Two years ago, I posted up Moto X: First Impressions. I just got the new Nexus 5x, and I thought I'd post my first impressions of that phone as well.
The Good
- The camera photos seem crisp and the camera focuses quickly. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test it in low light, but I've done a few indoor shots, and they seem immensely better than what I could capture on my (albeit two-year-old) Moto X.
- The fingerprint sensor is amazing. It is indeed fast—almost instantaneous. And I find its placement on the back of the phone to be very convenient. Even though the phone is tall, the fingerprint sensor isn't toward the top of the phone... it's more toward the middle, so I don't have to reach up that high to get it. It's close to where my index finger would naturally rest. I was also able to register two of my index fingers and also two of my spouse's, so either of us can use the phone without always having to enter a password. The other up side to this is, since I don't need the password often (not at all, so far), I can make it a fairly complex one. When you have to enter a password/pin/pattern ten or twenty times a day, it's tempting to make it short and simple.
- The screen looks good. I don't know anything about resolution numbers and pixels per inch or types of displays, but it looks good to me. Not too much glare. Not too much color saturation (or too little). Video looks good. I also like that the display brightness can go low. The lowest brightness on my old Moto X was still too bright in a dark room (so I ended up having to download a "night mode" app for my old phone).
- Double-tap power button camera activation is a good call. I know Google was considering implementing the double-twist to activate the camera, the feature that debuted with my old Moto X, and I'm glad they went with a double-tap of the power button instead. The double-twist was an awesome feature, but the Moto X was a nice tiny-sized phone you could easily hold in one hand and twist around without worrying about dropping. Even though the Nexus 5x is smaller than the Nexus 6p, the 5x is still enormous, and so having a double-twist action ups the risk on dropping the phone.
- The physical build is good. I know a lot of people like to bag on plastic (vs. metal), but the plastic of the Nexus 5x feels and looks nice. The phone still has a premium feel to it. Even though visually it looks as if the rear camera bulges out the back, the phone is still able to sit flat on a table without wobbling.
- Power and volume buttons are well placed. The phone, as I mentioned before, is tall. So it's good the power and volume buttons, although above the middle, are closer to the middle than the top of the phone, making them all easy to reach (no, I don't have giant man-hands).
The Okay
- One front speaker is fine. I'd love two front-facing stereo speakers. Since every other phone I've had has had one rear-facing speaker, even having only one front-facing mono speaker is a huge upgrade for me. I know some audiophiles out there will be disappointed in this. The volume is adequate. If you turn the volume up, you can hear things fine, but you won't ever have to worry about turning the volume too high. Having two visual speakers even though only one is functional is a terrible idea, especially since the speaker design attracts fuzz and lint.
- The camera app is not terrible. A lot of reviews have been down on the Google Camera app as being too simplified and barebones. I'm coming from the Moto X, which has basically nothing on the screen, and you tap anywhere on the screen to take a picture, so the controls for the Google Camera seem almost overwhelming to me. I've always felt with Android that you can get a more sophisticated camera app from the Google Play Store if that stuff matters to you. I will say the noises that the camera app emits when you switch to video or start a video or take a picture are annoying.
- 32 GB is all right, but 64 GB would be better. One of the reasons I was tempted by the Moto X Pure is its microSD expansion. The Nexus 5x has only internal flash storage, and the max is 32 GB. To be honest, if 64 GB was an option, I don't know that I would have gotten it, but I know a lot of Android fans love to put as much crap as they can on their phones. I had 16 GB on my old Moto X, so 32 GB seems like a wonderland of space.
The Bad
- The Google Now launcher is horrible. This is probably more of a Marshmallow thing than a Nexus 5x thing, but I hate the new Google Now launcher. The icons are enormous. There is no longer the press and move up action to launch something (which, in the past, I was able to link to Opera instead of Google Now). Not only that, but you can't have any screens to the left of the home screen. By default, there's only one home screen and any home screens you add all have to be to the right of it. So I've opted to replace the Google Now launcher with my old buddy, the Nova Launcher. Now my icons are the right size, and I can configure my screens (and the home button gestures) however I want.
- The phone is too big. Yes, I've mentioned this several times, but it really is bad. My spouse assures me I'll get used to the size, but for now (first impressions, remember?) it's extremely annoying. I take public transit, which means I'm often standing with only one hand available. The phone is definitely too big for one-handed use (unless you have giant man-hands). Unfortunately, this is just the direction phones are going. I was debating between the Moto X Pure and the Nexus phones, and of the three (Pure, 5x, 6p), the 5x is the smallest. Nevertheless, it's a bit too big for my tastes.
- The accessories it comes with are meager. You get a standard power adapter and USB-C-to-USB-C cable. You also get a little SIM card ejector tool. That's pretty much it. I was hoping for a USB-C-to-USB-A or USB-C-to-microUSB adapter. USB-C may be the "new thing," but it's far away from mass adoption, very far away. I also found it odd that no headphones were included. Every Android phone I've gotten in the past has come with a pair of crappy headphones. I know the audiophiles out there usually ditch the crappy headphones anyway, but I'm not an audiophile. I appreciate an included pair of headphones. Could be just me.
The Untested
- Phone call quality. Some people on the Android Forums complained about the phone quality being terrible. I haven't had a chance to see if that's really the case.
- Battery life. I've had the phone one day. And I've been charging it a lot and not using it very extensively, so it's really hard for me to say how the battery life is at this point.
Summary of first impressions
No real big surprises. I'd read a lot of reviews of the phone before getting it. The three big draws for me were the fingerprint sensor, the better camera, and the timely OTA updates from Google. I guess eventually I get used to using an enormous phone...