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Friday, 13 November 2015

iPhone 6 Plus Review: INSANE Battery Life, Great Performance

BIGGER and then some, we test out Apple's phablet-sized iPhone 6 Plus. But is it a better choice than the iPhone 6?

Rating: 
4
Typical Price: 
£619.00
Pros: 
Excellent camera; Insane processing power; Premium build materials; Brilliant battery life; Great Ecosystem; Gorgeous Display;
Cons: 
Might be too large for some users; Curved edges make it slippy in the hand; Aluminium finish means case is a MUST
Verdict: 
If you’ve ever been interested in buying an iPhone, but, for whatever reason, have consistently gone elsewhere, then the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the handsets you’ve been waiting forIt has been over a year since Apple released the iPhone 6 Plus and in that time quite a bit has happened. Samsung has released a bunch of phones, BlackBerry has adopted Android and, back in September, Apple unleashed its new iPhones -- the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. I’m still using my iPhone 6 Plus, though, and it is still running perfectly. It does have a slight crack in its front from when I dropped it but other than that this is by far and away the best phone I have ever owned -- bar none. 
Apple didn't get to where it is today by doing what everyone else is doing. No sir, Apple is one of the most successful and profitable companies (tech or otherwise) that has ever existed (with more money than the US government!) because it has long marched to the beat of its own drum, forging its own path to victory in whatever tech sector it decides to turn its efforts to; desktops, laptops, phones, tablets - you name it.
That's not to say that Apple doesn't have its finger on the pulse of what appeals to consumers. It most certainly does. But by and large it is coherent with its own vision rather than whatever rival firms are experimenting with
But while that is definitely the company's MO something like 90% of the time, it's also savvy enough to know that it doesn't exist in a vaccum, and every now and then, Apple sits up, looks at what the consumer base at large seems to like about competing tech, and adapts accordingly. This is usually pretty jarring for the Apple faithful, who get pretty comfy with doing things the Apple way.
September 2014 marks only the second time Apple has adapted its iPhone line-up in this way, to keep pace with popular moves made by its biggest competitors. Apple recognised that larger displays had become very popular, its 3.5in and 4in sized iPhones couldn't compete with bigger touchscreens for much longer. Change was afoot, and as evolution and natural selection tells us with "survival of the fittest", you either adapt to change or you become extinct.
So the iPhone 5S design was put to bed, and the iPhone 6 presented a complete revamp; an all new design with a much more rounded bodyshell and a larger 4.7in touchscreen. On top of this, Apple also jumped on the phablet bandwagon with a new and entirely separate model; the 5.5in iPhone 6 Plus - the biggest smartphone the company has ever produced.
I’ve been using both handsets since they went on sale, and throughout the past couple of months my usage habits have fluctuated. At first I was completely enamored by the iPhone 6, preferring the way it looked, handled and fitted in my pocket. I largely ignored the iPhone 6 Plus. But then, when it came to testing, I used it solidly for two weeks and was, quite literally, blown away by its battery performance. Coming from a Nexus 5, the size change took awhile to get used to but now, after a few months, I’m completely at home with the device. I’m pointing this out now because though the iPhone 6 Plus is BIG it does come with a lot of benefits sorely missing on Google’s Nexus 6 –– and the main one is battery performance. 
Both handsets are selling in insane numbers too –– over 70 million shipments in three months. Apple posted record quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion and record quarterly net profit of $18 billion, a HUGE bump from last year’s revenue of $57.6 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion. The company also confirmed that international sales (hello, China!) accounted for 65% of the quarter’s revenue. 
As of May 15, reports have emerged that Apple may sell over 50 million iPhone units during 2015's second quarter. Analytics firm UBS released predicted figures of 51.1 million iPhones, higher than Wall Street predictions of 45 million, but in the same ballpark as prominent analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who expects 51.4 million.
As per earlier reports, UBS believes Apple's recent upsurge in the rapidly growing Chinese market may be largely responsible for the boom in sales leading to these estimates. But Apple does have some rather stiff competition now in the form of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 EDGE. Below is an extract from our Samsung Galaxy S6 Review –– it got 5/5 by the way, and that literally NEVER happens. 
Impressed. Very, very impressed. This is the handset Samsung fans have been waiting for… an actual contender that surpasses Apple’s iPhone in almost every regard. Samsung might have made some erroneous mistakes in the past but all is forgiven now because the Galaxy S6 is easily one of the finest handsets I’ve ever tested. It's great at imaging. It performs great. It looks great. Hell, it’s even got a decent battery life AND a QHD display. 
And it is this latter point which makes the Galaxy S6 so damn compelling. I’ve never tested a QHD handset with decent battery life, even the one’s with HUGE 3000mAh+ setups. This is a HUGE USP for Samsung and one it will likely continue to exploit in 2015 with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, which is tipped to feature an even more powerful screen –– not that you need one. 
Samsung hasn’t produced a handset this compelling since, well, as long as I can remember. Like all good things, it is difficult to pin down exactly what makes this device so good, because it isn’t just one thing by itself. It’s more like a symphony of attributes, engineered perfectly, which combine to create a truly brilliant smartphone experience across the board. The Galaxy S6 does EVERYTHING and, best of all, it feels like it has plenty more in the tank should you need it. 
Let's now take a closer look at Apple's "phablet" –– the iPhone 6 Plus. 

