Primarily because of the difference in screen size. If someone is considering a 6-inch phone, they probably are not interested in 5-inch phones. Thus, we compared it to other devices with a 5.5-inch or larger screen (and the Nexus 5 just because it was the previous generation).
Thanks for pointing this out. The article has been updated to reflect the current pricing.
We had already completed the review by the time the 5.1 update was available (there was a gap between completion and posting). Since the 5.1 update is supposed to specifically address FDE performance, I did rerun AndEBench and updated the review to include the performance delta relative to 5.0. I also reran Geekbench and did not see any significant change in performance. The 5.1 update also had no effect on photo quality or display performance.
It is not about it being dinosaur technology, it is about business model of charging an arm and a leg for any upgrade. "Modern users" consider changing wallpaper on their phone ultimate customization decent user should do. Anything else is too complicated..
I understand what you say, but I think that the main reason of not proposing MicroSD slot on the devices has much more to do with device manufacturers trying to reduce the return rates than vendors trying to sell you cloud storage.
