Nexus 5X: Everything you needed to know about price, specs and features

Today marks the day when Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X are finally going to be officially announced. The biggest advantage of owning a smartphone with a Nexus name present on it is that you will be guaranteed to receive updates of Android. However, both Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X also have an advantage of featuring the latest hardware, along with other features, which we will detail out completely. We will get around to Nexus 6P but for now, let us note down everything Nexus 5X will have in regards to its specifications, prices and features.

Nexus 5X hardware

The smaller version of the Nexus family is Nexus 5X and through a partnership with Google and LG, the smartphone is going to be announced today. LG and Google are already a terrific match thanks to Nexus 5, which is considered to be the forerunner of price/performance smartphones that started an era of devices that could be owned by consumers who were not part of the affluent crowd. With Nexus 5X, LG is looking to achieve a high amount of success once more, so let us see all the core hardware and other features that are going to be present in the upcoming smartphone.

Chipset, processor and RAM

Nexus 5X is going to be the less powerful version of the smartphones that are going to be announced today and unlike Nexus 6P, the device is going to be running a Snapdragon 808. There are going to be no changes added to the six-core processor, which is running in the following configuration:

• 2 x Cortex-A57 at 1.82GHz
• 2 x Cortex-A53 at 1.44GHz

Apart from the processor, there is going to be 2GB of RAM, which is the exact same amount present in Nexus 5.

Similarities between Nexus 5

There are a few similarities between Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X, with a common specification between them being a 1920 x 1080 resolution. The upcoming smartphone is going to have a 5.2 inch screen size, and is going to be slightly higher size compared to its predecessor’s 4.95 inch screen. Two more similarities between the handsets is that they have an 802.11ac Wi-Fi module and come in the 16GB and 32GB models. Like all Nexus smartphones, even Nexus 5X will not have a microSD slot, so customers who wanted to have a slightly higher amount of storage will have no choice but to settle for the 32GB version.

Camera

Nexus 5X will have a 12MP rear camera, and will have a maximum image resolution of 4608 x 2592 pixels. Being a high-end device, the rear camera will most certainly have an optical image stabilization chip, along with other very handy features such as phase detection autofocus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, photo sphere, HDR, and of course dual recording.

Obviously, Google and LG will both be introducing a useful camera feature that users will eventually take advantage of, but we are going to have to wait for the official announcements before we can post any more details. The front camera sensor has a max resolution of 5MP, and apart from that, we are unaware of any more details related to this category.

Charging port

Unlike Nexus 5, Nexus 5X will have a USB-C port, and much like Xiaomi Mi4c that we had reviewed earlier on, it will have three primary advantages; faster data transfer speeds, reversible connectivity and having support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. In order for Quick Charge 2.0 to begin functioning, the smartphone will also have to be plugged into a compatible charger, which we are confident will be present inside the handset’s packaging.

OnePlus 2 might have had a USB-C port, but not providing support for Quick Charge 2.0 was one of the biggest setbacks of owning the price/performance smartphone. You will have to take care not to damage the USB cable provided with Nexus 5X. Accessories bundled with devices are not known to be able to withstand excessive wear and tear, and since USB-C cables are from being cheap, you are going to have to exercise further caution.

Additional connectivity features

Apart from a fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi module, Nexus 5X will also sport the following:

• Cat 6 LTE modem (300Mbps download/50Mbps upload)
• Bluetooth 4.1
• Wi-Fi Direct
• DLNA
• Hotspot
• A2DP

The smartphone satisfies all the connectivity features that you could require from it, which is the case for a major portion of high-end devices being sold in the market.

Battery

Instead of a lithium ion battery, LG Nexus 5X is said to feature a lithium polymer one that will have a capacity of 2,700mAh. This is a significant increase over its predecessor, which had a 2,300mAh battery, so we do expect additional backup time to be experienced by users. However, another drawback of owning a Nexus 5X is that the battery will be non-removable.

Extra features and operating system

It is expected that a fingerprint scanner will be present in Nexus 5X, which is a nice addition to improve the user’s overall security. We are still going to see if there are any differences from the fingerprint scanners present in other smartphones compared to the one that is going to be in Nexus 5X so we will keep you updated with another detailed post in which we state all the intricate information that we did not know of earlier. Since Nexus 5X is a product of Google’s and LG’s efforts, the device is most definitely going to be running Android Marshmallow (or at the very least, it will be running Android Lollipop with an immediate update pop-up to download Android Marshmallow), so we will also be comparing additional performance improvements, if there happen to be any.

Price

Nexus 5X is not the most affordable of smartphones out there because according to a source, the handset is going to have a starting price of $379.99. This will most probably be for the 16GB model, with the 32GB one carrying a slightly higher price. If you look at the difference between Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X, you will only be paying $30 higher than what you paid for the 16GB model of Nexus 5, so this does sound like a pretty good deal to us, particularly when the primary advantage of owning a Nexus 5X is immediate software updates. Pre-orders of the smartphone will be starting today but initially, the device will be limited to the following countries.

• USA
• UK
• Ireland
• Korea
• Japan

After the pricing disaster of Nexus 6, Nexus 5 actually offers a much more affordable solution of consumers, despite the fact that it is low on internal storage and RAM. Regardless, it will have a Snapdragon 808 chipset, a decent size battery, a better camera upgrade over its predecessor, a USB-C port and best of all, it will be far more affordable than Nexus 6 thanks its $379.99 starting price and it will be receiving the latest updates for quite a while.

Overall, Nexus 5X does like a reasonable upgrade over Nexus 5, with some minute improvements over Nexus 6, but enough to justify a purchase.