Buyers looking to pick up a large-screen smartphone this holiday season will inevitably end up looking at two of the biggest names around: The Apple iPhone 6 Plus and the Google Nexus 6. Which one is right for you? Let's take a look at what the phones really offer.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

The iPhone 6 Plus is Apple's largest smartphone offering to date. With a 5.5-inch Retina display capable of pushing out a resolution of 1920 X 1080 pixels, viewers are treated to a pleasing 401 pixels per inch. Although the iPhone 6 Plus only has 1GB of RAM (compared to some other flagship handsets with up to 3GB RAM), the latest in the iPhone lineup delivers blazing performance thanks to the new 64-bit A8 chip and M8 motion coprocessor.

The new iPhone 6 Plus does weigh around 50 grams more than the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c did, but it is still slimmer than all other models except the iPhone 6, which edges it out by .01 inches. Apple also opted for a sleeker, rounder design and the entire gadget is encased in the high-quality aluminum everybody expects from Apple.

Camera-wise, the rear-facing camera still sits at 8 megapixels, although there are numerous improvements behind the lens that allow for sharper focusing and the ability to record slo-mo video at up to 240 fps (compared to 120 fps in previous iPhones).

All of this leads up to the iOS 8 experience, which is the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system that comes with new additions to better consolidate health data and open up the possibility of remotely controlling appliances in a home.

The iPhone 6 Plus is available in the colors Silver, Gold, and Space Gray, with 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB models, and starts at $750 without a contract.

Google Nexus 6

The Motorola-manufactured Nexus 6 smartphone is a bit of a different beast. With a 5.96-inch display, the Nexus 6 is slightly larger than the iPhone 6 Plus. In fact, while most of the phone has tech reviewers pleased, the size could be an issue -- it just seems to come off as too big. Be sure to try the Nexus 6 out in a store before settling on one. You might need to spring for bigger hands and pockets too.

Underneath the hood, the Nexus 6 sports a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, 3GB RAM and an Adreno 420 GPU. The Nexus 6's rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization can take stills at 13 megapixels and 4K video at 30 fps, while the front shooter captures at 2 megapixels.

Feedback indicates that the Nexus 6 is one of the best Android smartphones out there. The smartphone runs stock Android, meaning it doesn't have the frills and bloatware that manufacturers like Samsung or carriers like AT&T fill up their devices with. In fact, the new Android 5.0 Lollipop experience has most raving, but unlike previous Nexus smartphones which delivered a great vanilla Android experience at a low price, the Nexus 6 will set you back a pretty penny -- $649 to be exact.

Conclusion:

In the end the advice is the same: try out both handsets before choosing. Size will be an issue here, but more importantly, it's important to decide between the iOS and Android operating system experience. Both have their ups and downs, especially with the iOS app ecosystem being more stable, but there's no way to tell which is more useful for your personal use than by actually using it.

The price points for both phablets aren't too far off, both are available through all the major U.S. carriers and both phones are powerful enough to keep around for another couple years -- which one do you prefer? Let us know in the comments section below. 

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