Nexus 6 pre-orders start tomorrow. It's $649 for a 32GB model, $699 for 64GB.

The "obvious" competition is a OnePlus One, for a fraction of the price.

Part of me is attracted to having the latest and greatest phone, running Android 5 out of the box. Good quality hardware. Long battery life. Qi charging. What's not to like?

Well, I really like all the aftermarket stuff I've jammed into my Nexus 5 to block ads and protect my privacy. None of that is supported yet under Android 5. After spending the past six months with XPrivacy on my phone and CyanogenMod's PrivacyGuard on my tablet, I'm convinced that CM has the right idea, and that's what I really want to run.

So... I'm leaning toward hanging onto my current Nexus 5, which still works fine despite an annoying crack in the screen, and waiting for "CM12" to come out, which will presumably support the Nexus 6 right away.

Thoughts?

My only Android phones have been the Nexus S, Nexus 4, and now my wife's Nexus 5 until I find a replacement for my broken N4. On each of them, I've run stock Android for about as long as it takes to install CyanogenMod. There's something to be said for the clean, factory-fresh "pure Android" experience, and that's certainly what drew me to the Nexus brand in the first place, but CyanogenMod has managed to simultaneously erase nearly every drawback it once had compared to stock while adding all those goodies you mentioned. At this point, CyanogenMod is rock-solid stable on so many devices that pure Android really isn't that big of a deal.

Which is fine, because for me,at least, the Nexus line has been less about the "pure about getting an affordable phone that's just a shade behind the best hardware at the time it's released. You know you'll get a fast phone, maybe not the best camera or most polished design, but it'll work for several major Android versions, get a lot of attention from the CyanogenMod developers, and if it's outdated in 12-18 months, well, you can buy the next one and for two phones, you've paid about as much as other people did for their flagship manufacturer-branded devices.

Which makes the Nexus 6 a real head-scratcher to me. I'm sure it's a great device, and I guess it's about time Google put their own logo on a flagship-level product, but at a time when the "pure Android" selling point doesn't seem to mean what it used to, they're totally abandoning the value strategy. Now, for all I know, maybe they were losing a ton of money on the Nexus devices, or they just wanted to make more on this phone, but for more than twice the cost, I don't see how anyone can say that it's more than twice the phone the Nexus 5 is, adjusting for 12 months of spec inflation, and that's the premium you pay for getting the best product in a given segment at a given time.

So, yeah, as I said in another thread, I decided to go with the OnePlus One. I was nervous about going with such a new company with no track record to speak of, but the specs compare quite well, and if the Nexus 4 can run Lollipop, then I'm not at all worried about the OPO being able to get through at least a few major Android versions. I will miss the built-in wireless charging (though I'll probably add a Qi receiver and deal with the ugliness/inconvenience) but that and the other things the N6 has over the OPO really don't add up to ~$300 in value for me.

If money were no object, maybe I'd get the N6, but I'd certainly want to hold one in my hands first to see if it is too much phone. Since money is an object, well, it wasn't really a close decision in the end.

Is the 32GB model going to sell very well, given that it is only a $50 savings over the 64GB? Why would they put the prices so close together?

You just explained it perfectly right there.

The prices are so close that everyone will go for the 64MB version. Whereas if they had priced the 32MB more cheaply, fewer would pay the bigger bucks.

I have a One Plus One (thanks Mark). I bought it for my mum but she said the size was "a bit ridiculous" and now I have it.

In general it is super nice. Battery life is epic, camera is pretty decent, screen is great and it is 'snappy' as you would expect. Though to be honest the speed improvement over my 3 year old Tegra 3 HTC One X running Cyanogenmod 11 rarely makes a real world difference to me right now. I don't understand why scrolling webpages in Chrome is not always smooth.

I really feel that it is a borderline acceptable size, and a lot of what makes it usable is the texture on the back. With one hand I can unlock it, swipe short messages and just about reach the notification shade at the top of the screen.

The Nexus 6 is a bit wider and that will make it a strictly two handed affair which is bit inconvenient. It would also be even more annoying to fit into my jeans. Also, is it really twice the price? Meh.

I've already bitten the bullet and now most of my shorts and pants have "cargo" pockets on the sides. The epic battery life is definitely attractive to me as, for example, I forgot to charge my N5 last night and it was totally dead this morning. An N6 or OPO wouldn't have that problem.

I'm still a bit undecided on the N6 vs. OPO, but I'm at least resigned that there's a phablet in my future. My current thinking is that I'll wait until CM12 starts rolling out in betas, then I'll see what my choices are. Notably, given how flagship phone prices have a habit of declining after their initial release, it's entirely possible that we'll see price drops on the N6.

I should have worn cargo pants. Just went up a set of stairs and promptly broke the plug off the headphones that were in my OPO.

I find it interesting that Google's bundling 6 months of free Google Music All Access service with N6 orders. That may have as much to do with their desire to boost utilization of Music as it does an effort to improve the value proposition of buying an N6, but it does seem notable that they didn't have to do this kind of thing with previous Nexus devices.

Google Music has all kinds of competition. They want to suck people in and get them to continue using it, and a free trial seems like a reasonable way to go. N6 buyers are also highly likely to be "early adopters" who are most open to being sucked into the Google Music ecosystem. If they were extra clever, they'd throw in a free Chromecast with the N6, adding further stickiness.

The Nexus 5 was the only one they could have done it with. Play Music has been around for three years, but All Access has only been around since May of '13. They should have done it with the Nexus 5, though.

Personally, I just can't get past the idea of the Nexus program. CM has left a bad taste in my mouth after years of let-downs. My history with it is much like Tony's, in that when stock Android stopped working well on my Nexus devices, I would install CM and eke another few months out of it. I did that with the G1, N1, and GN (I didn't have the N4 long enough to get tired of it), but do not feel the need at all with the N5. The N5 is the first Android phone I've ever used that doesn't feel like it's slowing down after a year of owning it.

On the three phones I ran with CM, I would constantly experience little weird things with it. It's hard to explain, but overall the stability wasn't there. You guys are saying that's fixed, but I just can't make that gamble and I don't feel that there's enough of an upside for me.

At the moment I'm looking at signing my family up for TMobile's very inexpensive family plan. As much as I like my $30/month plan, I'm always running out of minutes and it would be nice to not worry about that. I'm going to wait to see how much the N6 costs through TMo and if it's not too much I'll bite the bullet on that. I want to see what the fuss is with these huge phones, and while there's nothing wrong with my N5, I like to have a current-model phone. Plus I need a better camera to take photos of my kid.

24 x 27.08 = $649.92, actual device cost appears to be their pricing plan. Looks like the 64GB phone would be about $29.13 a month.

Note that the "free trial" generally requires you sign up to the recurring monthly plan so when the 3 or 6 month trial runs out you are automatically on the paid plan. Sure you can cancel it, but I bet a lot of people don't - at least not straight away.

I'm trialling it (poorly) with the 3 months free I got with a Chromecast. I have a calendar reminder to cancel it if I want to.

Ah thanks I missed that. I figured that was around what it would cost. That's fine with me. The 32GB would be fine with me too, since all my stuff is cloud-based now. Photos are the only thing that take up a ton of room, and that's only temporary.


I jumped in at the beginning because of the introductory price of $7.99/month, which I still have. I'm carrying it alongside an rdio subscription, which is a little stupid. I love Google Music because it's the only all you can eat streaming service that lets you put your own stuff alongside it. And I love rdio because my wife is on it and I really like the interface. Again, I realize it's dumb to have both, but I like them both