First iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Reviews: 'Thin and Sexy', 'Bigger and Better', Impressive Battery Life Up to 2 Days

[OutSpoken]

Yeah it sucks. But I guess they need to keep something for 6S release next year.

And then next year they'll save something else for the iPhone 7 and so on and so on... This seems to be Apples strategy at the moment.

It just depends on when you jump on the train.. For me i tend to skip the middle road 's' models and purchase the generations with the biggest design change e.g iPhone 4, iPhone 5 and now the 6.

 

[doomfront]

just saying here, neither phone is going to last 2 days. calling that now.

Probably will for the first few days, over time it'll go down like all batteries.

First day I got my Note 2, wanted to see how long I could go without a single charge with really heavy use. Got around 36 hours, now 12 hours is kinda pushing it.

 

[blodyholy]

Debunked.

Confirmed to be from iphone 5s

Thanks! Thought as much. Although it does appear we are again stuck w/1GB.

 

[2259]

Yet, you spent your time typing this on a site were you knew enthousiast are and would read this. Wanted to climb on your moral high horse and inspect the scene?

Seriously, everytime I hear those argument I laugh! YOu can discuss this in the morning and then go spend the rest of the day knee deep in blood fighting ebola.

You think everyone should focused on their life goal of saving the world every single minute of every day. Do you know the lives of everyone you look down on? Mankind of full of little irrational passions, that's what makes us human and not robots.

Completely agree ... It's people like the members of MacRumours who work in full time employment and pay taxes to their government that should be left to order gadgets etc. in peace.

If a member wants to preach about spending time volunteering etc, go ask the thousands of unemployed in your region, who pay no taxes and instead claim £££/$$$ off their government to sit at home all day. ...

 

[0092762]

Very disappointed in the absence of a RAM figure. Any reviews tried opening up a bunch of tabs in Safari, and some other apps and see how often tabs/apps have to reload? Because that's what matters as opposed to a tech spec number. I wouldn't trust what apps would report at this stage.

 

[MentalFloss]

just saying here, neither phone is going to last 2 days. calling that now.

Always depends on how you measure it. GPS navigation with screen set to full brightness while playing music at full volume? Certainly not going to last for two days.

 

[wowmyers]

It's ridiculous that so many of these reviews do battery tests with the screen "at 100% brightness". How many people use their phones at max brightness? Almost no one. That is really measuring an entirely different thing than you want and is misleading. It just sounds lazy, like they couldn't wait for a test at real-world levels to complete.

I use my phone at 100% brightness. Testing at that rate simulates the worst case scenario for battery life. Comparison is only useful if apples-to-apples. Whether 25% or 100%. Not lazy or misleading - they did the work of the testing and wrote the article while giving all the testing parameters.

 

[Keirasplace]

I have been waiting for the 6 to come out long way... now its out I don't see much of a big difference from the 5s only bigger screen ... I have been looking at both Apple and Android based phones ....

Ill wait till i have one in my hands... im kinda leaning towards the 2 day battery of Sony Z3, waterproof phone...

just my 2 cents

Best camera (5s was already the best), top CPU, top GPU, very different form factor, smallest phone overall size, bigger screen, h265 encoding/decoding (a first), better touch ID (something none has even done right in the previous incarnation), I'd bet best color reproduction (waiting for someone to test that), 2 day battery life on the 6+ (same as you Sony), NFC tightly integrated into the ecosystem.

Wow, that's no difference AT ALL

So, basically, Sony has waterproofing as its only advantage? I supposed if you work outside, or spend extensive time on the beach (a surfer?) its needed, but otherwise meh.

 

[kalsta]

The camera quality is important to me so I am thrilled to read Nilay Patel's review of the 6 Plus where he says...

"The iPhone 6 Plus camera is the best smartphone camera I’ve ever used. Apple’s holding firm at 8 megapixels while everyone else is racing to put ever-bigger numbers on spec sheets, and it feels like the right decision: the iPhone 6 Plus focuses faster, works better in low light, and generally produces the best photos I’ve ever seen from a phone."

Graphic designer and hobbyist photographer here… and I'm super glad to see Apple sticking with 8MP! They bowed to market pressure for ridiculously big phones, but not for ridiculously big camera resolutions, which is great. Some people look at the pixel count and declare it to be the same camera as in the 4S! But the evidence will be in the results.

 

[BJMRamage]

glowing reviews? on an Apple device...strange indeed.

this week is going by so slowly.....

