As I have migrated from Windows Phone to iOS, I decided to try Android again. My past Android experience had been with a Galaxy 5 (or 4?) and had not even lasted 2 weeks as the bloody thing would not reliably answer calls. I was a lot more patient back then, nowdays MS throws out the 950xl and I gave it under 24 hours to figure out it was a steaming pile of crap. So I decided to try the Nexus, with the pure Android play on it. I got a Nexus 6p, and hooked it up to my AT&T account, and it seemed pretty good as a backup phone.

However, the backup phone idea went over the transom when AT&T was having trouble with their network, and both of my phones went down. So, I decided to go with Project fi from Google, and that has actually seemed to work pretty well (depending on how far back in the wilderness you are). But this post is less about the Project fi side of things and more about the Nexus 6P and Android.

I will say right off the bat that the Nexus 6p gets dinged because of the AMOLED screen. It gives you glorious colors, and is a great screen, at night or indoors. This is great if you are a vampire. For the non-blood sucking among us, trying to use the phone in the daylight, even on a cloudy day, is an exercise in frustration and strained eyes. This is NOT a problem on the iPhone, and one of the major reasons I will be staying with the Apple product as my primary phone.

As a phone, the Nexus does a great job. I have a 50Mb dedicated connection to my home office, and during the days I am in the office, I will often time forward the phones to the Nexus, as Project fi on the Internet connection actually works better than the OTA AT&T connection at my location. I have had some problems pulling out of the driveway while still on the phone though, although this is, I believe, more a problem with the OTA signal in this area from fi’s partners than the concept. Sound is great, the dialing features are better than the iPhone and the Google voice commands are as good or better than Siri. Watch functionality is a bit light though. I have a Huawei, and love it, but it just doesn’t match the Apple Watch for getting things done. Again, a close second though, and probably not enough to cause me to change had I started out on Android.

Security is an issue. Android has numerous reports of security flaws, which is one of the reasons that I went with the Nexus. Pure Android, properly updated without carrier interference is probably as good as it gets on Android. Toss in no sideloading of apps and staying away from shady sites and that’s probably as paranoid as you need to be. Hopefully.

The Nexus is a great phone (besides the daylight readability issues), that I have no trouble recommending. It would never be my primary phone for a few reasons that I have detailed and some that I haven’t (like aviation apps for pilots, which iOS rules the roost on ). I have had several friends buy them on my recommendation and, unlike Windows Phone, those recommendations have not come back to bite me.

 

Yet…