iPhone 6 Plus Review: Design 

Even Apple admits the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 are pretty much the same deal, save for the display size and addition of Optical Image Stabilisation on the Plus. They do look the same too, again, save for the Plus’ overall size and weight difference. A lot has already been said about the design of Apple’s new handsets, specifically, how thin the iPhone 6 Plus is (hello, bendgate) and the antenna bands that run around the back of both handsets. 
Personally, I rather like the look of both handsets. They’re thin, almost too thin in the iPhone 6 Plus’ case, feel premium to the touch, and are very easy on the eye. They both still look like iPhones, though, so if you weren’t a fan of the iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s chances are you’re not going to a fan of these devices, either. But if you do like impossibly thin handsets that are massive then the iPhone 6 Plus is perhaps right up your street. 
For a lot of traditional iPhone users the iPhone 6 Plus might be too big a jump from Apple’s usual 4in iPhones. I think this handset is aimed at pulling in Android users, as they’re used to using handsets of this size in their everyday lives. The strategy definitely worked too; Apple sold a HUGE amount of iPhones in 2014/15 and most new adopters, according to Tim Cook, came from Android.
I say, massive, and I really do mean it –– the iPhone 6 Plus feels positively enormous in the hand compared to handsets with similarly sized displays like the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The reason for this is Apple’s huge bezels on the top and bottom of the phone, which add in an inch or two to the overall size of the handset. I get why the bottom bezel is so large –– it’s where TouchID lives –– but the top one… could that not have been reduced ever so slightly? Probably not as it’d screw the whole design of the phone up, but after testing A LOT of Android phones this year, there is definitely something to be said about large, phablet-sized panels and bezels that just get out of the way. Handle the LG G3 and then the iPhone 6 Plus and you’ll get what I’m on about. The difference in how the two phones handle is incredible, so much so you’d never believe they had the same size display. 
As I said earlier, design is subjective. Some people like phablets; others prefer handsets with displays under 5inches. I definitely fall into the latter camp, however, which is why I prefer the iPhone 6. And the reason for this is threefold: 1) I use my phone a lot, especially when on the move, so I prefer one I can use single-handedly; 2) I like a phone to fit snugly in my pocket, not take over the entire thing; and, 3) when a handset is too big, it feels unstable in my hand and I constantly worry about dropping it.
The drop-worry is a real issue, again, this is a big phone, and a thin phone, with rounded and smooth aluminium edges. It doesn't take a doctorate in physics to figure out why this might be a problem; getting a good grip on this device can be tricky and I constantly felt like it was about to fly out of my hand. 
Exact measurements for the iPhone 6 Plus are 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1 mm and it weighs 179g. As previously noted, the iPhone 6 Plus feels impossibly thin, however, to fully appreciate this aspect you really do have to handle one, so be sure to pop into your nearest Apple Store or phone shop to check it out. Aside from this the overall finish, look and styling of the handset is pretty much flawless –– Apple knows how to make good-looking phones and tablets.
As a phablet, though, I do think Apple has bitten off more than it can chew which is common mistake made by a lot of manufacturers when tackling the troublesome phablet phone. Take Samsung: it’s taken a good few generations of its Note device to really nail the design and overall experience, so much so that nowadays, with the Galaxy Note 4, which, by the way, has a larger display than the iPhone 6 Plus, you feel like you’re using a smaller handset than you actually are… and the main reason for this is because Samsung actually tried to figure out HOW to build a phone experience around a larger-than-normal display, not just make a bigger version of its Galaxy S handset. And that’s the big difference here, really.  
The iPhone 6 Plus, like the Galaxy Note 4, is still an excellent piece of kit. And if you’ve been waiting for Apple to do something similar to what’s been going on in the Android space for what seems like eons now, the iPhone 6 Plus will be a largely rewarding experience. I would suggest before committing to either the iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6 Plus that you try each out –– ahead of testing I was all about the iPhone 6 Plus, but after two weeks with both I am now firmly of the opinion that the iPhone 6, with its smaller 4.7in display, is the one for me. 
Design’s subjective, so make sure you make the right choice for you, and the only way to be 100% sure about which is the best fit for your needs is to try everything out before purchase. Beyond size, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, in the grand scheme of things, are identical, so all it really boils down to is how big do you want it? 

