First, let's acknowledge the pink elephant in the room: Yes, the screen is HUGE. Yes, this will turn a lot of people off. Way off. You can put this phone in your pocket, but it's hard to sit down comfortably with it. If you can, you're probably wearing JNCOs. lol 6 inches is not a screen size a lot of people will be able to live with.
Now that we have that aside, let's talk the phone itself. The screen is gorgeous at 2xHD (1440 x 2560) resolution. At 493 ppi, it's far beyond "retina". I've always preferred AMOLED screens to LCD (such as Apple uses), and this phone is no exception. I do a LOT of reading at night, and having a screen that goes to true black (no backlit pixels) at 6 inches is perfect for that. I've compared it to the iPhone 6 Plus and Note 4, apt considering their "massive" screen sizes at 5.5" and 5.7" respectfully. The N6 beats them both out at screen size and matches the resolution of the Note 4.
As with past Nexus devices, this is a completely stock device, getting updates directly from from the big G in sky with no carrier intervention. (Of note, the AT&T version of the Nexus 6 does have carrier bloatware and branding on it, so updates will likely be delayed there.) Lollipop (Android 5) is gorgeous to look at and really brings the Android UI into maturity, feeling less like a "cool design" that an engineer thought up and more like a very calculated, modern interface. Indeed "Material Design" infuses the entire interface of the phone and just about every Google app. Already, many app developers are adopting this design standard, making everything feel more and more "integrated". Going from one app to another is less jarring now as more apps abandon their proprietary designs, though this is starting the debate of whether or not an app should be consistently designed across platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, etc), which all have very distinct design differences, or if they should match the interface of the platform they're run on. That said, early leaks from Samsung indicate they are going to adopt a lot of Material Design in future versions of Touchwiz.
But enough about the software. That's only a very temporary differentiator as OEMs roll out updates. Let's get to the meat of the review: The Hardware. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 2.7Ghz quad-core processor with 3GB of RAM, the phone flies. The only "lag" to complain about is the beautiful animations that Google introduced with Lollipop. Don't want the "lag"? Enable Developer Options and either speed them up or turn them off completely. Me? I'm a design guy, so I like 'em.
The camera is good. Not the best camera I've used on a phone, but easily good enough for day-to-day use in just about every situation. 13MP OIS (optical image stabilization) f2.0, it captures crisp detail quickly. It works well in lowlight, too, though it doesn't brighten up dark shots as much as the iPhone 6 Plus or Note 4. That said, the Note 4 captures a lot more grain in those brighter lowlight shots, so it's a trade off. I haven't done extensive shooting with it yet, but I already like it more than the Note 4. I'm optimistic so far.
Oh, one last bit: The sound. The N6 features dual front-facing speakers that offer loud, clear sound. It's probably not a match for the vaunted Boom Sound of the HTC One (M8), but it allows for great stereo sound to pair with the big screen. I don't really feel like watching something on this sized device is a compromise anymore.
One thing is for sure: I will have a very hard time moving to another phone from this one. And that's something I can't remember saying in a very, very long time.