 

[fishmd]

I love how the guy in The Verge video looks like he is wearing the Moto 360 watch. Lol.

 

[cdmoore74]

Catch up means screen size? Or Touch ID, 64-bit hardware/OS, Apple Pay or full metal body? Oops, Note 3/4 got none of these or some but don't work well (finger print, Google Wallet on Note 3 or 64-bit chip in 32-bit OS on Note 4...lol)

I'd rather take 3GB of ram on my 32bit processor than 1GB of ram on your 64bit processor. Apple is playing you guys. In my honest opinion the cpu jump from the A7 to A8 is negligible and it was more about screen size this time around to stop people from jumping to Android. After their pitiful win vs Samsung they had to go big.
Sorry to break it to you but the Note 4 has a metal frame with removable battery door. Pretty sure you can't use the "it's plastic" excuse any more. You can swap the back with leather, metal or snake skin if you wish. They even have a bling back if thats your speed.
Apple has managed to make a phone uglier than the iPhone 5 but Samsung made a phone that looks better with a metal frame. Apple design team dropped the ball on that slippery phone which is larger than any Samsung Note. It even has a smaller screen to boot. The Verge even said that it's best to get a case to hide that mess of lines and to prevent it from slipping out of your hands.

 

[k995]

Its related mostly to programming first and then memory, CPU and storage subsystem interacting.

Implementation makes all the difference.

For example,

If you had a beast CPU able to compact unused memory structures on the fly on an unused core when you don't need them (and vice versa when you do), well you'd need not much memories at all for Web browsing.

Yes in theory, but this is not the case now or in any near future so pointless .

You can also make you storage access and CPU much quicker and thus can get things back into memory faster.

Lets see if the iphone 6 or iOs 8 have improved on this. I hope as this for me is really annoying .

And still memory will always be faster as apps and websites grow in size more memeory is a small cost to at least have the best experience browsing or be future proof .

 

[Keirasplace]

Because the maths do not add up. Like I said did they actually use the phones during those two days. Its like when apple claim x days call time with their iphone 5. This statistic is pointless because the iphone 5 is a half a day phone period.

I don't expect the iphone 6 to be a 2 day phone with only a 3000mah battery. You would need at least 5000mah

IF they cut 50% power usage on the CPU (and maybe some more on the RAM), you don't think that would make any difference. You do realize that they control their own software AND SOC unlike, well everyone. You think they're gaining nothing out of this.

The CPU is 25% faster, but it seemingly is seriously underclocked (since it never trottles). That alone means its using much much less power.

 

[psac]

I like what the Yahoo reviewer to test the image stabilization, clipping the 6+ and a 5S to a bike and rode around. HUGE difference.

 

[barondebxl]

I gotta say the space gray is the absolute best looking iphone. I should have picked it over the gold. Oh well....at least i didnt pick the tacky silver.

 

[briankeith513]

I'd rather take 3GB of ram on my 32bit processor than 1GB of ram on your 64bit processor. Apple is playing you guys. In my honest opinion the cpu jump from the A7 to A8 is negligible and it was more about screen size this time around to stop people from jumping to Android. After their pitiful win vs Samsung they had to go big.

Sorry to break it to you but the Note 4 has a metal frame with removable battery door. Pretty sure you can't use the "it's plastic" excuse any more. You can swap the back with leather, metal or snake skin if you wish. They even have a bling back if thats your speed.

Apple has managed to make a phone uglier than the iPhone 5 but Samsung made a phone that looks better with a metal frame. Apple design team dropped the ball on that slippery phone which is larger than any Samsung Note. It even has a smaller screen to boot. The Verge even said that it's best to get a case to hide that mess of lines and to prevent it from slipping out of your hands.

Actually the note 4 is using plastic and metal, and while it's a great screen, they still choose to use cheaper build materials, in a thicker phone. Also, as I'm sure you've noticed, Samsung phones always have better specs than iPhones, but rarely does it ever out perform iPhones in real world tests

 

[Keirasplace]

With early Apple reviews on mainstream sites you have to understand one thing: these guys absolutely cannot be seen "badmouthing" the product if they want to stay on Apple's "good guys" list. These kind of "subtle jabs" might be the reviewer trying to say what he cannot say ("the back is ugly").

Right... But seemingly they can badmouth Samsung phone, which sells tens of millions of phones in the US and spend much more on marketing at those very media.... Man that makes sooo much sense... Apple sure has some whacko powers.

