watchOS 3.2 beta 1 update for Apple Watch rolling out with Theater Mode in tow

After releasing a new iOS 10.3 beta last week, Apple today unleashed an all-new watchOS beta update.

watchOS 3.2 beta 1 is now available to registered developers. The update enables a new Theater Mode that will make the Apple Watch ready for use in a movie theater. For example, activating Theater Mode will mute sounds and disable Raise to Wake. You will still get haptic feedback notifications, though, and you’ll be able to view info by tapping on the Watch’s screen or pressing the Digital Crown.

While many folks may be accustomed to silencing their smartphones and putting them in a pock when at a theater, silencing a smartwatch is a bit different. Not only do you have to turn off the sounds, but many watches activate the screen when you raise your wrist so that you can see the time like a normal watch. Theater Mode aims to streamline the process of prepping your watch for a movie theater.

Also included in watchOS 3.2 beta 1 is SiriKit support, which will let you ask Siri to perform actions like sending a payment, search through photos, book a ride, and more.

Apple hasn’t yet said when watchOS 3.2 will be released to the public.

Apple

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Moto G4

URSA Mini 4.6K + New Lenses!

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T-Mobile to give back what you pay in sales tax on a new smartphone

Apparently 2017 is the year that T-Mobile targets taxes, because after simplifying its T-Mobile One plan by bundling taxes into the advertised price, T-Mo is now going to cover the sales tax on your new phone.

T-Mobile’s latest offer is to cover the cost of sales tax on all of its new smartphones. Just buy a new phone on an Equipment Installment Plan, submit your account info and the promo code 17DEVICECREDIT on T-Mobile’s promotions website, and then T-Mo will send you a prepaid MasterCard card worth 11.2 percent of your phone’s price (11.55 percent in Puerto Rico).

This offer starts February 1 and will run for a limited time. It’s open to both new and existing customers, but in order to qualify, you’ll need to be on a T-Mobile One or Simple Choice Unlimited 4G LTE plan.

New smartphones can be expensive, so every little bit that you can get back helps out. T-Mobile’s new promo means that you can get more than one-tenth of the price of your phone back in the form of a prepaid card, letting you buy yourself a nice lunch or maybe something even nicer if you get a more expensive phone.

T-Mobile

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Samsung Galaxy J3

Not every phone can be the Samsung Galaxy S7. For one thing, not everyone can afford a Galaxy S7 – but for a while Samsung went dark on budget phones, to the disappointment of fans of the brand who lacked capacious wallets.

However, it's fired out loads of cheapies and mid-rangers over the last year or so – and its latest effort in this department, the Samsung Galaxy J3, is roughly what you'd get if you took the Moto G4 and injected it with a good shot of Galaxy S7 DNA.

But, while that sounds promising, in reality the Galaxy J3 misses out on a couple of near-essential basic features, making it a worse buy than some of the usual-suspect budget picks – it doesn't unseat the Motorola Moto G4, and the Oppo F1 is superior too.

Samsung Galaxy J3 price

It's worth considering how big an issue those niggles are for you, though, as at just £149 ($199, AU$260) the J3's price is pretty keen for a Samsung.

You do need to be doubly careful about which model you buy though, as there are several differently-specced versions of the Samsung Galaxy J3 floating about across the world, some with worse cameras than others; we're reviewing the UK version.

Design

• Familiar Samsung style in a plastic body
• Removable battery

A few years ago even Samsung's top-end phones were plastic. Remember the Samsung Galaxy S5? Great phone, dodgy styling.

The Samsung Galaxy J3 looks quite a lot like the latest Samsung flagships, but the feel is more like that of the old guard. It's an all-plastic phone aside from the glass used on the front, and the central select button, which is metal.

This is no surprise given that the phone is super-affordable, but there's that hint of classic Samsung deception involved, with the sides of the Samsung Galaxy J3 intended to look like fancy frosted aluminum.

Friends will probably assume it's just 'the latest Samsung' at first glance, though, thanks to the unmistakeable button layout below the screen. It's not Apple-grade iconic, but you'd be surprised at how recognisable this configuration is, even among people who aren't obsessed with tech.

Aside from the cheaper plastic feel, the Samsung Galaxy J3's handling is fairly similar to that of the S7. Cheap phones are no longer smaller than expensive ones by default, and Samsung has done its best to make the J3 look and feel like the S7's cheaper brother. 

Like that phone it's 7.9mm thick, and its footprint is just a couple of millimeters longer.

It's a clever bit of design: while the J3 has thicker bezels and a less taut design, those are offset by the ever-so-slightly smaller screen. This phone has a 5-inch display, the S7 a 5.1-inch one.

The comparison only holds up on the surface, though, and the construction of the two phones is totally different. The Galaxy J3 has a peel-off plastic battery cover, hiding the removable battery, the microSIM slot and the microSD slot.

One thing to note here is the SIM size – the J3 uses the larger micro standard, not the nano one common in mid-range and high-end mobiles.

The more you look at and feel the Galaxy J3, the more it seems like a standard budget phone. However, the split-second impression it leaves is of being a lot like the Galaxy S7: good work Samsung.

• Thanks to MobileFun for providing our J3 review unit!

Display

• 5-inch, 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED screen
• No ambient light sensor or auto brightness makes for frustrating use

There are some rather frustrating omissions that tone down the appeal of this efficient mimicry, though. The single most annoying thing about the Samsung Galaxy J3, the part that almost single-handedly would stop me recommending this phone to budget-conscious friends, is the screen backlight.

There's no ambient light sensor, and no auto brightness mode, so you have to turn the screen level up and down every time you head outside or return home. 

At one point I went into a cinema with the handset, and even switching it on before the trailers started was enough to fill me with embarrassment of the acuteness experienced by two Englishmen stuck shoulder-to-shoulder in a lift door.