iPhone 6 Plus Review: Display 

The iPhone 6 Plus uses a 5.5in IPS LCD panel with a display resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which translates into a pixel density of 401 ppi. Compared to handsets like the LG G3 and the Galaxy Note 4, that’s quite a shortfall, but the panel itself is very capable, producing exact colour reproduction and contrast. Viewing angles are also good, and the reduction of space between the actual display-glass and the pixels themselves makes for a more immersive viewing experience –– it feels like you’re touching pixels. 
The iPhone 6 Plus’ display is better than the iPhone 6’s setup, both on paper and in the flesh. It outperformed every other LCD panel ever tested by Display Mate too, which is no mean feat considering the competition its up against and the fact the analysis company has been testing panels since 2006. 
“The new 5.5-inch iPhone reached or broke records in a variety of areas, including highest peak brightness, lowest screen reflectance, highest contrast ratio, highest contrast rating in ambient light, most accurate intensity scale and gamma and most accurate image contrast.”
So, yeah, the iPhone 6 Plus might not have the QHD pixel count, but it sure as sugar makes up for it in other areas that are, arguably, more important to the average user in any given normal usage case scenario. The larger panel also means the iPhone 6 Plus is better suited for watching films and TV shows and playing games like BioShock. 
Overall display quality is also one key area where Apple could easily differentiate the two handsets as well… because beyond size, as I’ve said multiple times already, there really isn’t much to separate these two handsets. Technically the iPhone 6 Plus has the superior panel. But realistically the difference in everyday settings is fairly unimpressive, with both panels producing excellent results in nearly every setting. 
One slight issue I do have with the iPhone 6 Plus’ larger, higher resolution display is to do with applications. Basically, a lot of core applications have not been updated for the iPhone 6 Plus’ higher resolution display, and the result is pixelated applications which look bloody horrific. During our testing period, one of the worst offenders, annoyingly, was one of our most-used apps, Whatsapp. Urghhh! Still, in a matter of weeks, this issue will likely be a moot point as more and more developers update their applications. Even so, it’s still a valid issue and is definitely worth a mention in the context of this review, as it was one of the first things I noticed when I first started using the Plus. 

iPhone 6 Plus Review: Hardware (CPU, RAM, Storage, Connectivity) 

