When you hear that Google is coming up with a new Nexus phone, it’s
not just any other smartphone and you can guarantee people will sit up
and take notice. It’s more than just the Google backing – the company is
known for prepping up the phone with the best hardware at
affordable prices. This meant that you could buy a high-end flagship at a
mid-end price, making flagship Android devices by other manufacturers
look awfully overpriced in comparison.
Google could afford to have smaller profit margins on its phones as it already makes money from the content sold through Android and the Play store. Buying the phone directly from the Google Play store also takes the retailers and network providers out of the picture, which again benefits Google.
For Android lovers, Nexus phones are a no-brainier – running ‘stock’ Android, one could almost guarantee top-notch performance that provides great value for money.
But Google has taken a different direction with the Nexus 6. Priced at over 40k, it comes with premium features, but with a price to match. One of the most obvious outcomes to this is that consumers will compare the Nexus 6 with other flagships and weigh out their options before pinning down on the Nexus 6.
Here’s what the Tech 2 team had to say after Google announced their Indian prices of the Nexus 6:
Alina Lewis
I am not exactly a fan of phablets, so the 6-inch display of the Nexus 6 is already a deal breaker for me. It’s a shame that the price puts it in the league of expensive handsets, which will further narrow down its audience. Had it come from Samsung or LG, I would have understood the steep asking price. But the fact that Google has practically no physical retail stores and that it makes money from services and not hardware, I don’t think the price is justified.
What might just work in its favour is the fact that the Nexus 6 will come with Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box. Coupled with the large screen and best-in-class hardware, it should be on the wishlists of all those who enjoy consuming media on their smartphones.
Nimish Sawant
I wouldn’t buy the Nexus 6 (32GB) at Rs 44,000. Agreed, the Nexus 6 has got a complete makeover in terms of screen resolution, battery capacity,system-on-chip and so on. When we compare the Nexus 6 with other flagship phablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Rs 56,000) and the Apple iPhone 6 Plus (Rs 62,500), the Rs 44,000 price tag is still relatively economical. I was more surprised by the fact that Google launched an almost 6-inch phablet as its flagship device. Sure, over the years we have seen a gradual bump in the screen sizes – Galaxy Nexus at 4.65-inches, Nexus 4 at 4.7-inches, Nexus 5 at 4.95-inches. So a jump to 5.2-inches or even 5.5-inches would have seemed logical going by the trend. A massive 1-inch jump in screen size seems quite strange.
One may argue that the screen size makes sense considering the 2560×1440 pixel resolution, but frankly speaking is there really a need for such a high resolution on a phone. A Samsung or an LG going for phones with such resolutions is still understandable, but Google having it on its flagship dosen’t make sense. How many Android apps do you think will be compatible with the native Nexus 6 resolution at launch? We all know how bad the stretched apps look on a high res screen. That is one of the major things one should consider with such high resolution phones.
Look at the design of the Nexus 6 and compare it with the second generation Motorola Moto X – dosen’t it just look like a stretched out and specced up version of the Moto X? Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 at least weren’t this blatant replicas of other devices. The least someone spending over Rs 40,000 can expect, is a unique looking device. That’s not the case with the Nexus 6. The 5.96-inch screen size means that one handed operation is out of the question. That itself, for me and many others, will be a big turn off.
I would rather go for the second gen Moto X (at Rs 32,000) which is like a mini Nexus 6, especially considering it will get the Android Lollipop update within a month.
Naina Khedekar
Well, I am disappointed with the pricing. While I spent a lot of time making up my mind to choose between Nexus 5 and the original Moto X, the Nexus 6 came across as a reason good enough to hang on for a while. A pure-blood droid with slightly premium specs like a mammoth sized 5.96-inch display, 2560 x 1440 pixels of resolution, Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 and Android 5.0 Lollipop – the Nexus 6 no way looked like an affordable mid-ranger. However, knowing what the brand Nexus is all about, I did expect it to be priced somewhere between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000. Now, it may be cheaper than other phablets from seasoned OEMs, but for me it’s more about ‘how can a Nexus device be so expensive?’ After all, it’s all about bringing possibly the best package at an affordable price. The price tag of over Rs 40,000 is something I cannot fathom. On second thoughts, I’m not really sure if I’d like the huge display size either. For now, the Moto X second generation seems like a better option.
Aaron Pereira
When I bought the LG Nexus 4, it was primarily because it was a Google phone that offered me updates the quickest and at a very decent price. But as the updates kept pouring in, and I would expect the performance to better, I found the phone performance dropping drastically. The worst issue was when the soft keys on the Nexus 4 stopped functioning, without it being dropped a single time.
Now that Google is selling the Nexus 6 at Rs 44,000 – a far-off price from its otherwise economic pricing range – upgrading to it seems pretty unlikely for me, given my first experience with a Google product.
