Nexus 6 vs Note 4 vs iPhone 6: Phablet war between Samsung, Google and Apple flaghips

After Apple Inc. came up with bigger iPhone 6 smartphones in September and Samsung followed up by releasing its newest Galaxy Note 4 in the market earlier this month, Google decided to unveil its own phablet offering earlier today, the Nexus 6 manufactured by Motorola.

Google's biggest Nexus to date had been the center of persistent rumors in the past, and kept people guessing which manufacturer will make the highly anticipated flagship phone from Google. Earlier, reports mentioned that it could be released by Google's long-time partner HTC, just like the last-gen Nexus devices.

At 5.96-inches, Google is pitting against the other large smartphones in the market today. The latest and the closest competitor to its size is Samsung's Galaxy Note 4, but Apple's iPhone 6 is not far behind though there is a bigger iPhone 6 Plus also available in the market today. Samsung and Google's newest phablets also have the same high-definition resolution displays, as well as their built in processors, but Apple's first venture into the bigger smartphone model also has superb specs as well. But which among these three new phablets are worth the consumers' money?

Here is a detailed comparison between Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Motorola's Nexus 6, and iPhone 6:

Size and Display

Samsung Galaxy Note 4Samsung

The Galaxy Note 4 comes with a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display with a 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 515 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, the Nexus 6 has a bigger 5.96-inch Quad HD AMOLED display with the same 2560 x 1440 resolution as the Galaxy Note 4 yet its pixel density is a little bit fewer at 493 ppi. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 comes smaller with 4.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD display with a 1334 x 750 resolution and a 326 ppi pixel density.

Operating system

Since the Nexus 6 comes from Google, it will naturally be the first smartphone to run using the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is still carrying the Android 4.4.4 KitKat and TouchWiz UI. The iPhone 6, on the other hand, uses the latest iOS 8.

Nexus 6Google website

Under the hood

Both Samsung and Nexus phablets have the same 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, Adreno 420 GPU (graphics processing unit), and 3 GB of RAM. However, the Galaxy Note 4 comes with a 32 GB internal storage capacity as well as a microSD expansion slot that can support up to 128-GB microSD cards. On the other hand, the Nexus 6 will come in 32 GB or 64 GB internal storage spaces, but it does not have an expansion slot for microSD. iPhone 6 is very different from the two devices. It has the Apple A8 chipset and a 1.4 GHz dual-core Cyclone as well as a PowerVR GX6450 GPU with 1 GB RAM. It also comes in 16 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB, but it does not have a card slot for expanded memory.

Camera

The South Korean phablet features an amazing 16-megapixel primary camera with optical image stabilization, continuous autofocus, 4K video recording capacity at 30 frames per second, 1080p video at 60 fps, as well as a 3.7-megapixel front-facing secondary camera for ideal for video chats and selfies.

Meanwhile, the Google Nexus 6 has a 13-megapixel primary rear camera with optical image stabilization, a dual-LED flash, autofocus, 4K video recording capacity at 30 fps, 1080p video at 30 fps, and a 2-megapixel secondary front-facing camera.

iPhone 6[Photo credit: Apple]

The iPhone 6, on the other hand, has a 8-megapixel primary rear camera that features phase detection autofocus and dual-LED (dual tone) flash, 1080p at 60fps video recording capacity, as well as a 1.2-megapixel secondary front-facing camera with face detection and HDR that can be used for FaceTime and selfie usage.

With all these in mind, phablet fans will have three new amazing device options to choose from.