Nexus 6 • Hacker News Board

Re: Nexus 6

#481

Post by DCKing » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #287

DCKing wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that you use a 5" phone differently than a 3.5" phone. But a 5" phone comes with a lot of advantages of its own, which you might find hard to recognize if that's not what you're using. > All I need is phone calls, texting, GPS/maps, snapcat, music, and (usually reading only) email and OneNote. Well that's probably just because you use your current phone for these things. Who's to say that the bigger screen…

> Well that's probably just because you use your current phone for these things. Who's to say that the bigger screen won't make you do more or other things with it? You may be right. But even so, I spend enough time on my phone even with the limited uses. If I had a bigger screen, maybe I'd use it for reading and writing emails. But I don't know that I want to. If I could get a 6" phone that was as comfortable to rea…

> Addendum - Fundamentally, I see my phone as a minor utility/convenience item. I use it for occasional tasks like making dinner reservations, finding cheap gas, ordering takeout, finding ATMs, tracking runs, checking weather forecasts.

Again, that is probably only because you view your current phone as such. Who's to say that you won't see a larger phone an even more useful tool? I'm not saying that you will, I'm saying you haven't tried and therefore don't know.

> None of those things need a 6" screen.

It's not really a question of necessity. I agree. My contention is that you should not be dismissive of 6" (or 4.5" , or 5") devices a priori because "you don't need it" - because there is a chance you'll enjoy it more. If user experience matters to you, then it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. If it doesn't, there are some small sub $150 Windows Phones that fit those needs marvelously. And that's fine too.

Re: Nexus 6

#482

Post by nly » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #475

nly wrote: post #464

This thing has a screen resolution higher than my laptop, and 4x the RAM...

You're probably misreading the flash space (32 or 64GG) as RAM. Either that or you only have 750MB of RAM.

You're right. They list storage as "memory". How much RAM does this thing actually have?

Re: Nexus 6

#483

Post by bane » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:22 PM UTC

computerjunkie wrote: post #271

5.96” - A phone just under 6". This is possibly the biggest disappointment about the phone. Its simply too large for the average user. The nexus 5 was already quite difficult to reach the top corners with one hand in my opinion with its 4.95”. you get over 24 hours of use from a full charge. - too many times I have heard this phrase from other smartphone manufacturers and its never true. Since this phone is made by M…

"was already quite difficult to reach the top corners with one hand"

This is such a red herring.

I switched from a smallish phone (a Nexus) to a Note 3 (which is just a fraction smaller than this) and it's absolutely amazing how millions of years of evolution equipped us to do things using both hands and how quickly we can accommodate ourselves to doing what nature intended. We even evolved walking upright just so we could accomplish this amazing feat.

I even have smallish hands and have had zero trouble accommodating what apparently is a freakishly large phone so big I could serve dinner for six on it.

Astonishingly it fits just fine in the front and rear pants pockets of all my pants and shorts, in my shirt pocket fine (if I'm wearing a shirt with a pocket), in my suit jacket pockets just fine, my hoodies are great with it.

Bonus, I can actually read what's on the screen without having to hold it up next to my face. In fact it's smaller to carry around than my old moleskine notebooks which I also kept in my pocket until I got this phone, and now thanks to being big enough to keep a sane size pen and provide a reasonable writing surface has completely replaced. From larger touch targets to larger speaker for the speakerphone to more battery, the tremendous effort of just using two hands is far outweighed by all the benefits of having a larger phone.

It's so useful it's even replaced me dragging along my tablet on trips for reading. I just took two trips and my phone was the only device I needed to bring along with me, large enough to comfortably type on, watch some shows on, battery life for all day hassle free use, I can comfortably read books on it in bed!

It's so compelling a size that just on showing it to my friends and letting them handle it half of them went out and bought a phone in that size range. They "got" it only after using it for a bit.

In practice you just use it like a small tablet that also happens to be a great phone.

> If they had put the 3220 mAh battery (or larger) in a 4.7" - 4.9" phone, I would gladly pay for that. Why can't smartphone manufacturers understand that a longer battery life is whats lacking in mobile devices?

Absolutely agree. In fact I'm almost thinking of getting this

http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Extended-Compatible-Internati...

Re: Nexus 6

#484

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:24 PM UTC

Fascinating arguments about size. It isn't the only phone on the market, so the size question is resolved by market acceptance. Granted there are confounding factors, Lollipop vs Android 4.x, cost, availability. But in general larger screens seem to sell well (compare the iPhone 6+ backlog to the iPhone 6 for example [1]). I get that this might not be a "good" thing for some people, but it is pointless to argue that Apple or Google should take less money by selling phones the market doesn't want (a strategy which is being employed by RIM at the moment)

[1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/12/iphone-6-and-6-plus-already-se...

Re: Nexus 6

#485

Post by DCKing » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

MHordecki wrote: post #469

DCKing wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When talking about "what consumers want", the opinions of the people in your office really shouldn't indicate that much. Especially not if they just started using their big phones two weeks ago, and still need to get used to different usage patterns after using small iPhones for (I presume) a long time. Nobody disputes that larger phones are used differently than smaller phones (large phones have advantages and disad…

You can just easily argue the other way - recently I've switched from N5 (5") to Z3C (4.6" hovewer with small bezels) and I couldn't be happier. In fact, I would happily go under 4" if there was a flagship so small.