Everyone without fail is unethical, but only when they review Apple products; is that your line of thinking.

Good grief.

 

[Cod3rror]

I wonder how does it compare with nokia 808 or Lumia 1020.

In terms of picture quality it won't compare to 1020, not to mention 808 PureView.

But if you look at the camera experience as a whole, it should beat both. 1020 is slow as hell! 808 is much faster (because of the dedicated hardware) but it runs on Symbian, a dead OS, it's not usable as a primary phone. As a cameraphone phone it's a masterpiece.

Using 6 and 6+ is going to be super quick. It's going to start quick, focus quick and take lots of pictures... quick. And images will have more than acceptable quality for casual users.

 

[pik.]

Yes, but holding it with one hand does not imply that you use it with one hand.

I can hold a Note 3 in one hand without any problems whatsoever, but it is completely impossible to use it with one hand (and the same probably goes for the 6 Plus). Is it so difficult to understand the difference between "holding" and "using" in that sentence?

ok ok...
trying to hide behind the words ...
Now tell me what are you buying?

Dunno, I've always gotten great battery life out of my 4S. Just a little web surfing every day, some casual games, a dozen email checks, and some iBooks (which the screen is too small for). Probably average 5-15 minutes of calls per day and maybe a dozen SMS, take a few photos here and there. Might be because it spends a lot of time on wifi and I don't use the GPS much (I notice the battery going down much faster when I do). I also have a very strong 3G signal from Verizon, so it doesn't need to boost antenna power to hunt for signal much.

well wifi helps a lot...

 

[Keirasplace]

Lets see if the iphone 6 or iOs 8 have improved on this. I hope as this for me is really annoying .

And still memory will always be faster as apps and websites grow in size more memeory is a small cost to at least have the best experience browsing or be future proof .

There is no real reason for web sites to use that much memory. That's the real mystery for me. I've been in computer engineering since the 1980s. Web pages are quite simple programs that often accomplish simple functions. The way they are built, with massive amount of external references makes them much bigger memory hogs than they should be. But, fixing this is not easy as it devellopped organically over 20 years and has much legacy cruft.

 

[MentalFloss]

ok ok...
trying to hide behind the words ...
Now tell me what are you buying?

The monstrously large iPhone 6 Plus, which can't be used with one hand.

Edit: 6 PLUS, not 6.

 

[geo1378]

Catch up means screen size? Or Touch ID, 64-bit hardware/OS, Apple Pay or full metal body? Oops, Note 3/4 got none of these or some but don't work well (finger print, Google Wallet on Note 3 or 64-bit chip in 32-bit OS on Note 4...lol)

Really? I had a note 3 it was not impressive, felt cheap and the fake leather back is ridiculous. I saw many reviews of the iPhone 6 plus saying it is the best camera of any smartphone they ever used. Note 3 is now a year old about and the iPhone 6 plus is better for most people. No one uses the stylus on the note 3, well not many.. and i never used split screen multitasking hardly either when i had a note 3. my battery sucked on note due to android.

 

[Keirasplace]

At least according to Engadget's review, the difference is not quite that huge.

"Shots taken by the Lumia 1020 were far more detailed and had a slightly more accurate white balance and color representation outside; but while it did a fantastic job capturing the shadows, the highlights were typically more blown out than they were on the iPhone. "

So while I read out of this that the 1020 ultimately had the better camera (no surprise there), it does not win in all regards. For a phone that is being marketed as the camera phone with "unbeatable photos" (their words) and that looks like a point and shoot camera with a phone glued to its back, that is not such an impressive performance.

Considering the sluggishness of the 1020, including focusing, its not a great camera at all. In a smartphone, where taking the picture at the right time is key, that alones makes the Iphone Camera better.

 

[geo1378]

How can anyone say the iPhone 6 plus will be slow with multitasking when you have no idea. Apple would not do something that runs slow or bad, they would just not give it to us if it wasn't just right. Its just something for people to talk about.I had a note 2 and 3 for a short period and i never used multitasking honestly. With copy and paste i had no need to. It would be more useful on an iPad and it would be a feature that some would use on the phone but most people wouldn't. But going by apples history i have faith that they would only do it if it ran good and wouldn't be surprised if they could do it with 1 gb ram if that is definitely what the iPhone 6 has. there is no reason to even think it won't work now cause no one knows if they will add this feature to this model.