Inside Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset is the law. It’s also one of the most powerful mobile processors on the planet, offering up support for 4K displays and 55MP cameras, as well as LTE-A and CAT 6 carrier aggregation to name but a few USPs. Apple, however, does things a bit differently…
The iPhone 5s saw Apple switch over to 64-bit with the advent of the A7 chipset. Inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, you’re looking at the next step in that process, the A8. As usual though, Apple was mightily secretive about its new chipset, preferring to offer up arbitrary stats on performance than actual specifics about what’s actually inside its 2014 kit. Thanks to plenty of digging around, however, we now have a pretty good idea about what’s cooking inside Apple’s new A8 chipset.
The chip itself is a 20nm setup and comprises two Enhanced Cyclone ARMv8 64-bit cores. As for the GPU, you’re looking at a quad-core IMG PowerVR GX6450 setup –– the straight up successor to the A7’s G6430. The iPhone 6 Plus, like the iPhone 6, still uses 1GB of RAM which is again barely anything compared to handsets like the LG G3, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and soon to be released Google Nexus 6. But this latter aspect should be of no concern to the everyday user, as the iPhone 6 Plus’ performance is pretty much off the charts (even compared to its higher-powered, Android counterparts).
Why? Simple: everything is designed from the chipboard up to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. There isn’t one aspect of the iPhone 6 Plus’ engineering that Apple isn’t directly involved in –– it exercises its OCD in all areas equally, and the end result is perfectly optimised components that work together seamlessly over prolonged periods of time without fault. This is one of the reasons why Apple fans stay with Apple: they trust the hardware, they know they’ll getsoftware support for at least two years, and they don’t mind paying a little extra for the privilege. 
In terms of real work performance, the iPhone 6 Plus absolutely screams along, feeling snappier and more fluid than its predecessors. But this was always going to be the case. That’s just progress. One area where you really will see BIG improvements, though, is inside games like Modern Combat 5, Asphalt 8: Airborne, Beach Buggy Racing and Epic Zen Garden, which were created using Apple’s new Metal developer tool and illustrate, pretty profoundly, just what these new iPhones and their A8 chipsets are capable of. 
One added benefit of the iPhone 6 Plus’ larger chassis is that CPU/GPU heat is dissipated more effectively throughout the handset, resulting in a far cooler in-hand experience than its smaller sibling when performing extended component-intensive tasks like gaming. 
In general, performance has been palpably improved over last year’s model –– and I don’t just mean in benchmarks, either. You can see and feel the difference, whether you’re looking at battery life, how it runs games, or whether just moving around iOS’ UX or using applications or Safari. Everything is faster, tighter and smoother. In this regard, I have zero complaints. The iPhone 6 Plus, like most modern handsets, has an INSANE amount of processing grunt under the hood when you consider what the average punter does with their phone! 
Specs aren’t everything. This is something Apple has long maintained, as it believes with the right level of optimisations and proper integration between software and hardware, an iPhone can out-perform an Android handset with plenty more processing grunt under the hood. This was recently shown to be true very recently in a benchmark comparing the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus against the hugely powerful Samsung Galaxy S6 has revealed. 
“The Galaxy S6 packs a bleeding-edge octa-core Exynos processor, 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM and lightning fast UFS 2.0 flash memory. But since all of that tech has to support a quad HD display, graphics performance takes a significant hit as a result,” reports BGR.
"As we can clearly see in the graphics performance test results above, the 720p and 1080p displays on Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus allow for graphics performance that crushes Samsung’s new flagship smartphone."
With regards to storage, you have three flavours: 16GB, 64GB and 128GB. There’s no MicroSD-support, for obvious reasons, but should you go for a 16GB model you can quickly supplant the internal storage of the device with an extra 20GB of iCloud storage for just £0.79 a month. With LTE, Apple is including support for 20-bands (the most inside any consumer smartphone) and a modem that’ll kick out speeds of up to 150mbps (handy, now EE has unleashed its LTE-A network in London). 
Both iPhones feature NFC but the only reason for its inclusion is Apple Pay and that, as we all know, is kind of a moot point because we won’t be getting Apple Pay in the UK until at least Q2 2015 (and that’s a conservative estimate). And Apple, in true Apple-style, has decided not to open up the NFC chip to developers, instead preferring to lock it down as a latent feature that will only come into being once Apple Pay is rolled out in the UK. That means no tap-to-pair functionality and no using EE’s Cash on Tap app to travel around London. Boo!!!
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iPhone 6 Plus Review: Camera

