You'd expect a new phone to be at least a bit faster than the one it replaces, but the Nexus 6 is actually a good deal slower than the Nexus 5 thanks to a form of security encryption enabled in the phone as standard.
As found in benchmarks undertaken by AnandTech, the Nexus 6 is more sluggish than the Nexus 5 in terms of the speed at which data is written to the internal memory.
Glitch in the system
Anandtech notes a "62.9% drop in random read performance, a 50.5% drop in random write performance, and a staggering 80.7% drop in sequential read performance."
This jams up the gears on the Nexus 6's system, negating some of the benefits of its powerful Snapdragon 805 CPU and resulting in day-to-day performance that feels worse than the Nexus 5's.
Spending £500 on a phone that feels more sluggish than a £250 one isn't going to make anyone happy.
To prove FDE is the issue, a non-encrypted version of the Nexus 6 was also tested, and performed far better than the Nexus 5, not just the encrypted Nexus 6.
Until now full device encryption has been offered as a super-secure extra security option in Android for those who want to make sure their data isn't going to be pilfered - it's encrypted until you unlock the phone with your passcode.
This highlights a key issue with enabling FDE as standard: it's a bit pointless for those people who don't even put a passcode on their Nexus 6. It's a performance tax with no benefit.
- Read our in depth Nexus 6 review
