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

[Digital Skunk]

Stop insulting, will you? The fact is the 6+ is bigger than the competition.

It is indeed. Apple really needs to do something about that home button, but Touch ID is becoming more and more of a necessity.

Maybe they can at least change the shape of it. It's substantially taller on the iPhones than the home button on the Notes. Which makes the iPhone 4s and former look like nothing but bezel.

To cut a long story short, just because Samsung put every feature into every phone, doesn't make it great, in fact far from it.

That's all nice and everything, but the same can be said about the iPhone. If you don't use Apple specific apps and features it's a useless phone.

At least Samsung gave users the option to use the features or turn them off. Most of the time i found myself using them . . . . . extensively.

 

[Nightarchaon]

"up to 2 days"

so that means it might last me almost a day, as the current iPhone 5s last me from undocking at 630am to around 2pm-4pm at best before it goes kerput

If i could get 630am to 11pm and still have 20% charge to get me to midnight at a push, id be happy.

 

[MentalFloss]

so that means it might last me almost a day, as the current iPhone 5s last me from undocking at 630am to around 2pm-4pm at best before it goes kerput

What do you do with your phone during that time?

As a 4S user who is still happy with the battery life, I never realized that it was such a huge issue on the 5S. My wife has a 5S (granted, she doesn't use it heavily), and she has never complained.

 

[MacRazySwe]

I can't decide whether to get the iPhone 6 or not.

Right now, I'm using the 5S 16GB. It's a great phone, feels perfect in the hand, offers all the performance I need. However, I have longed for a larger screen iPhone for a long time. Also, as apps are continuously growing in size and I take more pictures than ever due to the great camera, 16GB is getting cramped. I find myself having to delete apps and photos A LOT.

That said, I was pretty much set on getting the 6 in a larger storage configuration. Rumors suggested that 32GB would be the new standard size. Now Apple made a dick-move to keep the 16GB while completely removing 32GB. I would have much preferred if Apple made 32GB the baseline, or if they would have made it cheaper to upgrade from 16 to 32.

I guess you can't have the cake and eat it.

So, the iPhone 6 would get a bit more pricey than I had hoped. But, I'm fine with paying plenty of money as long as I get the best phone out there. However, I do feel that Apple has taken plenty of shortcuts with the new iPhone 6, some of which include:

* Protruding camera
* Disgusting antenna bands
* Large bezels all around the phone, making the 4.7" iPhone nearly as large as the 5.1" GS5.
* Not much improved battery life
* No sapphire screen
* No Full-HD display in the iPhone 6
* UI which doesn't really utilize the larger screen of the iPhone 6

What are the odds that Apple will correct some of these points, come the iPhone 6S?

Right now, I can't make my mind up.

 

[scottw324]

If they made the base model 32GB, fewer people would upgrade. This way they try to make it more enticing for you to upgrade by going straight to 64GB.

Yeah, I am not complaining. I had no intentions of going with another 16GB model this year. I was planning on going with the 32GB version but I will gladly take the 64GB of storage for the 32GB price tag.

 

[Karma*Police]

Not really, seeing the reviews its also barely different from 5s

You're reading the wrong reviews cos I read that it is a big improvement. Just the fact that it can autofocus instantly and in real time when recording video is a huge leap over the 5s.

 

[toke lahti]

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."

Pretty arrogant journalist, fi he expects us to know what phones he has used...

 

[crawler1975]

i don't get the complaint from people saying that Apple ditched the 32GB size to have a bigger markup as well as a d*** move... it's the same $100 increase from 16GB but double the size at 64GB ...

 

[Karma*Police]

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.

But in the case of the WSJ review, if I remember correctly, the 100% brightness vs real world use case made a tremendous difference. The 6 was bested by the GS5 at 100% brightness but in a real world scenario, the 6 bested the GS5. So 100% brightness could be misleading because most people will have auto brightness turned on which was the case of the WSJ review. Another problem with 100% brightness is that one phone could have a higher nit rating than the other, making comparisons difficult.

 

[cdmoore74]

The Verge review was awful.

I want to see a review of the product without some shmuck saying, "I don't like the antenna lines" or "This is late to the game."

These people are so delusional and in their own world, I can't imagine being so self involved and pedantic.

I think what Engadget and theverge wrote was spot on but the scores are too high. I believe the iPhone 6 should have gotten a 8.5 and the plus should have gotten a 8. The design took a hit from the iPhone 5/5s and the software as of today takes no real advantage of the screen size. Blowing up all the apps (and even text entry boxes) sounds cheap. Developers will have less incentive to make apps take full advantage of the screen resolution and size. And apps designed for the 3.5" display will look like garbage on a 5.5" screen.

 

[Thereisnowill]

i don't get the complaint from people saying that Apple ditched the 32GB size to have a bigger markup as well as a d*** move... it's the same $100 increase from 16GB but double the size at 64GB ...