Apple made A LOT of big claims about the iPhone 6 Plus’ camera at launch, calling it the best smartphone camera in the world. And mostly, they weren’t talking bull either –– the camera is pretty damn impressive, whether indoors or outside, or whether you’re shooting video or still images. It’s still an 8MP sensor, but Apple has updated the inner components in a BIG way, adding in things like blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Phase detection auto-focus (PDAF), higher-resolution Slo-Mo video, reduced noise reduction, 1080p video at 60fps, and a new Time-Lapse feature, which really is rather a lot of fun (especially when filming take-offs from inside a plane).  

The setup is exactly the same as the iPhone 6’s, save for one aspect –– Optical Image Stabilisation (OSI). Now, Apple made a big deal about this at launch (and OIS is definitely preferable to DIS, which you get on the iPhone 6), but I have consistently struggled to really find much of a difference between the two cameras in general day to day usage scenarios. Also, contrast in images doesn’t seem to be quite as good as it was on the iPhone 5s – although I am at a loss to explain why.
One area where OIS does come into play in a big way is low-light shots, as it enables longer exposures (rather than just boosting the ISO) and this means less noise in the final image. The subject cannot be moving, however, otherwise you’ll still get a lot of motion blur in the final result. During my testing, this was the only real advantage I experienced over the iPhone 6 –– but, again, this isn’t a very typical user scenario.  
And yet, by and large, images taken in well-lit places do look pretty spectacular, as you can see below:
I don’t think Apple’s shooter will ever replace a DLSR, as some have claimed, but it is a very compelling setup nonetheless that can produce some seriously impressive results when placed in the right hands, as evidenced by Austin Mann’s gob-smacking iPhone 6 Plus-captured pictures below: 
It’s worth noting that Austin Mann is a professional photographer. As you can see from our test pictures, he’s got quite a lot of skills most iPhone 6 Plus users (us included) simply do not possess. Again, this is just an example of WHAT is possible when the iPhone 6 Plus is placed in the right hands. 

iPhone 6 Plus Review: Battery

Apple has improved the battery performance on both its latest iPhones; the 6 can do a full day with heavy usage and the 6 Plus, with its slightly larger battery, goes about 20-30% longer which is pretty significant, as it means if you’re a seriously heavy user, you can drum out a full day’s worth of use and still have plenty left by the time come 3 or 4am in the morning (handy, if you're on a BIG one).
And if you don’t use your iPhone 6 Plus all that much during a day, as I did this past weekend, you could be looking at around 75% battery life at around 7PM in the evening. In idle, both iPhones sip gently at power, taking only what they need to survive, resulting in hardly any drain at all compared to other handsets we’ve tested. You can up this even more by customizing back ground application refresh too, securing yourself even more juice on a daily basis. 
Also, and this is a biggy, because the iPhone 6 Plus’ display isn’t QHD it’s a hell of a lot more battery friendly. I’ve been using the Nexus 6 for a week now and, despite the fact it uses a larger battery pack, overall performance is no way near as good as the iPhone 6 Plus. And its not a slight difference, either: the iPhone 6 Plus has a good three or four hours on the Nexus 6 and it achieves all of this with a smaller battery.  
The ONLY thing that can be causing this is the Nexus 6’s QHD display. As many people have said since QHD became a thing: YOU DO NOT NEED IT! All it does is needlessly drain battery. Yes, it looks great when you’re watching video and the like but it’s not a big enough shift (i.e. you eyes can’t REALLY tell the difference between QHD and 1080p) by itself to warrant all the baggage that comes with it. Case in point: would you prefer a load of pixels you can’t see or longer battery life? I’d opt for the latter every-bloody-time. 
This, for me, was one of the iPhone 6 Plus’ biggest USPs. Previous iPhone models really struggled to survive a full day with heavy use, but both handsets can now handle it with ease. This is a significant milestone for Apple, and something EVERY user will appreciate. And yet, for me, the size trade off between the two handsets just isn’t worth that additional 10-15% uplift in battery life. Ditto for the camera’s OIS. 
In our Django Test, the iPhone 6 Plus, once again, proved its worth in the battery stakes finishing up with bang on 72% battery life, an impressive result which puts it very much in the top-tier of current smartphones tested. It’s also worth noting that many of its top-tier peers use considerably larger battery cells, so, once again, this is a big deal for Apple. It gets a lot of mileage out of the iPhone 6 Plus’ 2915 mAh battery.

