the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 is the heir apparent to the
flagship line of Apple smartphones, as it comes in at
the same price point as the iPhone 5s, but Apple has
done something new this year by introducing a
premium priced iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 is still
plenty premium, however, and its 4.7-inch screen is
likely going to be a better fit for most users, which is
why it earns our vote as the best smartphone currently
available.
Video Review
iPhone 6 Review
Basics
Pros
Cons
Design
Apple has outdone itself with the iPhone 6’s design –
despite gaining a significant amount of screen real
estate, it doesn’t feel huge compared to its
predecessor, and it’s still a very easy device to use
one-handed. The new, thinner case means it weighs
just over half an ounce more than the iPhone 5s, and
the even weight distribution across a broader surface
area means it isn’t noticeably heavier than the older
phone. It manages to make the 5 and 5s feel
downright chunky, in fact, which is incredible.
New also to this generation is the all-metal back
casing, which replaces the glass top and bottom
panels with thin connecting seams instead. This makes
for a more unified look when you turn the phone
around, and something that gets closer to the unbroken
single plane of the iPad mini and iPad Air’s rear shell.
The Space Gray version I tested benefits very much
from this unbroken look, and the front of the device is
no less impressive. It really makes the screen the star,
which is crucial because Apple has created a display
like no other with this generation, beating back its
would-be Android usurpers – but I’ll touch more on
that in the dedicated display section below.
The iPhone 6 is a much more comfortable device to
hold vs. the iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and 5s, all of which
preferred straight edges and right angles to the 6’s
sloping curves. Its rounded edges call to mind the
iPhone 3GS and earlier, in fact – and its closest design
analogue might be the metal-backed original iPhone,
which also had edges that rounded to a flat rear shell.
Regardless of its inspirations, it fits more naturally in
your grip, and will rest there more comfortably for
longer periods, too.
The rounded edges all along the display help contribute
to the near-seamless look that Apple was going for,
but they also serve an ergonomic purpose. Using
Apple’s swipe-back and swipe-forward gestures, which
it began to use to replace back and forward button
navigations in iOS 7, is much easier and more natural
with the iPhone’s new front glass design, and when the
device’s screen is darkened, these catch and bend
light in a way that’s sure to appeal to a design fan’s
eye.
that protruding iSight camera lens on the back, which
sticks out a tiny fraction of an inch thicker than the
rest. It’s something that hasn’t yet caused me any
issue in daily use, but it does seem like a potential
area for grit build-up, and it also means that the phone
will be resting on its lens when placed face-up on a flat
surface – though that’s somewhat mitigated by the
use of sapphire in the lens cover.
Performance
iPhone 6, and it delivers the kind of performance you’d
expect from cutting edge processor technology. The
A8 strains the limits of what you’d think was possible
in terms of overall device speed and responsiveness,
with the entire user experience feeling perceptibly
quickened. It’s one of those situations where you don’t
realize how the device you were using (iPhone 5s in
my case) could get any better in terms of general
speed, until you pick up the new device.
The iPhone 6 deals better with iOS 8’s various
animations, transparency and other visual effects as a
result, and can handle powering that larger, high-
resolution display without breaking a sweat. It can
handle more powerful games, and best of all, delivers
better battery life even when tackling visually intensive
tasks. Plus it enables new imaging features that really
make Apple’s mobile camera far and away the best in
the business, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.
Related Videos
Apple has also improved the motion coprocessor it
introduced last year, which is a dedicated activity
tracking chip. The M8 in the iPhone 6 offers
continuous monitoring of not only accelerometer,
compass and gyroscope data, but also introduces
monitoring of information fed from the new barometer
for determining changes in elevation. The M8 can also
detect walking, running and driving activity. In practice,
using it to monitor and display my daily distance
travelled, steps and flights climbed worked extremely
well, and didn’t seem to have a significant negative
effect on my battery.
Features
is their ability to use Touch ID, the new Secure
Element for storing payment info, and NFC to perform
easy, contactless payments. They’re not currently
available for use anywhere in my vicinity, and Apple
isn’t launching the Apple Pay functionality until
October anyway. However, I got the chance to see it in
action in a demo capacity at the event, and it works
just as you’d expect it would with payments authorized
via a thumb scan in the same way they are with the
current method of authorizing digital purchases from
iTunes via Touch ID. You don’t even need to unlock
your device for it to work, making it potentially the
most convenient mobile payment solution I’ve ever
seen.
Speaking of Touch ID, it seems improved over the
version found in the iPhone 5s. By that I mean that it
seems to recognize and unlock much faster (which
could be related to improved processing power) and it
also seems to have a lower failure rate than the older
generation. If Apple has stepped up the tech behind
Touch ID, it isn’t saying so, but the smoother
experience should definitely help now that it’s being
used for both Apple Pay and opening up to third-party
developer integration.
Health is new to iOS 8, and in the iPhone 6 it’s already
become a staple of my daily app check routine. It
seems to do a decent job of accurately tracking my
activity throughout the day (or lack thereof), and is at
least on par with the kind of information you’ll get
from wearables like the Fitbit line or the Nike+
Fuelband. So far, there aren’t many sources to choose
from in terms of filling out a full profile, and I think
Apple could do some work in terms of making it easier
for users to drill down to individual day totals from
their activity history, but this is a nice, passive feature
that Apple has managed to make power efficient and
accurate with the new M8.