Manual brightness-setting is a daily pain in the backside. However, props to Samsung inasmuch as, as usual, its display is super-super bright. 

And in place of where an auto mode might be there's an outdoors button that turbo-charges the screen, giving it enough backlight power to compete with the brightest of conditions.

The Galaxy J3 has a 5-inch, 1280 x 720-pixel Super AMOLED screen. Samsung is the only big brand that can afford to squeeze a display of this type into such an affordable phone – it's the master of phone OLEDs.

OLEDs destroy LCD screens in terms of contrast and black level – and in this case brightness too, compared to entry-level 720p LCDs. 

However, I actually prefer the character of LCD screens. It's all down to one little word: PenTile.

This is a Samsung screen architecture designed to address the problem of OLED sub-pixels deteriorating at different rates. Here the pixels share sub-pixels, which leads to a certain fizziness in the screen. The Galaxy J3 looks less sharp than a 5-inch 720p LCD phone would, and it's something I noticed instantly after turning the phone on. Hello PenTile my old friend.

That said, within a couple of days my eyes had bedded into that PenTile fizz. I just stopped noticing it –and part of my job is being a screen snob.

As with other OLEDs, the Samsung Galaxy J3 has super-saturated colors, but you can tame them to an extent using the phone's four screen modes. Just like on the higher-end Samsungs, you can pick between Adaptive Display, AMOLED Cinema, AMOLED Photo and Basic in the Settings menu.

They're not as good as the calibrations in the Galaxy S7, of course. The first three are quite severely oversaturated, and even Basic doesn't have the chilled-out, natural shades you'll see in the more expensive Samsung phones and tablets; reds still run ever-so-slightly hot.

However, I'm pretty happy with the phone in Basic mode. It gives you much richer colors than most budget handsets, which will often only hit 70-odd percent of the sRGB color gamut.

Parts of the Galaxy J3 screen are admirable, then, but it's hard to forgive the lack of auto brightness. The top screen layer is not Gorilla Glass either; it's clearly toughened, but there's a risk that it may pick up scratches a little more quickly, and it isn't as fingerprint-resistant as some more expensive mobiles.

Key features

The Samsung Galaxy J3 has a pretty limited core feature set. There's just 8GB of storage in the base model, for example, when the best phones at this £150 (US$200, AU$260)-ish price now tend to have 16GB. 

As there's a microSD slot it's not a killer issue, but it's enough to stop me marveling at the price.

Right now in the UK, for example, you can get the 8GB Moto G (2015) for £129 ($179.99, around AU$250), a good £20 cheaper; and while 16GB and dual-SIM versions of the J3 are available in some regions, they just push the price up even higher. 

If you wanted the newer Moto G4 it'll cost £169 ($199, around AU$330) for the lowest storage version, but that's not much more than the Galaxy J3.

The phone does have 4G and even NFC, a Samsung favorite, but it doesn't have a fingerprint scanner or support for ac-grade Wi-Fi. So it's patchy in terms of features; I'd much rather have an auto brightness setting than NFC, as it's far more useful day-to-day, but presumably Samsung's investments in wireless payments mean NFC is a 'must-have' in all but its cheapest phones.

One feature Android veterans will notice, others maybe not, is that the Galaxy J3 runs Android 5.1.1, rather than Android 6 - and there's no sign of the latest Android 7 Nougat update. 

It's an odd and outdated feature, but ultimately it doesn't make a huge difference because the J3 has the TouchWiz interface, which alters the look and feel of every part of the software.

It's a slightly older version of TouchWiz than that found on the Samsung Galaxy S7, but overall it looks and feels very similar. TouchWiz is a pretty good UI these days, no longer overburdened with superfluous features; it's not quite as pretty as vanilla Android, but it's no pig, is it?

One feature app hoarders may appreciate is the option to create app folders within the apps menu, and rearrange their order.

TouchWiz supports themes too, enabling you to easily reskin the Galaxy J3 with new icons, wallpaper and fonts without doing any real work. Many cost money at this point, but plenty are available for free.

It's a good interface for a budget phone, although with only 8GB of storage in the base model the fact that so much space is taken up by preinstalled Microsoft Office apps annoys. Within a few days I'd filled the phone up, and that was without any heavy-duty game installs.

Another hit to the J3's gaming cred is the speaker positioning. It's on the back, with just a single driver unit. Top volume is fairly good, but it predictably sounds a lot thinner than Samsung's high-end phones at maximum volume.

Performance

• Barrel-scraping, unknown processor
• Performance is acceptable, but not admirable

One of the Samsung Galaxy J3's more curious budget cuts is the use of an all-but-unknown processor – it's a Spreadtrum SC8830, which I've never encountered before.

This is a rather weak and dated chip compared to those in other phones around this price point. It's a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, but uses 32-bit Cortex-A7 cores rather than the 64-bit Cortex-A53 cores that are popular in budget phones at the moment.

Its spec is very similar to that of the Snapdragon 400 used in the original Motorola Moto G from back in 2013. You also only get 1.5GB of RAM, where other budget rivals have 2GB at this point.

The Galaxy J3 does not bristle with raw power, and the 1175 (371 per core) Geekbench 3 score is bang-on what you'd get from a Snapdragon 400 phone. There's some barrel-scraping going on here.

Phone performance is acceptable, but not admirable. While most of the surface-level parts of the interface feel fast, with animations designed to make the J3 feel nippy, apps do take a little while to load, even rudimentary ones like Gmail. The delays are only short, but add up create the impression of a phone that doesn't feel 'instant'. There's occasional stuttering in some transitions too.

I've been spoilt recently, having come straight from using the Samsung Galaxy S7 to review the Galaxy J3. However, the best budget alternatives feel slightly nippier as well. Some of this slow feel may come down to the use of Android 5.1.1 rather than 6.0, as the newer OS tends to feel faster no matter what level of phone you're using.

