The Nexus 6P, where the P stands for Premium, was one of the most anticipated and heavily rumored smartphones of this year. It was released on September 29, and is the result of a partnership between Google and Huawei. The new naming convention also shows how the Nexus lineup is now separated into two segments, base (Nexus 5X by LG) versus premium (Nexus 6P). As with any other Nexus device, Huawei’s 6P is the product of a collaboration between different suppliers and due to the central role of Nexus smartphones in promoting the newest version of the Android OS, rumors related to its development stages were closely followed by the Android community.

Looking back to the pre-release months and the final product, these are my thoughts on what I think we should learn from the Nexus 6P partnership.

Information leaks

For the past few months, the Nexus 6P was in the spotlight of information leakers and rumor mongers. Fueled by Huawei’s interest in importing dual edge screens from Samsung, it was even rumored at one point that the Nexus 6P would be released in Q1 of 2016 with a dual edge screen. Although, in the end the leaked CAD images (the blueprints outlining how the device would eventually look) turned out to be accurate, the leaks relating to some of the key components of the device like the SoC, RAM and the camera specs were quite off target. The most frequently articulated rumor was that the Nexus 6P would ship with a Snapdragon 820, 4 GB RAM and 20+ MP camera (which could have been an “overkill” device in 2015). Looking back to the pre-release months, it seems like information leakers have lost a good degree of credibility in terms of the information they were pitching to the Android community.

 

Nexus vs the OEM’s own flagship

But what of the Nexus 6P itself, have Google and Huawei missed an important opportunity to dominate the market by choosing not to include those “overkill” specs I have just mentioned? Are we actually getting a lesser device?

Generally, Google seems to be happy with its strategy to team up with a different OEM each year to build a new Android flagship Nexus device. While the rest of the products in the premium segment like the iPhone, Galaxy and Xperia series are gradually evolving and being refined from one year to the next, Google is holding its position as a key player by promoting devices which are, unlike the majority of the other devices on the market, not evolving from one generation to the next. This happens because whenever Google changes to a new partner OEM, the design language of the Nexus flagship also changes dramatically. It seems that the idea is to base the new Nexus on the flagship of the partnering OEM, which brings us to the question of a relative specs comparison between Huawei’s flagships and the Nexus 6P.

Last year, there was a general consensus that the Nexus 6 was an upgraded version of the Moto X 2014; simply put, a better SoC, more RAM and greater screen resolution. Although we have to acknowledge that the specs wars are gradually ending, due to market saturation, still one of the key comparisons that we need to make is how the Nexus 6P compares to Huawei Mate S.

The new Nexus 6P comes with a QHD AMOLED screen and a 3450 mAh battery, whereas the Mate S has a HD AMOLED screen with a smaller 2700 mAh battery. Also the 6P sports Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, with four Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores, compared to octa-core Cortex-A53 Kirin 935 processor in the Mate S.

Other than clear superiority in these domains, the two devices are mostly comparable in terms of the camera specs (for example, the Nexus has larger pixels, but the Mate S has optical image stabilization), RAM capacity; so the differences are more subtle this year and it will boil down to the real-life performance of these devices. Although there are some users who are eager to see another Google-Samsung (or a new Google-Sony) partnership, from a business point of view, this seems unlikely as designing a Nexus phone that is superior than the other key premium flagships in the market would make it highly expensive for the majority of the consumers.

Surely, delaying the release of the Nexus 6P to build a device with superior specs could have been an option, although this could also damage the sales of the Mate S, as it is still the pricier of the two, and also contradict with Google’s well-established timetable to release the Nexus smartphone(s) with the latest version of the Android OS on board, in autumn. Nevertheless, there were some vocal opinions in the Android community, that the Android Marshmallow should be released simultaneously with Nexus 5X; and ideally Huawei’s 6P to follow just a few months later with higher specs. Perhaps, due to the initial set of high spec rumours, the users had greater expectations and simply wanted more killer specs from the Nexus flagship this year.

Here, we need to question whether a delay or putting in higher specs are necessary for market success? In order to understand the decision to not delay the Nexus 6P, we need to look at the wider picture from the perspectives of Qualcomm, Google and Huawei.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm is clearly one of the winners in the Nexus 6P deal

The reputation of the original Snapdragon 810 was damaged by users reporting overheating issues. Following the deal with Sony, for the Xperia Z5 lineup, convincing Google that these issues were solved was a great achievement for Qualcomm, and important for it to hold its market position. So far, Android users seem to be quite excited about the new Nexus device, which means that Qualcomm has managed to ward off the negative publicity associated with the Snapdragon 810, all without renaming the chipset!

