Nexus 5x from £339

https://store.google.com/product/nexus_5x

Nexus 6P from £449

https://store.google.com/product/nexus_6p

My Nexus 4 is a bit long in the tooth now so an upgrade to a 5x might be on the cards. Google Store is taking preorders now.

5x looks good for the money. New chromecast looks great too.

Just ordered the 5X, my 5 is looking a bit on the “well Used” side lately.

Just ordered the 5X, my 5 is looking a bit on the “well Used” side lately.

+1. Can’t come soon enough.

i had a G1 and a G2 – then switched to iPhones, these ones any good?

Is 2gb ram enough though compared to the One plus 2 phone?

Disappointed that there’s no 64gb version of the 5X, which was rumoured.

The Cloud doesn’t cut it when I am on a fligt or roaming and don’t want a massive data bill but like a decent selection of music and videos. Need to check if it has OTG support.

No Qi charging which is interesting. I found it useful but not a deal breaker.
Quick charge is nice.

The price isn’t great. The nnexus 4 was a bargain compared to other makes at the time but Google prices have gone up while others have come down. +1 for the cloud issue. Having no otg and no sd slot was a bit limiting for me on the nexus 4. Much happier with my Sony and 64gb sd card.

Hate my xperia, far too much bloatware slowing it down. I’ve stuck an order in for a 32gb 5X, just need to figure out how to pay the bills this month now 🙂

Hmmm not sure what to do now, 6p is a bit more expensive than I hoped, but I’m a spec whore and so torn between Nexus 6p and Xperia Z5. Or maybe just hold on to my og Nexus 5 which is till working fine and wait for next year’s phones which I suppose is the wise thing to do.

Yeh I was a bit underwhelmed. Especially with the continued lack of slot for an extra card.

I have the current Nexus 5. As long as the battery life is much improved I’ll definitely be looking to upgrade.

I have the current Nexus 5. As long as the battery life is much improved I’ll definitely be looking to upgrade.

+1

Think I’ll wait a while for them to come down in price though.

The battery life on my 5 is woeful.

I couldnt wait for the launch, and I guessed (correctly) that they would be priced too highly.

I’m v glad I went for a Jiayu S3 instead.
http://www.jiayu.es/jiayu-moviles/118-jiayu-s3s-advanced.html

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/new-phone-time-3#post-7175721

My N4 (we have 3x in the house. One has died, one is on its last legs and the other will become a spare when I buy another S3 for Mrs S) was starting to lose some stability probably due to the update conflicts having got a little old.

The S3 matches the N5X reasonably well for spec (1920×1080, LTE, octo core A53 compared with quad A53 & dual A57 – close enough, 16GB onboard), BUT also supports 2x Sims and an SD card (I have a 32Gb inside) as well as removable back (replaceable battery – £15) It also has 3Gb of RAM compared to 2Gb in N5x.

Nursing the phone would go to nearly two days use on a battery. Blatting it hard, it lasts a day with out too much bother.

All for 150 earthpounds. Knockout blow IMO.

EDIT: Oh and it supports Band 20 for vodafone 4g too.

Stoner, I saw your mini review in another thread…I’m gathering you really rate the S3?

I must admit, I’m tempted to give it a bash!

I too have been holding out for the new Nexus (my N5 is 2 years old and working pretty well but the screen is crumbling apart – and the camera is still shite). Don’t fancy committing to a contract this time and not happy about spending £350+. Only thing I’m liking about the 5x is the improved camera, but that’s not gonna convince me enough.

Interested in the S3 but need assurance about the warranty element. Stoner, how are you approaching this?

A list of the negatives:

1) I have read it only supports a 32Gb SD card not a 64Gb. Ive not tested that. There is 16Gb phone memory.
2) The capacitive screen response to touch becomes very sketchy when the phone is charging for some reason
3) It comes ROOTED with a UK ROM from the UK reseller. This means that I cant run Barclays banking apps (pretty much the only banking co that wont let it’s apps run on rooted phones for “security” reasons. Every other bank allows it) I havent attempted unrooting as Im not sure whether It will stop google play from running. I have no qualms leaving it rooted.
4) it’s 5″ not 4″
I think that’s it.

Positives

1) signal reception is better than my N4 ever had
2) the data transfer rate notification in the top bar is v useful
3) swap out the batteries/removable rear cover
4) came with Jiayu interface which you cant remove, but you can drop google now launcher on top (or of course Nova or a.n.other launcher as you prefer) EDIT: That’s supposed to be in the neg list
5) amazing LTE (4G) performance
6) comes with FM radio hardware!
7) superb camera compared to the N4
8) tech spec out of this world means it runs super sweetly.

Stoner, how are you approaching this?

I have retail SOGA/eBay/Paypal cover through the eBay purchase and have had comms with the vendor.

You can pay a little more to buy direct from the Spanish or German Jiayu shops for more robust retailer cover if you like.

http://jiayu.de/jiayu-s3-adv-smartphone-weiss.html
€260 = £190

Having been down the road with no brand Chinese android devices with a tablet back in the early days of tablets, the whole thing is a gamble. In all likelihood there will be no/very few software updates (it’s got a Meditek SoC, so will be untouched by the modding community) and no guarantee/warranty. Most of the componentry on these ultra low cost devices will be bottom shelf stuff and the software will be crap, even the bigger Chinese manufacturers can’t do software, hell even Samsung and especially LG do crap software.

If you’re happy with these caveats and the phone lasts a year then bargain. If not, not so much.