Samsung hasn't announced whether the Galaxy J3 will be upgraded to Android 6 Marshmallow or Android 7 Nougat in the future. Considering Samsung usually updates most of its phone pretty quickly, so I've been quite surprised the phone hasn't seen an upgrade yet.

It may mean Samsung is never going to update its phone, or maybe it'll just make the jump straight to Android 7 Nougat later.

Samsung has yet to announce whether the Galaxy J3 will get a software upgrade to Android 6 Marshmallow.

Battery life

• Will just about last a day on a single charge with moderate use
• Heavier users will need to top up before bed

The Samsung Galaxy J3's battery sounds about right for the spec. It has a 2,600mAh battery, which you can replace easily, which isn't the case with so many other phones these days.

In our regular video test, however, the J3 didn't do as well as either the Moto G or the Oppo F1, losing 21% of its battery when playing a 720p video at max brightness. The caveat here is that OLED screens tend to vary in battery consumption more than LCDs when displaying different content, at different levels of brightness.

In general use, though, I found that the Galaxy J3's stamina was only passable, as on several days I managed to run the phone down by early evening. 

I'd say there's not much hope of squeezing two days' use out of the J3 – and heavy users will have to pack an external battery to ensure they don't end up with a dead phone before bedtime.

The manual brightness setting won't help here either. It's quite easy to leave the J3 much brighter than is strictly necessary indoors, and while the 'outdoors' mode is pretty effective, it doesn't half eat away at the battery level.

Camera

• 8MP rear camera not awful for a cheap phone
• Decent HDR mode improves some shots

The Samsung Galaxy J3 has an 8MP camera on the back, matched with a single-LED flash. This is a conspicuously low-resolution sensor compared to the top budget phones, several of which use 13MP main cameras.

There are several decent low-cost 13MP sensors these around days, most notably from all-round phone sensor master Sony, OmniVision and even Samsung. The J3's lens is a bog-standard f/2.2 affair too.

Looking at some of the photos I took using the Galaxy J3 on a computer, this gives you much less scope for cropping, and means your shots will look pretty dreadful as soon as you start using the digital zoom.

The J3 also doesn't have quite as good dynamic range as the Motorola Moto G (2015) when using auto shooting; that said, though, no £150 (US$200)-ish phone has really challenged the standard that phone set when it arrived.

Low-light image quality is poor too. Shooting out on the street at night the Galaxy J3 manages to make shots look nice and bright, but fine detail is smudged out entirely and there's quite a lot of noise. Without image stabilisation to lean on the J3 can only drop its shutter speed down to 1/16 of a second, meaning it needs to use a pretty high ISO (sensitivity setting) to make images appear bright enough.

However, the Galaxy J3 isn't bad either, for a cheap phone.

I've used plenty of 8MP handsets with much poorer color fidelity and far worse lenses. The Galaxy J3's tones look quite natural most of the time, and there's no major lens distortion or chromatic aberration (color fringing); this enables the phone make good use of the resolution it has to work with.

There's also a lot to like about the Samsung camera software at this point. It's intuitive, and lets you adjust the exposure quickly and easily. When you pick a focus point an exposure level pops up right next to the shutter button, and you can flick the value up and down with your thumb.

It's a smart way to make slightly more advanced camera features 'auto-unlock' when you start getting a bit more involved with the process, rather than just pointing and shooting.

The Galaxy J3 also has a decent HDR mode, although it's not one that automatically switches itself on when needed, and it's not as good as the S7's either – no surprise there. It has a Pro mode like that top-end phone, but it's really not worth bothering with here, as, lacking shutter speed or focus control, it's very limited.

Shooting speed is passable: it's not lightning fast, but shutter lag is minimal enough to keep the J3 fun to shoot with.

Around the front the Galaxy J3 has a 5MP camera which, like the rear one, delivers relatively good color reproduction. There's a little bit of shutter lag again, but it's not terrible.

Video capture is fairly poor, maxing-out at 720p for both cameras.

Camera samples

Has Samsung made a Motorola Moto G-killer? Not quite. While it gets quite a few elements right, they don't add up to a phone that feels entirely complete.

We liked

The Samsung Galaxy J3 is genuinely affordable, and appears to be a genuine alternative to something like the Moto G when you look at it from a distance.

Samsung has had a good stab at making a cheap version of the Galaxy S7 too. It has none of that phone's high-end build, but the style and dimensions are very similar.

The screen is sure to please those who like powerful display color too. As it uses an OLED screen, there's not even a hint of the undersaturation you'll see in some lower-end LCD phones. It also goes extremely bright, enabling it to handle bright days better than many of its peers.

We disliked

Samsung has made some pretty questionable choices about what it has left out here. Including NFC but leaving out an ambient brightness sensor may fit in with Samsung's corporate goals, but forcing you to manually change the screen intensity is continually frustrating.

The phone also has an old version of Android and a rather low-power CPU, which results in performance that's a little slower than the best budget handsets. It's not a huge deal, but it means there are better experiences available at the price.

There are similar shortcuts when it comes to the camera. It's not dreadful – it's not even bad – but you can get better for your cash if you care about image quality.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy J3 is an 'almost-there' budget phone which looks and feels right, but makes a few sacrifices in the wrong places.

And the one that crops up the most is something that sounds almost trifling: the lack of an auto brightness setting. This means you have to change the screen intensity manually every time you go out, and may set the screen too bright a lot of the time, reducing stamina.

For the money you don't get as much storage as with rival handsets, and the camera isn't quite as good as the Moto G's. The Samsung Galaxy J3 has the framework to be a great budget mobile, but a few of the features bolted onto that framework are just that bit off.

If the Samsung Galaxy J3 doesn't take your fancy, check out some of the key competition below.

Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Play

Motorola's Moto G series is the benchmark all low-cost smartphones are compared to, so if you're looking for a dependable handset which won't break the bank look no further.

