and they don't mention it, and I see it nowhere
mentioned on the device's pages either..

Where can I see this confirmed? Any references you can point me to? Thanks for
you help :)

~~~
birdmanjeremy
[https://fi.google.com/about/](https://fi.google.com/about/) bottom of the
page.

~~~
codemac
Awesome! Thanks for the link

------
shirro
Ridiculous. Suffer with 2GB ram and 32GB max storage or go with a phone that
is too big to get 3GB ram and 64/128GB storage. Why even make a 16GB model. I
prefer a device without vendor bloatware and with regular software updates but
this round of Nexus is a fail.

------
libso
As an owner of Nexus 6, I was taken aback by the Nexus 6P pricing. Effectively
you can get 6P for 500-50$ vs 650$ for Nexus 6 (32GB). Agreed Nexus 6P is
smaller than Nexus 6 but if they can sell 6P at 450$ I wonder why they jacked
up Nexus 6's price so much.

~~~
jlebar
> I wonder why they jacked up Nexus 6's price so much.

The new thing is cheaper than the old thing, so the old thing must have been
overpriced? Is it possible instead that in the intervening time components
have become cheaper, Google has been able to negotiate better deals (perhaps
due to higher projected volume), and so on?

------
iraphael
For how much can I expect to get a Nexus 5 (last year's model)?

~~~
mkonecny
Previous Nexus 5 was released in 2013. Last year was the Nexus 6 (6 meaning it
was 6 inch device)

------
mtgx
Camera review for the Nexus 6P:

[http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-
Seriou...](http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-Serious-
contender-for-mobile-photography)

------
welder
It's open for preorders (Leaves warehouse in 4 - 5 weeks)

------
pkudel4
and the flashlight will still not work.... nexus5 owner

------
washt
I think I'll hold out for my 1 plus 2 invite.

~~~
devbug
I'm waiting too... but I'm getting rather antsy.

~~~
cpncrunch
A lot of people are saying that the oneplus one has unreliably hardware and
buggy software. Reliability is much more important to me than saving a few
bucks. I was planning on getting the Note 5 when the 64gb variant is available
in Canada, but now I'm considering the 6P.

~~~
darklajid
I had a OnePlus One, now my wife uses it and I watch with envy, holding the
crap-phone that is a S6E. Would go back in an instant.

------
majordouchebag
Galaxy S6 Active all day

------
ricardobeat
The site looks completely broken on both mobile Safari & Chrome desktop. What
gives?

------
djabatt
Looks good, but I am over Android. Moreover I feel like Google is never in it
to win with their phone hardware. I am hippyish with my Apple iPhone but look
forward to killer open option.

~~~
simoncion
> Moreover I feel like Google is never in it to win with their phone hardware.

1) [Pedantry warning:] Google doesn't make phone hardware. ;)

2) The OLED Nexus S was a _really_ nice phone back in the day. It's still
_pretty_ nice today.

So, -in short- I don't agree with your heavy-on-managerial-platitudes
sentiment.

------
morsch
The price is fine -- in the US. The markup in Germany, and presumably the
other EUR-countries, is enormous. The $380 Nexus 5X 16 GB will be sold (when?
who knows) for 480 EUR. $380 at today's rates with the 20% VAT added on top is
405 EUR. Maybe I'm missing some massive import duties that go on top of the
VAT.

Too bad, I was looking forward to it.

~~~
zeveb
> The markup in Germany, and presumably the other EUR-countries, is enormous.

Elections have consequences.

Presumably the great mass of your countrymen are happy getting additional
social services in return for higher taxes.

~~~
morsch
Your tone is uncalled for. I included the 20% VAT which results in ~405 EUR,
and I'm fine with it. I _do_ mind the remaining 75 EUR that go on top of it.
Though I just found out that about half of that goes to the copyright
industry[1].

[1] [http://www.giga.de/unternehmen/gema/news/smartphone-
abgabe-3...](http://www.giga.de/unternehmen/gema/news/smartphone-
abgabe-36-euro-fuer-jedes-geraet-gehen-an-gema-und-co/) (German)

~~~
RyanZAG
I'd guess the other half is going towards things like localizing text and
dealing with getting the device certified for the market, etc. You could say
the same about the initial English version and USA certifications - but those
are generally bundled into the core product while the German part would be
extras. Yeah that does mean you're paying for both the English version and USA
certifications when you buy the device in Germany even though you aren't using
those, but that's life.

