Google will continue to provide major OS updates to the 6P until September of 2017. The Security updates will continue until at least September of 2018.
This means that the 6P will probably get Android O (the 2017 release) and that will be the last OS update. Not a guarantee, but likely.
As for when the next nexus phones will be out... They've traditionally been in October, but with the accelerated release of Nougat (it's hit the "near final" build earlier than it did last year, there's a chance we see them earlier. Personally I hope we either see them in August or October. Google would be wise to just cede September to Apple and iOS.
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust. when i first got the 6P after the N5 I thought I made a huge mistake but a week later and I didn't even notice the difference.
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust. when i first got the 6P after the N5 I thought I made a huge mistake but a week later and I didn't even notice the difference.
That's going up in size yeah? I definitely notice a difference between my Note 4 and my 5X. Granted, the difference in size is greater than the .2" that separates the 6P and whatever they'll call it's successor.
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
at i
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust. when i first got the 6P after the N5 I thought I made a huge mistake but a week later and I didn't even notice the difference.
That's going up in size yeah? I definitely notice a difference between my Note 4 and my 5X. Granted, the difference in size is greater than the .2" that separates the 6P and whatever they'll call it's successor.
even going down. my work phone that I also use every day is a 5" GS4. It doesn't bother me at all either.
I think we make too big a deal about the changes in sizes too much, especially when comparing 5.5 and 5.7.
I'm super curious about the 6Ps replacement, but most rumors are saying it's going to be a smaller phone which makes me feel... Not pleased.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
at i
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust. when i first got the 6P after the N5 I thought I made a huge mistake but a week later and I didn't even notice the difference.
That's going up in size yeah? I definitely notice a difference between my Note 4 and my 5X. Granted, the difference in size is greater than the .2" that separates the 6P and whatever they'll call it's successor.
even going down. my work phone that I also use every day is a 5" GS4. It doesn't bother me at all either.
I think we make too big a deal about the changes in sizes too much, especially when comparing 5.5 and 5.7.
I dunno, the 5X looks and feels really small in my hands and its hard for me to type with a lot of accuracy when compared to my Note (and thats using Swiftkey on both phones). But like I said, my hands are big enough where the Note looks like a normal sized phone when I'm holding it. When the new 6 rolls out I'll probably see if I can find a similarly sized phone somewhere to compare it to.
as far as I've ever known, Android has tied app sounds to the media volume, not the ringer volume. Every phone I've ever owned has done it that way, at least.
I'm eagerly anticipating the announcement on new Nexus phones. My Nexus 5 is getting to its end. Battery capacity is dwindling, connector is chewing up USB cables and only "charging slowly" most times, back cover is not staying on. Hope the rumours that they may show up in August are true.
I'm eagerly anticipating the announcement on new Nexus phones. My Nexus 5 is getting to its end. Battery capacity is dwindling, connector is chewing up USB cables and only "charging slowly" most times, back cover is not staying on. Hope the rumours that they may show up in August are true.
The biggest issue with mine (besides battery) is the spotty WiFi connections. It'll just randomly decide to Nope out of a wifi connection; then randomly reconnect 3-4 minutes later.
I wonder if that is partly to blame for my shoddy battery life, too.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
My phone is doing the same thing all of a sudden. Decided that it can't stay connected to the Wi-Fi, or is connected but thinks it isn't. Annoying as hell.
The separate 2016-08-05 patch level looks suspiciously like a Nougat release based on the huge number of kernel and driver updates compared to normal releases. Notice how the 2016-08-01 patch level is mostly in Android components and 3rd party software.
Edit: Maybe not. People are loading the factory image for it and getting that patch level on Marshmallow. Still strange.
there's probably a ton of "nougat prep" in the patches, and there have been a couple reports that the Android 7 code drop will come on the 5th as well when the Security bulliten for August was supposed to officially be out.
There is a not zero chance we will see it on Friday, but almost certainly a 100% chance we'll see it before the end of the month.
I will say again, the release of Android this year and the Nexus stuff is way different than it has been in 4 or so years. We're going to get the code drop way earlier than normal, and that may mean we see the code drop before Nexus devices are announced/released, which the last time that happened was literally the original Moto Droid in like 2009.