The Moto G4 is a little pricier than the Galaxy J3 though, so you may want to check out the similarly priced Moto G4 Play instead.

• Moto G4 review | Moto G4 Play review

Lenovo P2

If battery life is your bag, the Lenovo P2 is the phone for you. Its whopping 5,100mAh juice pack will keep you going for over two days between charges - which is unheard of in today's smartphone world.

It's a touch more expensive than the Galaxy J3, but not by much and it's one of the best cheap smartphones around.

• Lenovo P2 review

Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus

If you're in the UK then you also have the option of plucky upstart Wileyfox, which has a range of affordable smartphones with strong spec sheets.

The Swift 2 Plus is one of its most recent devices, boasting a 5-inch HD display, fingerprint scanner, 32GB of storage, 3GB of RAM and 16MP rear snapper. Oh, and the price? £189.

• Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus review

Thanks to MobileFun for providing our Galaxy J3 review unit!

First reviewed: May 2016

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Nexus 5X

Update: Our Nexus 5X review has been updated with details of the Android Nougat update you can download, but if you're looking for Google's latest smartphones check out our Pixel and Pixel XL reviews.

What's the sound of one hand clapping? It's a Nexus 5X owner giving praise to Google and LG for remaking their palm-friendly Android phone while effortlessly holding it in the other hand.

Yes, Google's final Nexus handset comes in two sizes, and this 5.2-inch phone is for those non-giants out there who literally can't handle a 5.7-inch Nexus 6P or its 6-inch Nexus 6 predecessor.

The Nexus 5X is more than just a normal-sized phone at a smaller price, though. Its 12.3MP camera is able to capture low-light photos, and the specs are still fast enough for the average user.

Its reversible USB Type-C port provides quicker charging, its fingerprint sensor is yet another way to effortless unlock your phone, and it's pre-loaded with Android Marshmallow, but you can download Android Nougat right now to ensure you're fully up to date.

Compromises and competition mean Nexus 5X isn't for everyone. The Nexus 6P requires two hands to operate, but it isn't a stretch to hold in one, making its size difference tighter and all-metal design and more powerful specs tempting. 

The Nexus 5X, made of plastic, also faces stiffer competition than the Nexus 5 did back in 2013.

It's also not quite as fast as many rivals when under pressure. Multitasking with the GPS and playing music, for example, is going to see some slowdown. The same happens when the camera app loads while you're switching from other heavy-duty applications. It's noticeable, but occasional and by no means a deal breaker if you're on a budget.

Easy-to-hold, priced right and feature-packed, this is the Nexus 5 reborn as the Nexus 5X, but over two years have passed since it broke cover. Is it still a worthy stock Android phone at an unbeatable value? Let's break it down.

Nexus 5X price

The Nexus 5X price now starts at $399 (£275, AU$659) for the SIM-free 32GB version - although with the arrival of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL the 5X is harder to find in stores and online.

Unless you're desperate to save money and must have a Google-branded smartphone, you'll be better off looking at the Pixel or wealth or reasonably price Android phones launched within the last 12 months.

Design

• Easy to use one-handed
• Plastic body lacks premium appeal

The Nexus 5X looks and feels like the Nexus 5 adapted for modern times. It's lightweight and, with a 5.2-inch display, my fingers can barely reach all the way across the screen. That's what I want.

It appropriately pushes the limit of a one-handed phone with dimensions of 147 x 72.6 x 7.9mm, making it taller and broader, but ultimately skinnier than the idolized phone from 2013.

Nexus 5X strikes the right balance: a screen size that's maximized, but still operable in one hand. It's still light, too, at 136g. That's a modest gain from 130g.

I didn't exactly want a camera bulge around back, which is what happened to the center-located rear snapper, but I'd rather have that than a weaker camera. It's a fair trade-off and camera bulges are coming commonplace among today's smartphones.

Thankfully, the camera protrusion isn't as significant as we saw in leaked prototypes, and it at least gives me a landmark when trying to find the new, oddly-placed fingerprint sensor on back.

The 5X owes its lightweight design to LG sticking to a polycarbonate back and thin metal frame. This bucks the trend of moving away from plastic and going with all glass or strictly aluminum.

For this reason, it doesn't feel different from the hard plastic of the Nexus 5, although you won't find the soft touch coating of the black Nexus 5 here. It's more of an egg shell texture.

There are three Nexus 5X colors again, but this time it's Carbon Black, Quartz White and Ice Blue, doing away with red. All three come with a black front, however. You won't find an all-white Nexus 5X.

The black-and-white combination makes my white Nexus 5X review unit look like a delicious ice cream sandwich more than a phone. While not as stylish as Motorola's curved Moto X design, it's mostly flat and functional.

In fact, the only glaringly impractical design choices here are the power button and volume rocker located on the right side. They're small, feel cheap and the power button isn't riveted.

That's a design choice I appreciate in recent phones like the Moto X Style and Nexus 6P. At night, it's easier to tell a power button accent with rigids from a smooth volume rocker.

There is a pulse notification light here. It hasn't been omitted, it's just tucked inside the speaker grill located at the bottom front of the phone and, rudely, turned off by default.

Whether or not you're ready, the Nexus 5X includes the USB-C port on the bottom of the frame instead of micro USB, and it's joined by a never-changing 3.5mm headphone jack.

As future-proof as this Android phone tries to be, it doesn't take advantage of Gorilla Glass 4 like the Nexus 6P does. Instead, it sticks to Gorilla Glass 3 like the curved LG G4.

The LG G4 gets away with this in my book because of its protective, curved design. The Nexus 5X has only a small lip around its display bezel, so you may want to opt for a case.

Luckily, the Google Play Store is ready in this department. I'm more of a fan of the official Nexus 5X cases with a microfiber back and what looks like the Amazon Web Service logo (awkward).