Again, I didn't say larger phones are better. If you tried a larger phone for a while and didn't like it, good for you. What I'm pointing out is that you cannot honestly say "I don't like large phones" without actually using them for a while. I'm also pointing out that personal anecdotes don't have any value in discussions about what the market really wants.

Re: Nexus 6

#486

Post by bane » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:27 PM UTC

skynetv2 wrote: post #387

DCKing wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its simply too large for the average user. > Why can't smartphone manufacturers understand that a longer battery life is whats lacking in mobile devices? I think it's quite bold to speak in such factual terms when talking about the "average" consumer or the market. Your opinion does not necessarily apply to everyone, or even the majority of the users. Not that I disagree with you, mind. It seems to me that these ma…

I moved from a Galaxy Nexus to LG G3, which is smaller than the Nexus 6 and I find it incredibly hard to use. Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life. Galaxy Nexus was so small I could put it anywhere on me and it would be just fine. Awesome…

> Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life.

I mean this in all seriousness, how small are your pants? When I got my Note, the first thing I checked was to see if it would fit in my pants pockets. No problem with a single pair. I keep seeing this complaint and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who complain about this really buy tight pants with tiny pockets.

If I can't fit my entire hand comfortably into the pocket of whatever pants I'm buying, I'm simply not buying them.

But I'm getting to be an old fart, and maybe the fashion you kids wear these days demands useless pockets you can't carry anything around in. But I've never understood this issue.

Even women, who have next to useless pockets in their pants buy this size phone in huge numbers.

Re: Nexus 6

#487

Post by WizzleKake » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:29 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #483

computerjunkie wrote: post #271

5.96” - A phone just under 6". This is possibly the biggest disappointment about the phone. Its simply too large for the average user. The nexus 5 was already quite difficult to reach the top corners with one hand in my opinion with its 4.95”. you get over 24 hours of use from a full charge. - too many times I have heard this phrase from other smartphone manufacturers and its never true. Since this phone is made by M…

"was already quite difficult to reach the top corners with one hand" This is such a red herring. I switched from a smallish phone (a Nexus) to a Note 3 (which is just a fraction smaller than this) and it's absolutely amazing how millions of years of evolution equipped us to do things using both hands and how quickly we can accommodate ourselves to doing what nature intended. We even evolved walking upright just so we…

Not everyone wants to use both hands.

Some of us would like to be able to respond to a text message while carrying something, for example.

Re: Nexus 6

#488

Post by isnotchicago » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:30 PM UTC

cloakandswagger wrote: post #350

sirkneeland wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, a photo is more "there" on a working 720p screen than it is on a 1080p screen with a dead battery...

Everywhere I go I see people charging their phones: at work, at the airport, in coffee shops, in the subway station.. Modern consumers seem to be perfectly fine with trading all-day battery life for better display, and manufacturers are perfectly fine with the higher margins that come with better displays.

A trade implies choice. What are the phones with amazing battery life? There are some DROID phones (MAXX, etc.), but is that it?

Re: Nexus 6

#489

Post by kllrnohj » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

jo_ wrote: post #364

kllrnohj wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average human has better than 20/20 vision. The average is actually closer to 20/16 to 20/12, and doesn't drop to 20/20 until 60 years of age.

Could I impose for a citation for this? A quick check indicates that in the industrialized world, between 50% and 70% of individuals require corrective lenses.[1][2] That seems to indicate that the _average_ human does NOT have 20/20. It's possible in developing countries less than half the population does not need vision correction, but I'm not terribly convinced. [1] National Centre for Social Research and Universi…

> “Normal” visual acuity for healthy eyes is one or two lines better than 20/20. In population samples the average acuity does not drop to the 20/20 level until age 60 or 70.

http://precision-vision.com/Introduction-to-Visual-Acuity-Me...

Re: Nexus 6

#490

Post by bane » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

WizzleKake wrote: post #487

bane wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"was already quite difficult to reach the top corners with one hand" This is such a red herring. I switched from a smallish phone (a Nexus) to a Note 3 (which is just a fraction smaller than this) and it's absolutely amazing how millions of years of evolution equipped us to do things using both hands and how quickly we can accommodate ourselves to doing what nature intended. We even evolved walking upright just so we…

Not everyone wants to use both hands. Some of us would like to be able to respond to a text message while carrying something, for example.

Yeah sure, I understand that use case. I personally wish Apple had kept the 6 at the original form factor and made the larger phone as-is to give real choice. The way they did it was "go bigger" or "go biggerer" and I get that there are people who really do just want the smaller form factor for whatever reason.

Okay, so I did have a moment the other day where I wanted to text somebody but one of my hands was full and so I made the extremely difficult decision to wait 5 minutes until I was in a better place to do what I wanted. There was another case a couple weeks ago that was similar, but I just used the speech recognition to type the texts out for me (a pattern I'm getting more and more into even when I can comfortably type anyways).