LG Nexus 5X Review

From the design standpoint, we really liked the Nexus 5X.  The smartphone has great looks with a neat design and is sculpted with LG logo and Nexus at the back.

The sides are flat and has soft touch finish everywhere making for easy grip. Devoid of metallic body, it does not look cheap at all and the build is put together really well and feels light as compared to metal counterparts.

The 5.2" screen packs LCD panel instead of AMOLED screen, thus colors may seem saturated. However you won't feel much of difference unless you place it side by side with a better display. The 1080p screen with 423 ppi is pretty sharp and vibrant. It also has ambient display and allows you to see notifications without unlocking your device. Thus if you've received new notifications, and you want to view them without having to unlock your device, simply lift your device up and the ambient display kicks in.

The smartphone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, latest operating system. As expected from Nexus device, the interface is neat and clean and is free of bloatware. The app drawer scrolls vertically instead of paging horizontally. The new permission manager in Android 6.0 is more powerful giving you control to grant and remove permission to any app, putting power in user's hand.

The Nexus 5X is equipped with USB Type C port and supports faster charging meaning  you can easily get 5-6 hours of usage by plugging in just for 15 minutes.

Nexus 5X offer an enhanced version of “Now on Tap” allowing users to get additional information, take actions or navigate between apps. Essentially “taking Google out of the search box,” users can quickly invoke Google from any screen by a simple tap-and-hold on the home button. Google then provides relevant information and answers based on the context of what you are looking, in the moment.

Performance

We used the LG Nexus 5X review unit for a period of 15 days and as a mid-range device, the Nexus 5X works well combining Snapdragon 808 and 2GB of RAM and stock android and delivers smooth performance all around. 2 Gigabytes of RAM might be less if you are doing more multitasking, however we did not find any issues opening apps and switching between them. Graphics quality is good at 1080p screen and it even handled high end games pretty well.

The Nexus Imprint, finger print scanner placed at back of device is easy to reach and recognizes the fingerprint instantly and is accurate and also doubles as for powering up the device.

The Nexus 5X sports 12.3-megapixel camera with a Sony IMX377 sensor with comparatively large 1.55-micron pixels allowing for more light to let in. It  also shoots 4K-resolution video, which definitely seemed sharper than its 1080p. The camera delivered plenty of sharpness and images detailed and vibrant and not overly saturated. The HDR plus worked fine bringing back the highlights that are missed out while capturing images in shadows. Although it lacked Optical Image Stabilization the images in low light conditions looked decent and without any hint of blurriness. To enhance picture quality we recommend you to click photos with HDR plus on in night or in low light conditions that keeps the more natural tone to the images.

In normal usage, the built-in 2700mAH battery lasts for almost a day when you are hooked to Twitter, facebook, browsing web and making/receiving calls and were not able to past a full day. In our battery test wherein we looped a video until the battery drained out it lasted for approx 5 hours. The stand by time is also great and it easily lasted for a week pushing notifications and without requiring charge.