I have this official Nexus 6P case, but got stuck with the Speck CandyShell case for my 5X. It has military grade drop protection, but really drives the point home that it's unflattering rubber.

Display

• 5.2-inch full HD display is bright, clear and responsive
• Fits five apps in a row on screen, rather than four

The average acceptable phone size has increased over the last two years, but I feel as though a 5.2-inch display is the limit for hands. It's not going to change unless we all grow longer fingers.

It's therefore no coincidence that the Nexus 5X keeps up with today's ideal Android phone size, with a 5.2-inch LCD, up from the two-year-old Nexus 5 that was technically 4.95 inches.

Little else has changed here. It's uses the same IPS LCD screen technology and 1,920 x 1,080, and the resolution is now 432 pixel per inch.

Pixels are less densely packed given the increased display size but same exact resolution, yet you won't notice a difference. You will, however, notice five apps now fit across the screen instead of just four.

Google and LG vetoed making a Quad HD display for the Nexus 5X, which would have been a bit more meaningless given the smaller size of this phone. It would just suck more battery life. There's very little chance Nexus 5X will be compatible with the high-resolution-requiring Google Daydream VR initiative. Sorry, folks.

Instead, the duo gets the more important things right: brightness, uniformity and functionality. With the default "adaptive brightness" turned off, it was plenty bright for outdoor use.

Color accuracy is also more on point than the oversaturated Nexus 6 and Nexus 6P AMOLEDs. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 5 remain the best overall displays in brightness and color.

The Nexus 5X inherits the Ambient Display setting of the Nexus 6. It wakes up the phone with a grayscale notification screen whenever the device is picked up or a notification arrives. Newer Apple phones like iPhone 6S have a similar "raise to wake" feature now too thanks to iOS 10.

This isn't as effective as the double-tap-to-wake functionality found in the HTC One M9 and LG G4, and that's a shame for 5X owners especially. It would've fit, given the flimsy power button on the side and fingerprint sensor on back.

I'm also a fan of Motorola's Moto Display, which uses IR sensors to detect your presence and show interactive notifications in a limited state. That's not what Ambient Display does, sadly.

Fingerprint sensor

• Rear mounted isn't always a convenient location
• Fast, accurate and easy to set up

The Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P introduce Google's first fingerprint sensor, or what it calls the Nexus Imprint. Don't let the fancy name fool you.

It works like every other phone-based biometric fingerprint sensor out there, except it's on the back of the device right below the camera, not around front acting as the home button.

There's no physical home button on the Nexus 5X, just extra screen space, so this placement makes sense. It did however take some getting used to, but I now accidentally try to unlock my other Android phones this way.

While Google says that "this is where your finger naturally falls," I still felt like I had to genuflect my index finger to unlock the phone. I also smudged the nearby camera a bunch of times. For this reason, the Sony Xperia Z5 fingerprint sensor, on its side power button, is a better idea.

The good news here is that the Nexus Imprint fingerprint sensor is fast, accurate and easy to set up. It took me eight seconds to register a finger and half a second for my phone to unlock.

Apple's iPhone 6S Touch ID setup is painstakingly slower and requires too many taps and too many seconds in between taps. I found Nexus Imprint to be just as accurate with six simple taps.

Android phones and tablets offers a number of different unlock methods, and this my favorite and the most secure so far. It's built for Android Pay and web sign-ins too.

I still found myself needing to use my traditional pattern unlock, however. Whenever the phone is on my desk, it's the only way to bypass the lockscreen without picking up it up to then reach for the back fingerprint sensor.

USB Type-C connection

• Easy to use as can plug in cable either way round
• You'll want to buy a couple of spare USB Type-C cables

Get ready to retire the dozens of micro USB cables you've collected over the last half decade, because the 5X and 6P also introduce USB Type-C to the Nexus line.

The advantage here is that the cable connection is reversible on both ends. It's easy to plug in without looking, now that there's no wrong way to do it. It's USB in its finest form yet.

It's more than just a convenience, though. The Nexus 5X USB Type-C port offers for faster charging (data transfer speeds appear to be at normal pace in our testing).

Juicing up the phone via the included Type-C 15W (5V/3A) charger for just 10 minutes makes it last four hours. I could also charge via other USB-C devices, like my Nexus 6 or new MacBook.

The drawback is that most Nexus 5X owners will have just one USB Type-C cable (yet dozens of micro USB cables) and only one USB Type-C charging block. Lose either and you're in serious trouble.

Newer USB Type-C Android phones like the LG G5 and Huawei P9 at least come USB-C-to-normal-USB cables as well as charging blocks that accept normal USB. That's tremendously more convenient, not to mention logical.

Nexus 5X is also a pain because your computer likely uses USB, unless you have the new MacBook or Chromebook Pixel, and now you have yet another cable type lying around. It never stops.

Google's Nexus 6P actually includes a USB Type-C to USB Type-A plug, but you won't find that in the box of the Nexus 5X. It's an additional price via the Google Play Store (or anywhere else, really).

The future is certainly USB Type-C, but it's going to be a rough 2016 adapting to this early adopter technology. Every time you're at a bar or in an Uber, and you need a quick charge, expect them to look at you funny when you ask if they have USB Type-C.

You can't peel off the Nexus 5X back cover (without voiding the warranty), but we already know what's inside when it comes to the phone's specs.

In fact, it turns out we were already familiar with the Nexus 5X specs as soon as the LG G4 launched. LG took several cues from its own product line for this Google commissioned phone.

The 5X uses the same with the same Snapdragon 808 processor with a 64-bit hexa-core CPU that's a combined 1.44GHz quad-core chip and 1.82 GHz dual-core chip. A matching Adreno 418 GPU is also integrated into this processor.

There is a difference when it comes to memory, which, among other things, dictates how many apps you can have open at once. The Nexus 5X has just 2GB of RAM, while the LG G4 takes advantage of 3GB of RAM, as does the Nexus 6P.