iPhone 6 Plus Review: Verdict 

What this really comes down to is personal preference with design and price. If you like large phones –– and the iPhone 6 Plus is VERY large –– then you’re looking at one of the best phablets on market. Personally, I prefer the way the LG G3 and Galaxy Note 4 accommodate their larger displays. This is mostly to do with design, however, as both the Note 4 and G3 have smaller bezels and thicker, weightier bodies, which creates, IMHO, a better in-hand experience. In terms of everything else, however, I’d say all three handsets are pretty evenly matched –– it’s mostly about OS preference at the end of the day.
Everything else about the iPhone 6 Plus is very impressive, however, just as it is with the iPhone 6, the LG G3 and the Galaxy Note 4 –– the latter three are my top three devices of the year, in case you’re interested. But these days, top-flight handsets from the world’s biggest tech brands are all decent, packing in the latest processors, imaging technology and services. It’s more about ecosystem than ever before, really –– ecosystem and services. Apple knows this and so does Google, which is why both the new platforms from each feature a myriad of new bells and whistles like HealthKit, HomeKit and Apple Pay.
If you’ve ever been interested in buying an iPhone, but, for whatever reason, have consistently gone elsewhere, then these are the handsets you’ve been waiting for. As a long standing Android user, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus solve a lot of the “issues” I had with Apple’s smartphones, namely: battery life, screen size and the company’s insane over-regulation of iOS’s core APIs.
Initially I preferred the iPhone 6. I liked its size, weight and general overall design. But in recent weeks my allegiance has slowly but surely switched to the iPhone 6 Plus. The reason? Simple: battery life –– the iPhone 6 Plus just doesn’t let you down, offering up a solid two day’s worth of use before dying. Had Apple has the foresight to include some from of Project Volta-style battery extender then I’d probably still prefer the iPhone 6. But for now, because battery is by far and away the most important thing to me as a user, I am ALL ABOUT the iPhone 6 Plus. 

Latest iPhone 6 & iPhone Plus News & Features

  • Apple Pay Explained – Find out how you can use the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus (as well as the Apple Watch) to make payments via NFC and TouchID.
  • Best HealthKit Apps – A selection of the best apps which can tap into iOS 8's HealthKit API
  • Apple's Metal Explained – Console-like gaming on iPhone is now a reality, and it's all thanks to Metal. Here's everything you need to know about the biggest thing to happen to mobile gaming since Angry Birds. 
  • Best iOS 8 Custom Keyboards – Android's had them for years and now, FINALLY, you can install third party keyboards on your iPhone and iPad. Here's a selection of the best so far. 
  • What Is HealthKit? – What it is and how it works inside iOS 8.
  • What Is HomeKit? – You're home of the future is just around the corner. Here we take a look at how iOS 8 –– via Siri and HomeKit –– will allow you to control your house using your Apple Watch and iPhone 6.
  • iOS 8 Beta 5 Review – An advanced look at iOS 8 ahead of its scheduled Sept. 17 release. 
  • EVERYTHING You Need To Know About Apple Watch – A detailed look at Apple's first wearable devices, AKA the Apple Watch
  • Will Apple Watch EVER Play Nice With Android? – Evan Blass –– AKA @evleaks –– discusses why he believes Apple should play-nice with Android
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