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Personally, I don't care for any [0] of the new features. This is the greatest feature, because it means Android is mature now. [0] Sure, better performance is always nice, but I don't care for Vulkan, VR Mode, or Multi-Window.
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The Nexus 5 (16gb - $349, 32gb - $399) was released nearly three years ago for a fraction of the price of the comparable iPhone at the time (iPhone 5s: 16gb - $649, 32gb - $749). I think you got a hell of a deal. Upgrade to the 5x for another $350 be happy with another few years of support. Or wait for the new Nexus phones to come out this fall...
The only thing I'd add here is that unfortunately the Nexus 5x is not an upgrade over the 5 in terms of performance. It might even be a downgrade (I own both). Because the 5x uses a 64-bit arch, it uses more RAM than the 5x (and both only have 2GB). Also, the SD808 (2GHz) cores in the 5x are hardly a step up from the SD800 (2.2GHz) cores. The only real upgrade the 5x gives you is the camera.
Quick charge is a game changer. Less pressure to make the battery bigger if you can make the phone charge way faster.
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Not really surprising given the device's age, but still disappointing given the presumably rather large number of Nexus 5 still in use. The bigger story may be the inability to come up with a compelling reason for N5 users to upgrade, other than getting the latest OS revision. The N5's compactness in particular makes the 5X (and the impending successor, codenamed "Sailfish") a tough sell.
The biggest feature I'm looking for that the newer Nexuses don't have over my N5/N7 is Qi wireless charging. My Nexus 7's USB port has been broken for over a year now, and I've been using a wireless charger all this time. It just seems like a good idea to reduce the wear and tear on the USB ports if I want to continue using the phone for years.
Wireless charging is the killer feature for wireless devices in my opinion. I can't wait for the day when every one of my devices and wireless peripherals supports wireless charging, so I can just lay them down on a large charging pad when I'm not using them and never have to worry about not having a full battery when I pick it up for use, or have to fumble with plugging wire into every single device.
No nexus 5 (not 5x) OTA Update ='(
Also, no update for the Nexus 7 (2013) tablet: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/android-nougat-drops-... [I]t's too bad that the support lifecycle of the most consistently updated Android devices is so much shorter than what Apple achieves with iOS, especially since the hardware should still be more than capable of supporting Nougat.
I bought once / as soon as I learned that its successor had not been worth waiting for. So, I got significantly less than 3 years out of it. Would have bought the successor, except...
Guess I'll be rooting it. And buying Apple, next time.
Just a shout-out to the fine folks over at CopperheadOS[0]who have been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes hardening in Android over the last year[1]. If you have a Nexus device and don't care much for the Play Store applications (F-Droid is included) give it a go for a true AOSP experience. The only apps I'm really missing are Tasker and Signal, but I have a second phone for those. 0: https://copperhead.co/android/ 1:…
0: http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/open-whisper-systems/signal-pri...
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This is the most significant update, way way overdue.
Seriously. I switched back to an iPhone from Lollipop earlier this year, and the difference in battery life is staggering, even though the iPhone has a smaller battery than the Android phone I used to have. I'm glad that Google has signaled that they are going to further tighten the restrictions on background app activities in future releases. I hope they follow through with it.
Meanwhile many phones (especially vendor-locked ones like the Droid Turbo...) are still stuck on Lollipop.
According† to https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html The recent Marshmallow has 15.2% market share Lollipop (14.1% + 21.4%) = 35.5% (the greatest share) KitKat has 29.2% (the next greatest share) Jelly Bean† still has (6.0% + 8.3% + 2.4%) = 16.7% Earlier than Jelly Bean is 3.4% of the total share. Jelly Bean was first unveiled in June 2012, four years ago. I think given the development model: large…
> As a techie you have to know by now that if you want an up to date version of Android you ought to get a Nexus...
Except I did that and it looks like my Nexus 7 is no longer getting OS updates, while my older iPhone 5 is still chugging on the latest OS and afaik will get iOS 10 soon.
This will definitely dissuade me from buying Android in the future.
Just a shout-out to the fine folks over at CopperheadOS[0]who have been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes hardening in Android over the last year[1]. If you have a Nexus device and don't care much for the Play Store applications (F-Droid is included) give it a go for a true AOSP experience. The only apps I'm really missing are Tasker and Signal, but I have a second phone for those. 0: https://copperhead.co/android/ 1:…
Can't you install the Signal apk directly, from apkmirror[0] ? 0: http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/open-whisper-systems/signal-pri...
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> Not really surprising given the device's age Nexus 5 released late 2013, last major OS update in late 2015. Compare to the iPhone 4S, which came out late 2011 and still got iOS 9 (4 years later). Really not buying the "two years is plenty of updates" excuse, especially from the Nexus line.
Not entirely fair comparison since the 4S didn't get every feature; it was a paired down version. AFAIK, Google doesn't cherrypick features for older hardware - it's all our nothing. Also, the 4S ran terribly on ios9, to the point that two of my friends with 4S's just gave in and bought new iphones instead.
Also the "cherrypick" comment is a bit of a dodge - Google already does security patches for older releases (3 years vs. 2).
It would arguably be just as easy to secure one codebase and pare features down for performance.