The 5X is behind similarly-sized Android phones featuring a more comfortable 3GB and 4GB of RAM. Some phones, like OnePlus 3, and Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe top out at a massive 6GB of RAM. 5X isn't so future-proof after all.

You're out of luck if you're looking for a microSD slot, too. It hasn't been a part of Nexus phones for several years and, despite the Android Marshmallow Flex Storage feature that makes expandable storage adoptable and easier to use, it's not part of this phone either.

Instead, the Nexus 5X relies on internal storage of either 16GB and 32GB, depending on how much you're willing to pay. That means, like with the iPhone 6S, I don't suggest spending less than US$399 (£280) for the 32GB model.

Performance

• Generally quick performance, but slows down from time to time
• Not as future-proof as it could be

The Nexus 5X performance reflects the horsepower of the LG G4 minus the extra RAM offered by the South Korean manufacturer's true Android flagship.

It begins fast enough with a Geekbench score of 3,504, which is the exact speed readings I get from the LG G4. So far so good. Running it a few more times does shows slowdown, however.

When under pressure by running back-to-back Geekbench tests, the Nexus 5X speeds dropped to 3,025, then 2,439, giving me an average of score of 2,990 after three tests.

Waiting some time between tests and closing other apps, it bounced back to 3,460, then 2,884, then 2,061. In contrast, the LG G4 was always stayed steady at around 3,500.

These inconsistent results are what I've seen from the troubled Snapdragon 810 processor, not the purposely slower and theoretically more stable Snapdragon 808 chip.

I noticed this sputtering score reflected in real-world performance. Specifically, the camera was slow to load when I wanted to take a picture of the sunset as it disappeared into the ocean. Running the GPS chip with Google maps while also playing music through the phone also gave it some literal pause.

Opening multiple apps also showed the 5X lag behind the Nexus 6P in some, but not all cases. Android menus remained flawless, likely due to Android 6.0 Marshmallow being so refined.

This slowdown is nothing too determinantal right now. I got my sunset phone. But if you're going to hold onto this phone for two years, it may start to show its age faster than you'd expect.

I didn't have a problem with the faster Nexus 6P and LG G4, which are a better options if you want phones that are more future-proof and 32GB at their entry-level price.

One chip the LG G4 doesn't have is Google's Android Sensor Hub for activity monitoring that's akin to the powers of Apple's iPhone motion co-processor. This helps with battery life.

Its uses the gyroscope, accelerometer and other sensors to save power and still detect motion for orientation and waking the Ambient Display, all without utilizing the main processor.

The Android Sensor Hub, combined with Android Marshmallow's battery-saving Doze software tricks, is a bigger benefit down the line than the CPU drawbacks. 

Way more than phone speed, I always hear about battery life problems from people, and the 5X tilts in the direction of battery life, not chip performance.

Phone call quality

• Coming in loud and clear!
• Speaker phone a little shoddy

When is comes to call performance tests, I found the Nexus 5X to be loud and clear enough compared to the competition, including its bigger Nexus counterpart.

Holding the phone to my ear and using the speakerphone at a normal distance, voices came in clear and I found the same response from the people I talked to on the other end of the line.

That's surprising because the Nexus 6P sounds slightly more muffled on both ends in my tests, which may be in part due to the microphone being a tad further away from me face.

It's also surprising, as the Nexus 5X has shoddy multimedia speakers compared to the 6P. It's more than just speakers on trial, though. Some phones are better with reception than others, and that's what's evident here.

The Nexus 5X runs Android Marshmallow, but you would hardly know it. That's because most of the changes aren't as (literally) colorful as last year's ostentatious Android Lollipop revamp.

Instead, behind-the-scenes tweaks to battery life and app permissions make this new operating system update smarter, not necessarily prettier with new Material Design schemes.

The interface and the apps don't change very much. It comes pre-loaded with Google search, Gmail, Google Maps, Contacts, Calendar, Hangouts, Drive, YouTube and Photos, and more apps can be downloaded via the Google Play Store.

You do have more say over the volume, thankfully. The physical volume rocker can now set the volume all the way down to Do Not Disturb. In Android Lollipop, Google made the lowest setting vibrate, essentially eliminating the ability fully silence a phone via the rocker.

Google realized its mistake, and now not only can the Nexus 5X be silenced completely without having to fiddle with on-screen touches, the volume menu overlay that does pop up contains a triangle for a dropdown icon. Tapping it breaks down the volume settings, so you can set the phone, alarm and multimedia volume independently. This is something Samsung, LG and HTC have included for years, and it's a welcomed addition to stock Android.

The standout menu change (and best Android Marshmallow feature) is Google Now on Tap. It scans what you're reading, watching or listening to whenever you hold down the home button.

The results include more information or related apps about the subject. For example, reading an Elon Musk interview on WaitButWhy told me a bit about the "business magnate" and displayed icons to a Google search, Wikipedia, Twitter and Instagram or to see a fan-compiled YouTube playlist (since he doesn't have a public account).

This works even better in Android's Messenger app. Confused about the team, actor and place someone just brought up? Holding the home button for Google Now on Tap brings up the sports team's score, the actor's IMDB bio or the restaurant's location.

Google Now on Tap is a shortcut the same way Apple uses 3D Touch as a contextual menu hidden from the normal screen. It's a convenience for sure, but not life changing.

Likewise, the app drawer - where every app you download is located - now scrolls up and down, not right to left. The bigger deal is that five of your recently used apps appear at the top. No, there's no way to hide Tinder or other dating apps. You're caught.

What I appreciate most about all Nexus phones is that they run stock Android, the way Google had intended. There are no junk or sponsored apps that seem worthless.

For example, when I redownloaded my past apps from the Google Play Store, I skipped 24 junk apps in a row. "When did I download these awful apps on another device?," I wondered.

