Nexus 6 review: The best Nexus yet, if you can tolerate its gargantuan size.

With a nearly 6-inch display, Google’s latest Nexus is downright unwieldy. It’s impossible to use effectively with one hand (and I have large hands). It doesn’t fit well in my pants pockets (and I have large pants). You can forget about taking it with you for a run.

And yet, it’s hard not to love. That’s partially thanks to the top-shelf hardware and slick design of this Motorola-built phone, and partly because it’s a showcase for STOCKAndroid Lollipop (5.0), which is far more elegant and usable than any previous version.

The system-on-chip (SoC) is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 at 2.7GHz with 3GB of RAM. It’s the fastest phone SoC available today, and it shows. Scrolling is smooth, multitasking is immediate, games run flawlessly. Give credit to the SoC for some of that performance, and the efficiency of Android Lollipop for the rest.

Of particular note is the broad wireless compatibility of this phone. It supports more GSM, CDMA, and LTE bands than nearly any phone I can recall. It will be available subsidized from all four major U.S. carriers (a first for a Nexus phone), and should work great overseas. 

Break away from the charger

The Nexus 6 supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology, meaning that it can charge a nearly-dead phone very quickly if you have a compatible charger. Charging speed tapers off as the battery gets full, it’s still immensely useful. I went from 27 percent charged to 52 percent in 15 minutes.

Many other phone makers incorporate this same technology, sometimes giving it their own brand name. They almost always sell the turbo charger separately—Google packs it in the box.

Even with Ambient Display and the always-on hotword detection on, I never failed to go all day on a single charge.

Review