LG has already announced that the V20 that comes in September will be the first phone that ships with Nougat out of the box. This is a weird year.
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
In Note news, the Note 7 is indeed going to have the double Edge design. I hear it's less pronounced this time around, which is nice, but I still don't love that design.
In Note news, the Note 7 is indeed going to have the double Edge design. I hear it's less pronounced this time around, which is nice, but I still don't love that design.
Also, no more white phone!
I understand why they have done it but for the average person, to have almost the exact same internals of the 6 month old GS7 handsets with a minimal screen size increase doesn't exactly wow.
The Note 5 was basically the same phone as the GS6 last year. (hell they announced the note 5 and the GS6 Edge at the exact same time).
The differentiation of the note line now is the Stylus.
And really, I do think we've hit the point of diminishing returns on specs. unless you are buying a phone specifically for VR, 1440p is way overkill for a display at this size, the Snapdragon 820 is plenty fast enough, there's more than enough ram, etc.
The Note 5 was basically the same phone as the GS6 last year. (hell they announced the note 5 and the GS6 Edge at the exact same time).
The differentiation of the note line now is the Stylus.
And really, I do think we've hit the point of diminishing returns on specs. unless you are buying a phone specifically for VR, 1440p is way overkill for a display at this size, the Snapdragon 820 is plenty fast enough, there's more than enough ram, etc.
I think its more to do with generally the note line used to have specs inbetween each yearly S line phone. So it was features that most of the time end up seeing on next years S line phone.
This is the first year where the specs haven't changed at all. I know why and I totally agree with streamlining the handsets but for the average user will only really look at numbers and see one handset costs twice the price yet does little different.
The Note 5 was basically the same phone as the GS6 last year. (hell they announced the note 5 and the GS6 Edge at the exact same time).
The differentiation of the note line now is the Stylus.
And really, I do think we've hit the point of diminishing returns on specs. unless you are buying a phone specifically for VR, 1440p is way overkill for a display at this size, the Snapdragon 820 is plenty fast enough, there's more than enough ram, etc.
I think its more to do with generally the note line used to have specs inbetween each yearly S line phone. So it was features that most of the time end up seeing on next years S line phone.
This is the first year where the specs haven't changed at all. I know why and I totally agree with streamlining the handsets but for the average user will only really look at numbers and see one handset costs twice the price yet does little different.
Not really true. Last year the phones were the exact same except for the GS6 had 3GB of ram compared to 4GB in the GS6 Edge and Note 5. Everything else spec wise was the same (except for storage, which is also different, but that remains true this year too)
My LG G4 died on me last night. It won't charge at all and if I fiddle around with the battery it turns on to a blue screen. This morning I remembered about the hard reset option, but I can't seem to get the phone to turm on at all.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited August 2016
My new phone arrives Friday, but I still had to factory reset this one. It rebooted five times today on its own.
After the reset, it's still having weird hangs and delays, leading me to believe there's hardware at fault.
Six more days.
Edit: Yep, definitely hardware. It's still doing its random reboots, and it's not an app causing the issue since it's even happening in safe mode. Oh well!
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Well, after my iPhone 6 Plus started refusing to connect to cellular ever again (wifi still works, so it's basically a 5.5" iPod Touch now), I had to get a new phone. Looking back at the fact that I spent $850 on this phone less than two years ago (and still owe $70 to ATT for it), I feel like an idiot, and I'm never spending that amount of money on a phone again. Especially one that doesn't have a headphone jack.
So, I'm borrowing a friend's old phone until I decide what to get. It's a Moto X Pure. Feels great. I played around with a Nexus 6 like a year and a half ago, so this feels pretty familiar in a lot of ways.
First impressions on the software and hardware:
I can use this without a case because it has a rubbery back instead of the all metal build on the iPhone that felt like greased teflon. That's pretty cool, since there are like... no cases for this thing.
The fast charging is amazing. I can charge from 40% to 85% on my 30 minute commute. I almost don't need to plug this in at night. Which is also great since the battery life isn't fantastic.
Google Photos is amazing. Full stop. So much better than iCloud's lousy photo sharing/backup/sync bullshit that I couldn't even properly explain how to manage as an Apple employee.