While the features may be enhanced, I don’t see myself spending so much when my usage can well be satisfied by phones in the Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 range. With phones such as the Asus Zenfone5, Motorola Moto G (2nd gen) and so on, offering enough for me, I’d be willing to sacrifice a pure Android experience for a phone that’s almost half the rate.
Google could afford to have smaller profit margins on its phones as it already makes money from the content sold through Android and the Play store. Buying the phone directly from the Google Play store also takes the retailers and network providers out of the picture, which again benefits Google.
For Android lovers, Nexus phones are a no-brainier – running ‘stock’ Android, one could almost guarantee top-notch performance that provides great value for money.
But Google has taken a different direction with the Nexus 6. Priced at over 40k, it comes with premium features, but with a price to match. One of the most obvious outcomes to this is that consumers will compare the Nexus 6 with other flagships and weigh out their options before pinning down on the Nexus 6.
Here’s what the Tech 2 team had to say after Google announced their Indian prices of the Nexus 6:
Alina Lewis
I am not exactly a fan of phablets, so the 6-inch display of the Nexus 6 is already a deal breaker for me. It’s a shame that the price puts it in the league of expensive handsets, which will further narrow down its audience. Had it come from Samsung or LG, I would have understood the steep asking price. But the fact that Google has practically no physical retail stores and that it makes money from services and not hardware, I don’t think the price is justified.
What might just work in its favour is the fact that the Nexus 6 will come with Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box. Coupled with the large screen and best-in-class hardware, it should be on the wishlists of all those who enjoy consuming media on their smartphones.
Nimish Sawant
I wouldn’t buy the Nexus 6 (32GB) at Rs 44,000. Agreed, the Nexus 6 has got a complete makeover in terms of screen resolution, battery capacity,system-on-chip and so on. When we compare the Nexus 6 with other flagship phablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Rs 56,000) and the Apple iPhone 6 Plus (Rs 62,500), the Rs 44,000 price tag is still relatively economical. I was more surprised by the fact that Google launched an almost 6-inch phablet as its flagship device. Sure, over the years we have seen a gradual bump in the screen sizes – Galaxy Nexus at 4.65-inches, Nexus 4 at 4.7-inches, Nexus 5 at 4.95-inches. So a jump to 5.2-inches or even 5.5-inches would have seemed logical going by the trend. A massive 1-inch jump in screen size seems quite strange.
One may argue that the screen size makes sense considering the 2560×1440 pixel resolution, but frankly speaking is there really a need for such a high resolution on a phone. A Samsung or an LG going for phones with such resolutions is still understandable, but Google having it on its flagship dosen’t make sense. How many Android apps do you think will be compatible with the native Nexus 6 resolution at launch? We all know how bad the stretched apps look on a high res screen. That is one of the major things one should consider with such high resolution phones.
Look at the design of the Nexus 6 and compare it with the second generation Motorola Moto X – dosen’t it just look like a stretched out and specced up version of the Moto X? Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 at least weren’t this blatant replicas of other devices. The least someone spending over Rs 40,000 can expect, is a unique looking device. That’s not the case with the Nexus 6. The 5.96-inch screen size means that one handed operation is out of the question. That itself, for me and many others, will be a big turn off.
I would rather go for the second gen Moto X (at Rs 32,000) which is like a mini Nexus 6, especially considering it will get the Android Lollipop update within a month.
Naina Khedekar
Well, I am disappointed with the pricing. While I spent a lot of time making up my mind to choose between Nexus 5 and the original Moto X, the Nexus 6 came across as a reason good enough to hang on for a while. A pure-blood droid with slightly premium specs like a mammoth sized 5.96-inch display, 2560 x 1440 pixels of resolution, Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 and Android 5.0 Lollipop – the Nexus 6 no way looked like an affordable mid-ranger. However, knowing what the brand Nexus is all about, I did expect it to be priced somewhere between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000. Now, it may be cheaper than other phablets from seasoned OEMs, but for me it’s more about ‘how can a Nexus device be so expensive?’ After all, it’s all about bringing possibly the best package at an affordable price. The price tag of over Rs 40,000 is something I cannot fathom. On second thoughts, I’m not really sure if I’d like the huge display size either. For now, the Moto X second generation seems like a better option.
Aaron Pereira
When I bought the LG Nexus 4, it was primarily because it was a Google phone that offered me updates the quickest and at a very decent price. But as the updates kept pouring in, and I would expect the performance to better, I found the phone performance dropping drastically. The worst issue was when the soft keys on the Nexus 4 stopped functioning, without it being dropped a single time.
Now that Google is selling the Nexus 6 at Rs 44,000 – a far-off price from its otherwise economic pricing range – upgrading to it seems pretty unlikely for me, given my first experience with a Google product.
While the features may be enhanced, I don’t see myself spending so much when my usage can well be satisfied by phones in the Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 range. With phones such as the Asus Zenfone5, Motorola Moto G (2nd gen) and so on, offering enough for me, I’d be willing to sacrifice a pure Android experience for a phone that’s almost half the rate.
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