Apple’s new iPhone line is capable of improved slow
motion video, which technically means it can shoot at
240fps instead of 120fps. This slows down time when
played back at the speed we’re used to viewing, and
makes it possible to capture even fast action in
incredible detail. The short clip below shows you this in
action, albeit with resolution decreased as it was
formatted and shared via Apple Mail, which
automatically optimizes for a lower file size.
iPhone 6 Slow-Mo
Sample
Reachability is a feature unique to the iPhone 6 and 6
Plus which is designed to help compensate for their
large screen sizes, and make it possible to still use the
big phones one-handed, regardless of how large your
mitts are. On the iPhone 6, it simply makes things
more convenient, as I’ve found no difficulty in using the
device one-handed even with the screen in its regular
position. Reachability is an extremely pragmatic
solution to the screen size issues, but luckily in the
case of the iPhone 6, it’s generally just a tool you
know is there should you need it, rather than something
you’ll find yourself actually using all that often.
Display
The iPhone 6 packs a higher resolution display than the
iPhone 5s, with 1334 x 750 resolution. It also allows
for deeper blacks, and uses something called “dual-
domain” pixels to make it so that colors still show true
regardless of the angle at which you view the phone. It
makes for 38 percent more viewing area than the
iPhone 5s, but it’s only 13 percent larger overall, and it
matches the iPhone 5s’ pixel density at 326, which
means you’re still not going to be able to make out any
individual pixels.
Display Zoom will let you use this extra space to simply
expand the size of individual interface elements and
text, which is great for users who have vision issues or
who simply find themselves squinting at their phone
too often. If you’re not using Display Zoom, you get
more breathing room for on-screen elements, and you
get an extra row of icons per home screen, which is
very useful if you’re having trouble deciding what
makes the cut for page number one.
This is truly one of Apple’s most amazing technical
achievements overall – it looks like a placeholder high-
res print image placed expertly just behind the glass,
until it springs to life. Leave it to other manufacturers
to debate the relative merits of this or that kind of
display tech; Apple’s is simply the best-looking and
most pleasant to use, and the iPhone 6 reaffirms that
with some of the best color rendering I’ve seen on
mobile.
Camera
camera experience in a smartphone – which isn’t to
say it delivers the most megapixels, or the most trick
features. Instead, the company looks at what’s most
important in a mobile camera to most users, and
delivers exactly that, again and again. The iPhone 6
adheres to this tradition.
It still shoots 8 megapixel resolution images, which is
paltry compared to some of the other cameras built
into phones these days. But these are large pixel
images, which makes a big difference, and the 6 also
boasts the power of Focus Pixels, which is the name
Apple is giving to its new phase detection autofocus.
The end effect, whatever the name, is much faster
autofocus, which Apple has made more invisible by
hiding the
The camera also has better and more accurate face
detection, which can pick up smaller faces and is also
better able to pick up closed eyes and smiles when
you’re using burst mode and it’s trying to suss out the
best capture from a large series. The camera can also
now create high-resolution panorama shots, which
adjust exposure automatically as you go depending on
variances in light, producing stunning results with total
resolution of up to 43 megapixels.
Video capture on Apple’s iPhone 6 is also fantastic,
and the stabilization techniques they use to make
video shot in even the shakiest scenarios appear more
stable are truly impressive, as you can see in the video
sample below, which was shot while I walked my dog
(with no effort to achieve a smooth gait).
iPhone 6 Camera
Stabilizaton
Battery
The iPhone 6 uses improved battery tech, and it shows
– in practice, I’d get about a day and a half, normal
use. Overall, though, it’s rated by Apple pretty closely
on most scores when compared to the 5s, offering
similar hour ratings when it comes to media playback,
browsing and standby, but claiming an additional four
hours of talk time. In actual real-world use, it fared
better than my iPhone 5s in terms of operating time on
a single charge, but the iPhone 5s I was testing
against is also a year old at this point.
Still, it doesn’t feel like you need to be miserly with
respect to power when you’re using the iPhone 6, and
even if you’re using all the background activity tracking
bells and whistles, it should more than get you through
the average day with juice intact.
Bottom Line
The iPhone 6 is the best smartphone available. It
offers improvements in almost every way that matters,
and it delivers those in a striking new design that
balances consumer demand for larger screens with a
thin, light and durable case. It’s Apple’s most
attractive phone, visually, and the 4.7-inch size is going
to be more generally appealing than the iPhone 6 Plus’
larger proportions.
More than anything, the selling point here is that Apple
has managed to recapture the energy and excitement
that came with the original iPhone with the new
iPhone 6. It feels like a return to form in all the right
ways, in addition to packing a ton of new features like
Apple Pay that light the path for what Apple as a
company is to become. For users, though, it’s all about
delivering the best computer you can keep in your
pocket, and that’s exactly what the iPhone 6 is.
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iPhone 6 Review: Meet The New Best
Smartphone
Posted 1 hour ago by Darrell Etherington ( @drizzled)
4.7-inch, 1334 x 750 display, 326 ppi with 1400:1
contrast ■
16, 64 or 128GB storage ■ A8 processor (64-bit) ■
8MP iSight camera (rear) with 1.5 micron pixels,
1.2 megapixel FaceTime camera (front) ■
Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi ■ 20-band LTE support ■ MSRP: 16GB for $199 on contract/$649 contract
free; 64GB for $299 on contract/$749 contract free;
128GB for $399 on contract/$849 contract free
■
Product info page ■
The best mobile camera, made better ■ Industrial design beats all previous iPhones ■
Rounded edges could mean the phone’s a little less
easy to grip
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