The IR sensor that lets you do the hand wave over the phone to show the time and notifications is great. My phone sits next to me on my desk all day, so that's way handier than I ever imagined.
The shake and chop shortcuts for the camera and flashlight are also great. Super well thought out, Moto.
Don't love the headphone jack on top/charger on bottom thing. Kind of awkward in the car. Both are good placements on their own, but with both plugged in together, it's super awkward. Makes me think I should invest in a BT receiver for the car.
Built in speakers that aren't hot garbage! Wow!
The dimple is my favoritest simple feature on any phone.
Hangouts seems great, if I could ever convince my family to install it instead of iMessage.
As of yet, I'm not missing any apps from iOS. Well, just Tweetbot, but Fenix seems good enough.
I feel a surprisingly amount less stress not having red alert bubbles overlayed on tons of apps. Especially since some apps on iOS are shitty and get their notification bubbles stuck on them.
Automatic is a little jankier than on iOS. Eh.
Google Now is fucking magic. As soon as I started using this phone it's giving me estimated driving time to work, Red Sox scores, Overwatch videos, and No Man's Sky guides. Google GETS ME in a way that should probably make me a little uncomfortable, but doesn't.
Holy shit, having 64gb + 128gb (microSD) is AMAZING. Google Music is so good and convenient. It's maybe the second best Google service after Photos.
---
All in all, I'm amazed that I you can get a phone that's this fucking good for like $350. It's definitely not perfect, but holy crap, is this ever a solid experience for like $500 less than I paid for that iPhone.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
/r/android has a size comparison of recent Nexus phones, which includes renders for Sailfish and Marlin. TBH, part of me is leaning toward Marlin because it's not actually that much bigger than my N5. I want to say that Sailfish is ~3mm taller than N5; and Marlin is ~8mm.
The only thing I'm not very impressed about in the renders is the friggin' huge bezel/chin. Although looking back, that seems to be a hallmark of HTC design, so....
Also, further confirmation that specs will be identical between the two phones, outside of screen/case size.
So, rumor on /r/android is that the gigantic bezel on Sailfish/Marlin used to house a fingerprint scanner (which iirc is now on the back). I'm not sure how I feel about this or why it should matter.
Also, I'll have to do some digging. Is there any confirmation either way, whether they are bringing back wireless charging or not?
I'm not sure what's up, but I can't get any song to play on Google Play Music in my browser this morning. I'm using FireFox 48.0. I use this every day at work to stream various of their playlists and none are working. I'm logged in to my Google Account properly, etc. I can get the same playlists to stream properly on the app in my phone.
So, rumor on /r/android is that the gigantic bezel on Sailfish/Marlin used to house a fingerprint scanner (which iirc is now on the back). I'm not sure how I feel about this or why it should matter.
Also, I'll have to do some digging. Is there any confirmation either way, whether they are bringing back wireless charging or not?
the leaked pictures do still show the fingerprint reader on the back.
the bezels could be used again for speakers, like what HTC used to do, and what the 6P does now.
Every indication we've gotten about these phones are that most of the back is metal, with a glass panel on the roughly top 1/4 of it. in theory this could allow for wireless charging but I wouldn't hold my breath since it's at the top and putting it on a pad where the contact point for Qi is in the middle probably woudln't work. the glass panel is more likely to give better signal to short range radio stuff like bluetooth and NFC. I find that on my 6P NFC has been fairly unreliable the few times I've tried to use it to pair things, and Bluetooth range for headsets is not great, and I'm assuming the mostly metal back is the main culprit for that.
Ok, it sounds almost 100% for sure that Andoid 7 is hitting this monday, the 22nd.
Telus, a carrier in Canada, has posted their update schedule and has Android 7 hittnig the 6P and 5X on the 22nd. Telus did the same thing last year with Marshmallow and got the date correct.
LG also has documenation that they'll be starting a preview program for G5's in Korea starting on the 22nd. From what I'm reading OEM's aren't allowed to do anything like that until the official code drop.
So get yourselves ready. Android 7 is coming in 4 days.
no. It is out of support. Remember this phone is 3 years old now. Google promises OS updates for 2 years. It will continue to receive security updates for I think another 6 months.
as an aside, based on the state of my N5 a year ago I commend anyone who still has a working N5 3 years on. Mine was near useless after 2 years.
