The Nexus 5X was formally announced on 29 October 2015, refreshing Google's pure Android handset. There's not just one handset this year, but two: the Nexus 5X made by LG and a larger Nexus 6P built by Huawei. 

We've kept track of the Nexus 5X from rumour through to confirmation of all the important details. Here we're giving you everything you need to know about the Nexus 5X, from the price to the release date, and a full breakdown of the all-important specs.

Nexus 5X release date

The Nexus 5X is available in white, black and light blue, officially called Carbon, Quartz and Ice.

Pre-orders opened in the US, UK, Japan and Ireland on 29 September. The Nexus 5X is £339 for the 16GB version and £379 for the 32GB model.

LG confirmed on 19 October that the Nexus 5X is available in "key" markets, including United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Korea and Japan, from retailers and networks.

It is available to purchase on the Google Play store, with delivery expected from 22 October.

Where can I get the Nexus 5X?

As of 29 September the Nexus 5X is available for pre-order. Offline prices are £339 for 16GB and £379 for 32GB.

O2 will be stocking both handsets on its O2 Refresh tariff allowing for early upgrades.

Carphone Warehouse now offers the Nexus 5X for pre-order on contracts starting at £27 per month. The first 5,000 customers to pre-order the 5X or 6P will receive a free Chromecast Audio.

EE began pre-orders for the Nexus 5X on 9 October.

It is available to purchase on the Google Play store, with delivery expected from 22 October.

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Google

Nexus 5X hardware

The Nexus 5X features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset, backed by 2GB of RAM. This sets it, arguably, a step down from the Nexus 6P it's launched alongside, which offers a Snapdragon 810 and 3GB of RAM.

Nexus doesn't do microSD, so you'll get 16 and 32GB storage options. This load-out very much positions the Nexus 5X as sub-flagship. It doesn't have the highest specs and that is reflected in the more affordable pricing.

The new Nexus 5X has both a fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C. Both these features are natively supported by Android 6.0 Marshmallow and putting them into Nexus devices gives developers the chance to work with this new hardware.

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Imgur

Nexus 5X build

The dimensions of the Nexus 5X are 147 x 72.6 x 7.9mm thick, expanding to 9.8mm if you include the bulge of the camera on the rear. The Nexus 5X weighs 136g. There are two front-facing speakers, something also present on the Nexus 6P.

On the front, you can see bezels that don't look as symmetrical as the 6P's, as well as two grilles for the front-facing speakers, while on the back there's a fingerprint sensor and a lens with a small bump around the camera.

The rear of the Nexus 5X is finished with a polycarbonate shell, available in black, white or pale blue.

Nexus 5X display

The Nexus 5X features a 5.2-inch 1920 x 1080 display. This is a slight increase over the 5-inches of the original Nexus 5, but a nod to the gradual increase in display sizes we've seen over the past few years. With 1920 x 1080 pixels, you'll get a pixel density of 424ppi.

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Pocket-lint

This lower resolution will be better for battery life and help keep costs down, but a higher resolution would have felt more progressive. With the larger Nexus 6P offering a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution display at 5.7-inches, perhaps Google decided there's no need to push the pixels on the new Nexus 5X. 

Nexus 5X (2015) camera

When it comes to Nexus devices, the cameras haven't been as strong as some of the big name rivals, like the SGS6 or the LG G4.

The 12.3-megapixel camera on the Nexus 5X has a pixel size of 1.55 microns, which is pretty large. For reference, the iSight camera on the iPhone 6S has 1.2 micron pixels.

The larger the pixel, the more light it can let in, claims Google, so it has greater potential to capture light. This is combined with an F/2.0 aperture and the ability to capture 4K video.

The Nexus 5X doesn't have all the features that the Nexus 6P camera does - it lacks burst capture and the 240fps slow-motion video capture - but the first impressions of the camera are looking good.

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Google

Next Nexus will debut Android 6.0 Marshmallow

The Pope is actually Catholic and bears do indeed go for the toilet in the woods, so saying that the next Nexus is the launch platform for Android 6.0 isn't saying much. 

Android 6.0 Marshmallow brings a range of features to the Nexus 5X. There are controls under the hood to better manage your apps, giving you granular control over permissions, as well as notifications. You can also have power management for apps, with a Doze function letting them sleep in the background to preserve power.

The biggest new feature is Now on Tap. This puts the power of Google on every page with a long press of the home button. This will return contextual results based on what you're looking at or talking about. The idea is to save you time navigating the device and just bring you the information you need right away.

You can read all about Android 6.0 Marshmallow right here.