Google Nexus 6 review

Google's bigger Nexus compares to Apple's iPhone 6 Plus

Google Nexus 6 review
Moto X's bigger brother

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Nexus 6 battery life is excellent, judging from our tests. Behind its 6-inch AMOLED is a mighty 3220mAh capacity battery, the same as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus.

The difference is that Google's new flagship is running Android 5.0 Lollipop with the battery-saving optimizations of "Project Volta" to eek out two extra percentage points.

This is the size of the included turbo charger. It's worth carrying on tripsThis is the size of the included turbo charger. It's worth carrying on tripsNexus 6 review

That translates into a 17% drop in battery life when running TechRadar's 90-minute HD video test. The Note 4 dropped 19%, LG G3 lost 25% and iPhone 6 Plus went down 27%.

The Android System and Android OS can take some of the credit for the improved battery results, as they have been hogging a smaller percentage of battery life, according to the always-useful battery settings menu.

Outside of this looped battery test, my Nexus 6 lasted about a day and a half on travel, again pretty much tied with the Note 4 and more than enough time to seek a power outlet.

I wasn't able to swap out the battery, however. It's sealed inside the Nexus 6, unlike Samsung devices that offer access to batteries so that they are user-replaceable.

The good news with the current Nexus is that it takes advantage of Qualcomm's QuickCharge 2.0 technology that boosts battery life in a jiffy and it comes with the special power adapter.

Motorola calls it a Turbo Charger, Samsung dubs it fast charger and HTC refers to it as rapid charger. Whatever, it's a wonderful addition to devices with recent Snapdragon CPUs.

Officially Nexus 6 is supposed to be able to add six hours of battery in just 15 minutes. That came out to 20% in 15 minutes when my phone started charging in at a critical state.

Those numbers continued to stay true as I left the phone attached to the oversized plug in the outlet. My total charge time for the Nexus 6 from zero to full was about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Added to this fresh convenience is the return of an old (sort of) one. Google once again supports the Qi charging standard for inductive charging.

That makes owning the Nexus Wireless Charger or any Qi charger that much more useful. Motorola has Qi experience with the Moto 360 and its phone works the same wire-free way.

You don't need an accessory for Qi wireless charging, which makes the Nexus 6 battery that much better than the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 sans the non-user-replaceable aspect.

Matt Swider