Mine is inching along now. I ordered a new battery for it last week to tide me over to the next Nexus phones. Also, the back case is starting to pop off much too easily.
e: I just checked.. I ordered my N5 in April 2014.
Posts
This means that the 6P will probably get Android O (the 2017 release) and that will be the last OS update. Not a guarantee, but likely.
As for when the next nexus phones will be out... They've traditionally been in October, but with the accelerated release of Nougat (it's hit the "near final" build earlier than it did last year, there's a chance we see them earlier. Personally I hope we either see them in August or October. Google would be wise to just cede September to Apple and iOS.
On the one hand I'm really looking to transition away from my Note 4, but on the other there's no way I'm going to a smaller phone.
smaller means from a 5.7" screen to 5.5. the 6P is a really tall phone because of the front facing speakers. I don't mind the screen size but the top and bottom bezels are huge and hilarious.
Yeah, I dont want to step down from 5.7". I wish I could hold/see one in person before buying, but I have big hands and my Note 4 is basically the perfect size so...
you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust. when i first got the 6P after the N5 I thought I made a huge mistake but a week later and I didn't even notice the difference.
That's going up in size yeah? I definitely notice a difference between my Note 4 and my 5X. Granted, the difference in size is greater than the .2" that separates the 6P and whatever they'll call it's successor.
even going down. my work phone that I also use every day is a 5" GS4. It doesn't bother me at all either.
I think we make too big a deal about the changes in sizes too much, especially when comparing 5.5 and 5.7.
I dunno, the 5X looks and feels really small in my hands and its hard for me to type with a lot of accuracy when compared to my Note (and thats using Swiftkey on both phones). But like I said, my hands are big enough where the Note looks like a normal sized phone when I'm holding it. When the new 6 rolls out I'll probably see if I can find a similarly sized phone somewhere to compare it to.
bell - which is rings / notification and apps
media - music etc
alarms
It's odd that apps are tied to ringtones for you, though...
Just confirmed
The biggest issue with mine (besides battery) is the spotty WiFi connections. It'll just randomly decide to Nope out of a wifi connection; then randomly reconnect 3-4 minutes later.
I wonder if that is partly to blame for my shoddy battery life, too.
Upgrade soon...
The separate 2016-08-05 patch level looks suspiciously like a Nougat release based on the huge number of kernel and driver updates compared to normal releases. Notice how the 2016-08-01 patch level is mostly in Android components and 3rd party software.
Edit: Maybe not. People are loading the factory image for it and getting that patch level on Marshmallow. Still strange.
There is a not zero chance we will see it on Friday, but almost certainly a 100% chance we'll see it before the end of the month.
I will say again, the release of Android this year and the Nexus stuff is way different than it has been in 4 or so years. We're going to get the code drop way earlier than normal, and that may mean we see the code drop before Nexus devices are announced/released, which the last time that happened was literally the original Moto Droid in like 2009.
LG has already announced that the V20 that comes in September will be the first phone that ships with Nougat out of the box. This is a weird year.
Also, no more white phone!
I understand why they have done it but for the average person, to have almost the exact same internals of the 6 month old GS7 handsets with a minimal screen size increase doesn't exactly wow.
The differentiation of the note line now is the Stylus.
And really, I do think we've hit the point of diminishing returns on specs. unless you are buying a phone specifically for VR, 1440p is way overkill for a display at this size, the Snapdragon 820 is plenty fast enough, there's more than enough ram, etc.
I think its more to do with generally the note line used to have specs inbetween each yearly S line phone. So it was features that most of the time end up seeing on next years S line phone.
This is the first year where the specs haven't changed at all. I know why and I totally agree with streamlining the handsets but for the average user will only really look at numbers and see one handset costs twice the price yet does little different.
Not really true. Last year the phones were the exact same except for the GS6 had 3GB of ram compared to 4GB in the GS6 Edge and Note 5. Everything else spec wise was the same (except for storage, which is also different, but that remains true this year too)
After the reset, it's still having weird hangs and delays, leading me to believe there's hardware at fault.