I see it comes with Marshmallow – had that been seen yet? I don’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud but I really like lollipopp.

That said, I love my Z1 which is unlikely to get Marshmallow for some time if at all.

I did the same as you with the early tablets, but these new OEM manufactured phones are a world ahead of where things were with the early days of tablets.

These are genuinely top spec machines.

a good review of some here
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/mobile-phone/20-best-chinese-phones-2015-uk-3616945/

I see it comes with Marshmallow – had that been seen yet?

It’s been in the wild for a while now in the various developer previews, haven’t bothered myself but it’s meant to be a tune-up tweak of Lollipop rather than a new-new OS. Certainly from the videos of the new Nexii the OS looks pretty much indistinguishable from Lollipop.

I’m quite relieved at the price of the 5x as I’ve just ordered a Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen. Plus, the other deal breaker for me is the use of USB – C, which would have meant I’d have had to buy a new docking station.

Nexus 5X a bit cheaper at CPW

Nexus 5X 16GB

Nexus 5X 32GB

Cheers Stoner

I’ll do some research and see how the lands lies.

Hmm. Vey educational stoner thanks. As a long term nexus 4 user here, I’m also beginning to wrestle with obsolescence type problems. I was thinking about the one plus two, but that s3 looks pretty handy too.

Other phones to look at are the Wiley Fox – £129 version lacks full HD screen but has removable battery and the £199 version has full HD screen but lacks the removable battery. Both come with cyanogen android.

The Moto X play is another more mainstream option and has a very good battery and camera and is available for £230-270.

I managed to lose my N4 earlier in the month and needed a phone urgently so picked up an N5 on grumtree that was immaculate. I am very happy it with except for the battery life which is lower than other phones but it is probably on par with my N4 in terms of low use standby but MUCH better when being used as GPS and data, especially hotspot, used to kill the N4 very quickly. I bought a little single cell USB charger (Jackery as I wanted the battery level) to keep on me now. I often pick up my phone at the end of the day to go for an early evening dog walk and like to make family calls and do some browsing while I am out but my battery is often low so I can now just grab the charger and top it up as i go.

I am very tempted by a Moto X play for better battery but I really, really like the smart cover feature of the N5 (came with the LG smart case) and I use the wireless charging on my bedside table.

I was annoyed I missed the magnetic connection charge cables on kickstarter and would use those on a none wireless charging phone.

It appears you can get it to work without unrooting by making the app thinking your phone isn’t rooted. Was my immediate thought when I came across this, as on opening the app I find it’s requesting root access itself (despite having no need for it) which is clearly how it’s doing the check – presumably it expects to get an error on an unrooted phone. Of course with a rooted phone you can do anything, including making it look like it’s unrooted to an app.

Though before I delved into fiddling with stuff myself I did a quick search and came across these two options:
http://www.droidviews.com/how-to-hide-root-access-from-apps-that-detect-root-on-android/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2360142
– I presume there’s something there which will work, though I’ve not yet tried myself. Have only just rooted phone and playing around with settings. Will get back to you when I have something working.

I did find some work arounds based on renaming superuser apk etc, but then also that barclays had rewritten the app to make it work harder to identify SU status and not be so easily fooled. I might do some more reading. cheers for the links.

[bookmarked] Thanks for the heads up, my N4 is on its last legs and been waiting for this new one as a replacement.

Whatever the gamekeepers do, the poachers can always get around if they know what the gamekeepers are doing. I play at being either (or sometimes both at once!) depending on what I’m doing. Just to go completely OT it was something I thought about when discussing the VW thingy with FIL and I realised I’d be quite proud if I’d come up with that idea as an engineer (it’s the senior managers who approved it who shouldn’t feel pride – clever engineering)

to stretch that analogy though – what about a guy in a bank, sees an arbitrage opportunity, writes some code to take advantage of it, makes the bank a bundle but along the way screws up the market for someone else (could be a short sell, could be a derivative, anything). If I were that banker, I might feel a swell of pride. But apparently that’s all frowned upon n shit 🙁

I was holding out for the new 6, thinking it might be really well priced. Can’t decide whether the old 6 would be just as good for £80 cheaper. Anyone compared them ???

Stoner, which eBay seller did you use for the S3 ?

ATP, below Ive pasted my email to scienceofficer who asked the same Qu off forum. Might as well share the knowledge:

This is the chap: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/nstovold

Paul is his name. Last time I wrote to him (about 10 days ago) he said he was going on holiday for a few weeks but that he had more stock of the phones available and to get in touch if I wanted to buy another.

Here’s the listing I bought it through:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311441703400?

drop my ebay name if you go direct if you like: bikestoner21, but if you want buyer protection Id recommend (and he’s offered) a paypal invoice.

WTF is this dude up to???

Trying to hammer his hand with a phone? 😕

Succussion after diluting the one with zeros.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wifi-related-headaches-illness#post-7207149

I won’t touch a Chinese phone.
Maybe I’ve lived here too long, but they don’t open up the eco system here for (their) a reason.

If they are plugging phones outside of China, it’s because they want something.
My pennies worth.
It all gets routed back through the servers here in China.
Whilst you might compare it to the likes of Google and it’s Analytics’s, the Chinese version is much more secretive, and therefore backhanded.

I’ve cancelled my order direct with google now, ordered a 32gb 5X through the carphone warehouse as an upgrade. I was going to buy the phone outright then get a sim only deal with Virgin but this works out just a bit cheaper over 2 years and I get a free Chromecast audio with it!