Turns out, they were all required apps that came with my Asus Zenfone 2, which was loaded with two calendars, two to do lists, two browsers, etc. Needless to say, I didn't redownload these dirty two dozen, and am thankful Google doesn't pull the same junk-app-drawer stunt.

Android Nougat

• Free update to the new Android 7 software available now

Owning a Nexus device does have its advantages. The key one is priority access to the latest version of Android, meaning, with the 5X you can try out Android Nougat before it even launches.

Google has released Android 7.0 Nougat for all it on Nexus phones, which means the Nexus 5X is now bang up to date with the latest software.

You'll get the cleaner, rounded-icon Google interface and you'll notice the app draw has disappeared. Instead, a swipe up from the app dock will see you pull up a panel with all your applications.

Animations are smoother, and Android should run more efficiently - but with the older hardware on the Nexus 5X that's not always the case.

• Learn more with our Android 7 tips and tricks

• Android Nougat beta tips and tricks

Messaging

This is the second year in a row that Google included Messenger in a Nexus phone when it has Hangouts pre-loaded already. I find Messenger easy to use, but incredibly redundant.

I caught some flak last year for listing this as app "con" on the Nexus 6 review. My reasoning was that this SMS app came out of nowhere, and yet Hangouts was left underdeveloped.

Hangouts has been redesigned, thankfully, and you can do logical things like start typing a message, THEN attach a photo (seriously, you couldn't do that before two months ago because the attach icon would turn into the send icon as you started typing).

Both are good choices now, but I still prefer the cleaner Messenger app between the two texting apps, and more than anything, remain a fan of how Apple combines iMessages seamlessly across platforms.

Google, it's 2015. You have an excellent keyboard. Please fix Messenger and Hangouts. My Nexus 9 tablet is lonely without proper SMS. The Hangouts revamp was a good start.

Movies and Music

The 5.2-inch display of the Nexus 5X is a better fit for watching HD movies in its 16:9 aspect ratio when compared to the Nexus 5 from two years ago.

No, the screen size isn't as big as last year's 6-inch Nexus 6, but the color is more accurate. I don't find the hues to be overly saturated, though some people may find this to look washed out.

Really, you can see the difference in side-by-side comparisons of actors faces. Orange is the new tan, or at least that's what it looked like when I rewatched the movie Big on the Nexus 6P.

This phone doesn't have the artificial pop of the Nexus 6P and doesn't boast a quad HD display, but it's more true-to-life. Nexus 6P, however, beats the 5X when it comes to sound quality.

Listening to music and movies is a bit one-sided on the Nexus 5X. The speaker for all media is located in the bottom of the phone, whereas the multimedia-friendly Nexus 6P has stereo speakers at the top of bottom.

Games

The Nexus 5X could handle all of the game apps, with no discernible slowdown or imperfections in the graphics and color. Real Racing 3 and Asphalt 8: Airborne chugged along just fine.

Slight variations between Nexus displays favored the Nexus 5X when it came to movies starring real people, but game apps I tested looked like a tad more muted in color on this phone.

Bezel has become a bad word among smartphone, but I found games in landscape mode easier to control thanks to the slightly thicker bezel of the Nexus 5X (the same is true of the Nexus 6P).

Google proclaimed that the Nexus 5X (as well as the Nexus 6P) has the best camera it has ever put into a Nexus. That's not saying much, given the very average Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 photos.

Loading up the default Google camera app, I quickly realized how much it lives up to its Nexus-beating hype, thanks to the 1.55-micron pixels that do well in low light.

These are larger than normal pixels, and therefore can capture more light for stronger indoor photography. I found the Galaxy S7, LG G5 and Moto X Style to snap bright photos, too, so it's really going to come down to a personal preference in some cases.

The camera sensor here is 12.3MP, a lower number than its top-performing Android rivals in 2015. But the Nexus 5X is able to to use that extra light for superior low-light images. A whopping 80% of photos are taken in low light, according to Google.

What better place is there to test it out than your local bar during trivia and karaoke night? I took the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, iPhone 6S Plus and Galaxy Note 5 out of the lab to the closest pub.

A bar is a common environment for photos to be taken with friends, but among the toughest due to often poor lighting conditions, and the Nexus 5X did fine in low light. Not perfect, but almost as good as its competition most of the time. Samsung and LG still have it in 2016.

In case you're wondering, the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P's 12.3MP sensors are exactly the same. I noticed that image processing is a little slower on the Nexus 5X, especially for photos using Lens Blur mode, but the results were the same, or close to it, via the rear camera.

I actually had to double check that I wasn't accidentally looking at the same files when comparing the two.

This rear camera records video in 4K at 30 frames per second, while the front-facing camera is 5MP with the normal 1.4 microns and the same f/2.0 aperture. You can definitely tell the selfie quality between it and the 8MP Nexus 6P camera, though the iPhone 6S, with its "Retina" flash, beats both of them.

Google's camera software has improved since the Nexus 6 debut. It no longer hides all of the important options like the timer, HDR+ and the selfie toggle. They're all on-screen when you need them the most.

Likewise, switching between snapping photos and recording video is now a matter of swiping left and right, and the only hidden options in the side menu are returning modes: Lens Blur, Panoramic and Photosphere.

Don't go into this expecting all of the nifty Samsung and LG options, which include the ability to shoot in RAW, gesture control to trigger selfies and wide selfies to capture group shots.

This is just a basic camera app, but one that fully harnesses the phone's low light photo capabilities. It's the best Nexus camera next to the Nexus 6P, and there's even more hope for Nexus 2016 phones now.

Camera samples

The Nexus 5X battery life gets me through the day with heavy use, and that's about it, which is to say that it's on par with past Google-made phones that have average battery life.

