When it comes to size, the Nexus 6 can overwhelm the competition, but there are smartphones such as the Galaxy S6 Active that can take it on in terms of features and hardware. Here is how the S6 variant from Samsung performs against the larger Nexus 6.

Design

The Nexus 6 falls squarely within the phablet category and it is manufactured by Motorola for Google. It comes with a plastic body which the manufacturer favors and its back panel has a dimple which allows for it to be easily held. It has a single premium element in the form of a metal band running along its edge.

The S6 Active is also made mostly of plastic. Its back panel has more of the same material just layered with a coating and its sides feature hard plastic and rubber. However, the S6 Active has a IP68 rating which means it is waterproof in up to 1.5 meters of water and can be submerged for 30 minutes. In addition, it is shock and heat proof as it has a MIL-STD-810G certification.

In terms of colors, the Nexus 6 comes in white and blue while the S6 Active comes in blue and white with a camouflaged coating. It also has a gray version.

Display

The huge Nexus 6 naturally has a bigger display and it comes with an AMOLED screen measuring 5.96 inches with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a density of 493 pixels per inch. On the S6 Active is a much smaller super AMOLED screen measuring 5.1 inches with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a density of 576 pixels per inch.

Specs

When it comes to hardware, the Nexus 6 is well and truly beaten by the S6 Active. The smartphone from Samsung has an Exynos 7420 chipset, an octa-core CPU comprised of four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and four Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2.1 GHz and a Mali-T760 GPU. On the Nexus 6 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset, a Krait 450 CPU with four cores clocked at 2.7 GHz and an Adreno 420 GPU.

Memory

There is no memory slot on either of these devices, so external storage cannot be added. They are again similar when it comes to RAM, as each has 3 GB onboard.

Battery

There is a huge 3220 mAh battery on the Nexus 6 but the S6 Active has a better 3500 mAh version.

Price

The Nexus 6 costs $249 with a two-year contract while the Galaxy S6 Active costs $199 with a similar contract.