 This year Google gave us two new Nexus phones, a big one and a small one. This is the smaller Google phone, the Nexus 5X. The Nexus 5X is not a successor to last year's gargantuan Nexus 6, but rather the true sequel to the Nexus 5 from two long years ago. It's got nearly everything that made the Nexus 5 so loved by Nexus fans. Strong performance, a compact size that you can easily use in one hand, and a sticker price that doesn't break the bank. This phone was specifically built to make a lot of people happy, and for the vast majority of them, it should do just that. The Nexus 5 wasn't exactly the best designed phone, and the 5X follows along right in its footsteps. The best way to describe this phone is generic, it really looks like a reference design for what a smartphone should be, and not much more than that. The materials LG and Google use here back that up, it's all plastic and feels kinda cheap. I'm not too worried about it breaking, but it certainly doesn't evoke any emotion when I pick it up. There's also a hollow echo anytime you tap the phone, which frequently reminds me that I'm not holding a top tier premium device. If you want a nicer build and better materials, you're going to have to pony up for Google's other new Nexus phone, the 6P. Materials aside, a big appeal of the 5X is that it's actually possible to use in one hand without issue. In the past few days, I've been using it while carrying groceries, holding a kid, pushing a shopping cart, or holding a cup of coffee, and I've not dropped it once nor had any issue using it to its fullest. The matte plastic finish on my white review unit may be boring to look at, but it's not a slippery bar of soap like an iPhone or Galaxy S6 is. The 5X's 5.2 inch 1080p display is slightly larger than the Nexus 5's, but other than that, it's very similar. It's sharp and crisp, but a bit flat, and colors aren't as punchy as on other phones. It hasn't been a problem for me, but it's undeniably noticeable when you put the 5X next to a better display. There are other minor hardware tweaks, like the move of the speaker to the front of the phone, but the most significant one is the new fingerprint sensor on the back, which wakes up and unlocks the phone all in one gesture. I was very skeptical of this at first, and I didn't expect it to be as easy to use as phones with front fingerprint scanners, but it's super fast, and perfectly placed for my index finger. I quickly got used to never seeing the lock screen, because by the time I pulled the 5X out of my pocket and lifted it up, I'd already scanned my fingerprint and unlocked the phone. It's really a great experience, though of course the downside to this is that you can't use your finger to unlock your phone when it's sitting on your desk. The other big hardware update is the new 12 megapixel camera, which is paired with a dual LED flash and IR sensor for autofocus. It's housed in a slight bump on the back of the phone that's 100% completely not a big deal. It's the same camera sensor that Google is using in the higher end 6P, and it's easily the best shooter a Nexus device has ever seen. In most conditions it takes really great photos, which can stand next to the best of the smartphone world. As lighting gets trickier, the 5X can stumble, but it's so much better than any Nexus phone before it, there's little room to complain. Most of the time you'll get great photos, and no one will be the wiser. But if there is something to complain about here, it's with Google's camera app, which is too barebones and slow compared to virtually everything else. Under the hood is where things start to divert from the Nexus 5. The 5X is a powerful and capable phone, no doubt about it, but it's Snapdragon 808 processor and 2GB of RAM aren't up to pace with the top phones in 2015, and there are points where that shows. Most of the time performance is great, it's got smooth scrolling and responsive interactions. But every once in a while, I'll open the camera or another app, and the phone will just hang for a few seconds while it catches up with itself. That's led me to miss pictures, or get frustrated while I wait for the browser to pop up and load after clicking a link. The 5X isn't Google's top-tier Nexus phone this year, and it's clear that performance is where corners were cut. On the bright side though, the 5X has a much better battery life than the 5, it easily gets me through a day of heavy use without needing to recharge. Android Marshmallow's new DOS feature comes into play here, if I put the phone down, it barely sips power. But it's also clearly more efficient when I'm actually using the device. I won't get two days of battery out of the 5X, but I'm not charging it up at 3PM either. Speaking of Marshmallow, the 5X unsurprisingly ships with Android's latest, and it supports all of the headline features like DOS and Now On Tap. It can also respond to voice commands hands-free, like the Moto X or iPhone 6S, and I've been getting a lot of use out of that lately. More than anything else, the 5X feels like a phone for the fans, the ones that loved the Nexus 5 and didn't get what they wanted from last year's Nexus 6. It's compact, cheap, and performs well, even if it's not the best looking or feeling phone you can get. In fact, among phones under $450, I don't think there's a better option, and it's easily the one I'd pick. But the Nexus 5X is not Google's best phone, and there are compromises in both performance and design compared to the larger and pricier 6P. But if those compromises don't matter to you, and you've been longing to upgrade your aging Nexus 5, well, you're just going to love the 5X.