It contains a 2,700mAh battery, giving it a nice boost considering the 2,300mAh capacity of the Nexus 5. Alas, running multiple battery life tests shows little has changed.

Watching a looped HD movie for 90 minutes wore the battery down from 100% to 77% when the screen was lit to full brightness in adaptive brightness mode.

Turning off adaptive brightness to make the display brighter and running the same 90 video all over again took it down even further to 68%. Through these tests, it performs worse than every new Android phone but the LG G4.

However, in real-world wear-down tests, I found that the Nexus 5X is still able to go the distance of a full day because of Google's software tricks like Doze mode and App standby. As long as you're not expecting a multimedia powerhouse, it'll perform just fine.

Doze and App Standby are Android Marshmallow features that reduce battery life consumption by putting the phone into a quasi-sleep mode. Running multiple battery life tests in which the screen is on doesn't really capture this battery important new conservation trick.

Here's the even better news about the Nexus 5X battery. Once it finally does deplete, it quickly charges back up thanks to its USB-C fast charging capabilities.

I was able to restore 25% of the battery in just 22 minutes, and 70% in an hour. It was at 90% in 1 hour and 20 minutes and a full 100% in an 1 hour and 48 minutes.

The reason it doesn't take just 88 minutes (multiplying 25% achieved in 22 minutes) is because fast charging its magic when the phone is at its lowest. The last 10% takes the longest to fill.

All of this is actually slower than Samsung's Fast Charging and Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 standards that use a micro USB cable along with a larger-than-normal charging brick.

Samsung's Galaxy S6 and Note 5, for example, fill back up in 1 hour and 20 minutes, whereas the Nexus 6P sets the record for USB-C so far with 1 hour and 37 minutes. Thus, USB-C is almost as fast with the added benefit of being reversible.

The Nexus 5X also doesn't have any sort of fast charge capabilities through a wireless charging pad. In fact, it has no wireless charging powers at all. That Nexus Qi charger? Useless here.

That's a shame, because Samsung just launched its "Fast Charge Wireless Charging Pad" that takes just 120 minutes to charge its newest phones. A reversible, quick charging USB-C port is a convenience but not "so convenient" (as a Google rep said to me) that it's enough to drop wireless charging.

When I first heard the name Nexus 5X, I was worried that Google wanted to take its beloved Nexus 5 to an unnecessary extreme. However, this is a phone update within reason.

The real "extreme" turned out to be last year's phone. Although I adjusted to the Nexus 6 size and appreciated its larger display at times, bigger isn't always better. The Nexus 5X proves this.

We liked

The 5.2-inch display is the tipping point for one-handed Android phones. Reaching icons all the way across the big screen doesn't require two hands. It's not really a phablet, but it's close.

That's how I'd describe its performance against its closest rivals. It's not the best, but close. It has a fast enough Snapdragon processor and an above average camera that stands up to low light, a fight it wins more than any other phone.

Low light photo quality is subjective at this point. So is the quick and accurate fingerprint sensor being on back. It has reasonable all-day battery life and charges quickly via USB-C. There are better options out there that use micro USB if you're not ready to upgrade your cable collection.

We disliked

Then there are the things that haven't changed but should have. With 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage for the entry-level price, you're likely to max out both forms of memory more than a few times over the next year or two.

The 2GB of memory affects performance, even if our tests prove it's minimal now, that can be a problem 12 to 23 months after launch, right before you upgrade. All of a sudden, you'll turn into that person who says, "I can't wait to get rid of this phone." You can solve the internal space dilemma by springing for the more expensive 32GB Nexus 5X. It's worth it.

The Nexus 5X doesn't have wireless charging capabilities (for no reason, I might add - it doesn't have a metal wireless-charge-blocking back like the Nexus 6P), so that Nexus Qi Wireless Charger is an expensive paperweight for some owners. Good recently stopped selling it in its store. Out with the new, in with the old way of doing things, unfortunately.

Final verdict

Google modernized the its normal-sized flagship for modern times with a slightly larger display, a faster processor and reversible USB charging method.

It's still inexpensive, and the fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate. I found relief switching back to this smaller, lighter and substantially cheaper phone. Your pocket is going to appreciate it in more ways than one.

No, The Nexus 5X isn't the best phone you can get - it's not even in the top 10. It's not even the best Nexus anymore due to the Nexus 6P being the bigger and faster of the two. It's more like the the perfect fit for one hand and the closest thing to a five-finger discount given the specs.

Nexus 6P

The Nexus 6P is the 5X's big brother in both size and price, coming in at 5.7 inches and £449/$499. That all means it's not really a direct competitor to the Nexus 5X, but as both phones run stock Android Marshmallow they could both be considerations.

The Nexus 6P is far more of a flagship than the 5X, as you'd expect given the price. It has a QHD display, an octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM, plus a metal shell which leaves it looking far more premium than the plastic-clad 5X.

• Read our full review of the Nexus 6P

OnePlus 2

In the world of affordable flagships the OnePlus 2 perhaps stands out the most, as at £219/$299 it's even cheaper than the Nexus 5X. Yet with a 5.5-inch 1080 x 1920 display, an octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor and up to 4GB of RAM it's a lot higher spec.

Like the Nexus 5X it also has a fingerprint scanner, though there's no NFC here, so it's not quite as well equipped to take advantage of contactless payments.

• Read our full review of the OnePlus 2

Moto X Play

Like the Nexus 5X the Moto X Play is just shy of being a flagship. An octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor and 2GB of RAM keep it chugging along, which if anything makes it slightly lower end than the 5X.

It's bigger than the Nexus 5X at 5.5 inches and it packs in some features that phone lacks, such as a water repellent coating and a massive battery, but it's missing a fingerprint scanner.

It is however a little cheaper than the Nexus 5X and with the juice to keep on going all day and beyond it's better suited to power users.

• Read our full review of the Moto X Play

First reviewed: October 2015

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