I have all these Android Phone vs iPhone debates with some friends quite often (tongue in cheek, we don't take it too seriously, just banter) and we all sort of came to the conclusion that the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and probably iPhone 6 are about the ideal maximum comfortable size in the hand. The friend with the HTC just upgraded to the M8 because he said he was already having battery issues one year in and while it's a lovely phone it just crosses the line of being a little too large for those not into phablets.
What holds the iPhone 6 back just a little are those large bezels though, the S4 is almost exactly the same size but with a 5" screen, the design and frankly the OS is dated now. You can keep dressing it up in different clothes but like an ageing Hollywood actress no amount of plastic surgery really helps that much, in many ways gets worse - in the case of the iPhone the bezels that were a feature of the original 3.5" phone and made it work well in the hand are now looking a little ungainly to say the least at this larger size.
If the iPhone 7 is merely another refinement now screen sizes are starting to stabilize (I'd imagine 4.7-5.0" will become the norm for "phones" again - 5.2-5.5" is definitely getting too large and strays the phablet zone too closely) then it will be a definite disappointment - even the 6 and 6 Plus were a bit of a let down for many. My Android-loving friends surprisingly seemed a bit disappointed (rather than taking the piss as usual) because at heart we're all techies and want to see progress and innovation rather than stagnation, at the very least if the new iPhones were truly beautiful to behold it would be something but they're pretty "meh".
As the size of the devices has increased I really think Apple need to go back the the drawing board with the iPhone now, they're starting to beat a dead horse with the design and need to truly freshen it up for the next gen, start thinking about new ways to implement the home button, shrink those bezels a bit and grow the screen (and resolution on the 6 as it seems to be a sticking point in those reviews) while maintaining the relative size they have, or even shrinking it a little. Pay some attention to battery concerns too and stop worrying about making it thinner all the time - one of the reviews even states that the HTC is more comfortable in the hand because it's thicker and shaped better.
Just my ramblings on it, my 6 arrives friday, I'm sure it'll be great but I'm not expecting anything special, just an incremental improvement over my 5 really.