Six more days.
Edit: Yep, definitely hardware. It's still doing its random reboots, and it's not an app causing the issue since it's even happening in safe mode. Oh well!
So, I'm borrowing a friend's old phone until I decide what to get. It's a Moto X Pure. Feels great. I played around with a Nexus 6 like a year and a half ago, so this feels pretty familiar in a lot of ways.
First impressions on the software and hardware:
I can use this without a case because it has a rubbery back instead of the all metal build on the iPhone that felt like greased teflon. That's pretty cool, since there are like... no cases for this thing.
The fast charging is amazing. I can charge from 40% to 85% on my 30 minute commute. I almost don't need to plug this in at night. Which is also great since the battery life isn't fantastic.
Google Photos is amazing. Full stop. So much better than iCloud's lousy photo sharing/backup/sync bullshit that I couldn't even properly explain how to manage as an Apple employee.
The IR sensor that lets you do the hand wave over the phone to show the time and notifications is great. My phone sits next to me on my desk all day, so that's way handier than I ever imagined.
The shake and chop shortcuts for the camera and flashlight are also great. Super well thought out, Moto.
Don't love the headphone jack on top/charger on bottom thing. Kind of awkward in the car. Both are good placements on their own, but with both plugged in together, it's super awkward. Makes me think I should invest in a BT receiver for the car.
Built in speakers that aren't hot garbage! Wow!
The dimple is my favoritest simple feature on any phone.
Hangouts seems great, if I could ever convince my family to install it instead of iMessage.
As of yet, I'm not missing any apps from iOS. Well, just Tweetbot, but Fenix seems good enough.
I feel a surprisingly amount less stress not having red alert bubbles overlayed on tons of apps. Especially since some apps on iOS are shitty and get their notification bubbles stuck on them.
Automatic is a little jankier than on iOS. Eh.
Google Now is fucking magic. As soon as I started using this phone it's giving me estimated driving time to work, Red Sox scores, Overwatch videos, and No Man's Sky guides. Google GETS ME in a way that should probably make me a little uncomfortable, but doesn't.
Holy shit, having 64gb + 128gb (microSD) is AMAZING. Google Music is so good and convenient. It's maybe the second best Google service after Photos.
---
All in all, I'm amazed that I you can get a phone that's this fucking good for like $350. It's definitely not perfect, but holy crap, is this ever a solid experience for like $500 less than I paid for that iPhone.
The only thing I'm not very impressed about in the renders is the friggin' huge bezel/chin. Although looking back, that seems to be a hallmark of HTC design, so....
Also, further confirmation that specs will be identical between the two phones, outside of screen/case size.
Also, I'll have to do some digging. Is there any confirmation either way, whether they are bringing back wireless charging or not?
Any ideas what might be up?
the leaked pictures do still show the fingerprint reader on the back.
the bezels could be used again for speakers, like what HTC used to do, and what the 6P does now.
Every indication we've gotten about these phones are that most of the back is metal, with a glass panel on the roughly top 1/4 of it. in theory this could allow for wireless charging but I wouldn't hold my breath since it's at the top and putting it on a pad where the contact point for Qi is in the middle probably woudln't work. the glass panel is more likely to give better signal to short range radio stuff like bluetooth and NFC. I find that on my 6P NFC has been fairly unreliable the few times I've tried to use it to pair things, and Bluetooth range for headsets is not great, and I'm assuming the mostly metal back is the main culprit for that.
Telus, a carrier in Canada, has posted their update schedule and has Android 7 hittnig the 6P and 5X on the 22nd. Telus did the same thing last year with Marshmallow and got the date correct.
LG also has documenation that they'll be starting a preview program for G5's in Korea starting on the 22nd. From what I'm reading OEM's aren't allowed to do anything like that until the official code drop.
So get yourselves ready. Android 7 is coming in 4 days.
no. It is out of support. Remember this phone is 3 years old now. Google promises OS updates for 2 years. It will continue to receive security updates for I think another 6 months.
as an aside, based on the state of my N5 a year ago I commend anyone who still has a working N5 3 years on. Mine was near useless after 2 years.
e: I just checked.. I ordered my N5 in April 2014.