 

Meanwhile, Qualcomm started to promote the Snapdragon 820 chipset (which is clearly superior to 810 in many respects). Due to its market share of available SoC’s for the Nexus (Exynos and Kirin were not really considered seriously), Qualcomm gets a good degree of control over the pace of the market transition and consequently gains a big advantage to optimise its stock discharge  for the Snapdragon 810. From this point of view, Qualcomm is clearly one of the winners in the Nexus 6P deal.

Previously, Jayce Broda from Android Authority commented on what the Nexus 6P deal could mean for both Google and Huawei:

Google

So what are the underlying variables in the decision to release the Nexus 6P in Q3 2015, with its current specs, rather than in Q1 2016 with higher specs?

It is well known that Google wants to re-enter the Chinese market and partnering with a well-known Chinese OEM, like Huawei, for the production of the new Nexus flagship is a perfect gateway back to China. The Asian smartphone market is rapidly expanding and being excluded from this market is a great disadvantage for a company like Google, which makes the majority of its revenue from analyzing the big data collected from its users to refine its advertising strategies.

In terms of the value of the Chinese market, we should not be surprised if Google decides to keep on working with Huawei for another year

In the technological landscape of the 21st-century, data is perhaps one of the most valuable and profitable things for a global company. As an anonymous reviewer of other scientists’ scholarly work, sometimes I think to myself, “I wish we had this dataset, we could have made much more out of it”. Similarly, the data from so many users is so rich and has been turned into a profitable business in the hands of Google. The money Google makes in advertising is huge compared to the money it makes from smartphone sales alone. Consequently, any delay in terms of the release of the Nexus 6P would not impact Google’s profits in terms of handsets sales, but it might hamper Google’s growth in terms of big data and advertising.

In terms of the value of the Chinese market, we should not be surprised if Google decides to keep on working with Huawei for another year, which would not only provide it an opportunity to strengthen its roots in China, but also allow it to refine the Nexus 6P in 2016 based on the feedback from the users. For example, the rear camera bump received some initial negative reactions from the public and improving on such aspects could help increase user satisfaction.

Huawei

On the other hand, it is also well known that Huawei wants to gain traction in the European and the North American markets and there couldn’t be a better opportunity than working with Google for the new Nexus flagship. Obviously, increasing the brand recognition sooner rather than later is a key strategy. Although Huawei wants to improve its brand recognition in these markets, it is an interesting observation that Huawei is moving away from using its trademark logo, such as the one which was engraved on the back of the P8, and has opted to just display its name.

It is also well known that Huawei wants to gain traction in the European and the North American markets

Could it be that Huawei’s marketing department thinks that the trademark logo could lead to more scrutiny from potential consumers and work against the company’s long term goals? But surely having the trademark logo on the back, just like the Motorola dimple on the back of the original Nexus 6, would have been a better choice for improving brand recognition, and maybe it would have been more aesthetically appealing, but I guess that is subjective.

The Nexus users

Without any doubt, having different Nexus devices which run the latest version of the Android OS is great for Nexus device owners. Now, there are more options for different tastes. At the same time, consumers who are considering buying their first Nexus device are now faced with the decision of which Nexus handset to buy.

For example, the current price of the original Nexus 6 is now less than the new Nexus 5X and that personal experience has shown me that while the Nexus 6 does feels more exquisite than the original Nexus 5, it is hard to detect a real performance difference in everyday use. So which one is better? It will be an interesting comparison to see how all the Nexus devices stack up against each other while running Android Marshmallow. As far as I know, this kind of comparison hasn’t been done yet to show how these devices stack up against each other. But the key question boils down to whether the new Nexus 6P is $200 more a device compared with the previous generation Nexus 6. To be honest, there is a growing opinion from different, bipartisan reviewers that the answer is No.

In my opinion the other party, which is losing great deal of credibility is the tech reviewers who do not articulate these issues. I don’t find it useful to single out any specific names, but there are reviewers out there who have established themselves (one way or the other), who gives a “BUY” advice to Nexus 6P while saying that they will probably use it for a couple of months (perhaps 3 months?) themselves. Considering that there is no transparency of how much free goodies or funding these people receive from OEMs to talk positively about their devices, I consider their opinions to be hugely flawed; and their advice unethical.

Final Thoughts

It is great to see the Nexus line is expanding in new directions. Considering that, relative to its competitors, Google has less time to work on a new device with the partnering OEM, the Nexus phones are quite successful and longer partnerships with OEMs could only push this further.

In the end, different parties, including the consumers, have a lot to gain from the continuation of the Nexus smartphones; and, as we discussed here, the final product is pretty much shaped by the careful balancing of business strategies with what the users want to see in the next generation.