Why I'm not interested in the Nexus 6

The Nexus 6 has been officially announced. We know the specs, the manufacturer is Motorola and that it will go on sale in November with a starting price tag of $649. The new phone has some nice improvements over the Nexus 5, such as a better processor, bigger battery and better camera. At the end of the day though there is no compelling reason for me to want the Nexus 6 over my current phone, a Nexus 5.

There are a few reasons for this. I have used the Nexus 5 for several months now and it's been a great experience the entire time (except when I dropped it and broke the screen, for reference the screen is somewhat easy to replace yourself.) Not once have I looked at the phone and thought, "Gee, I wish I could upgrade or replace this." It has always been a fast responsive phone due to the combination of stock Android and beefy (at the time of it's release) specs. In fact I am pretty sure that when I switched to the ART run time from the Dalvik run time on the phone I noticed an increase in performance but more importantly battery life. This article gives a good comparison on the two run times http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/07/07/android-art-vs-dalvik/.

There are a only a couple things on the Nexus 6 that would make me want to buy it. The processor, a Snapdragon 805 is a step up from the Snapdragon 800 found on the Nexus 5. While the Nexus 5 is not at the top of the pack in benchmarks it is no slouch in real world use. Basically not a good enough reason. The other reason is the camera. The Nexus 6 has a 13MP camera, up from the 8MP camera on the Nexus 5. While a better camera is always nice, the Nexus 5 has taken pretty good pictures for me. I am not a shutter bug and I use it primarily to take family pictures. As long as they turn out decent I am pretty satisfied. Just like the processor bump it is not enough of a reason to make me want the Nexus 6.

There are a couple of things about the Nexus 6 itself that have completely turned off my interest in the phone. The first is screen size. Moving to a 6 inch screen is a little ridiculous at this point. Yes smart phones are mini computers but it still goes into your pocket or your purse or on a belt clip.  Are we as a society going to accept and be comfortable with larger and larger mobile computing devices.

A second reason is the starting price tag. The 32gb model starts at $649. This is disappointing. Part of the appeal of getting a Nexus phone was the fact that it packs similar features and performance of competitor flagship phones without the same unlocked price tag. For instance I got the Nexus 5 for less than $400 while the HTC One (M8) starts at $700. Are there differences between the two phones? Sure, but is it worth the $300 difference? So instead of a flagship phone for budget minded people it is just another phablet.

From other comments I have seen online it looks like the Nexus 6 in general will have less mass appeal than the Nexus 5. Which is why it seems Google will continue to sell the Nexus 5 alongside the Nexus 6. All in all it appears that Google and Motorola have made a nice phone with the Nexus 6. However they have gone beyond the simple and affordable style that made the Nexus line appealing. Google has hopped on the bandwagon and entered the gaudy realm of phablets. For that I am truly disappointed.