Not really from a monetary standpoint, but I think many were just expecting Apple to rid themselves of the 16 GB model and just do a 32, 64, and 128 lineup.

 

[MentalFloss]

Blowing up all the apps (and even text entry boxes) sounds cheap. Developers will have less incentive to make apps take full advantage of the screen resolution and size.

If that were true, then we would have hardly any iPad apps, because developers would be happy with relying on the "2X" mode on the iPad for their iPhone-optimized apps.

There will be sufficient apps which will make good use of the bigger screen. I am expecting an iMovie update to be just around the corner for example. In half a year, those reviews would look quite different, because there will be a lot of comments like "I couldn't live without app XYZ on the 6 Plus screen anymore."

 

[winston1236]

Does Apple release anything that impresses you?

Some of us are big fans of the computers and OSX but not the phones.

 

[anarche]

Here is a pretty rational review of IOS 8 on all models, including the iPhone 6. They say it's good even on a 4S

I especially like the 'hidden features':

OS 8 has a whole host of improvements and features that are slightly too niche to have made the headlines.

There's a couple of new display modes - including a greyscale mode which makes everything black and white. While many may use this feature to give their iPhone a slightly incongruous old-timey feel, it's probably of more use to people who are colourblind.

There's also a really useful battery usage breakdown in the settings app. It gives you a list of the apps that have been using the most battery over the last 24 hours or three days, with a percentage figure for each, letting you see which has been using the most juice.


Battery usage: WhatsApp is a bit of a beast
Find My iPhone can now be set to send a ping out to iCloud just before your battery runs out, giving a "last known location" feature, even if your lost device is out of juice.

There's also a new default search engine you can choose instead of Google or Bing. DuckDuckGo is a newer service which promises never to track its users searches or keep any data on them, and can be selected from Safari options in Settings.

Safari now blocks website ads from automatically loading the App Store without the user's permission.

But possibly the coolest hidden feature is credit card scanning. When Safari recognises you're entering card details into a website, it'll now give you the option to "scan" a card. That means taking a photo of your card, from which it'll detect the card number, expiry date and name. You'll still have to enter in the CCV number on the back, but it's a huge time saver.

 

[MacSince1990]

Not too happy about the 1 GB of RAM in the phones as reported by MacWorld. They'll be struggling to keep up when Apple eventually releases split-screen multitasking.

Yeah. Unless of course they've implemented Mavericks-style memory compression, and included faster NAND to use as VM. Or maybe the memory was never actually a problem in the first place and it just wasn't being handled properly.

 

[brdeveloper]

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.

Unless you're able to take pictures in raw format, then you can push the dynamic range further than any smartphone. Anyway, I would still buy a Nokia 808 if I got a good deal. Symbian really sucks these days because it's outdated, but I was a much more productive "street photographer" when I had a Nokia N8, which also had a nice 12MP camera with a 1/1.8" sensor.

I miss good cameras in smartphones. Let's hope the Lumia 1020 successor will beat 808 Pureview's performance.

 

[MacSince1990]

Here's the thing, Apple has done more testing than you would care to know about. Apple understands that the goal is to provide the vast majority of users, a battery life which will last them exactly 1 day (i.e. from the time they wake up, to the time they go to bed). The fact is, they've provided that. It makes absolutely no sense to go beyond the 1 day battery life, because you simply charge it overnight... It would only ever make sense when there is new battery tech which will last days or weeks.

The thing people need to do, when they can't get the battery to last a full day, is ask themselves why that is. Do you watch videos all day? If so, don't expect a full day of battery life, because remember, Apple isn't expecting the vast majority of users to be watching porn on their phones all day. Do you use one of the worst things ever created by man...Facebook? Then don't use that, because it's embarrassingly awful, and the app kills battery life I've heard. If you use it normally, then you need to google, or find the person's comment which I saw earlier, showing the common mistakes people make with too many unnecessary features killing their battery. For example I feel bad for anyone with Facebook, and not knowing what background app refresh is, because they might have that on, and that's like doomsday for your battery.

Eat your heart out, genius.

 

[crashoverride77]

I wish that they would get rid of the home button. The 6 Plus is bigger than the competition with the same size screen and harder to use one handed than it could be. One of the reviews also stated that the rounded edges make it more slippery than the 5S which is more squared edges.

So we loose Touch ID, no thank you.

 

[Aston441]

I can't decide whether to get the iPhone 6 or not.

Right now, I'm using the 5S 16GB. It's a great phone, feels perfect in the hand, offers all the performance I need. However, I have longed for a larger screen iPhone for a long time. Also, as apps are continuously growing in size and I take more pictures than ever due to the great camera, 16GB is getting cramped. I find myself having to delete apps and photos A LOT.

That said, I was pretty much set on getting the 6 in a larger storage configuration. Rumors suggested that 32GB would be the new standard size. Now Apple made a dick-move to keep the 16GB while completely removing 32GB. I would have much preferred if Apple made 32GB the baseline, or if they would have made it cheaper to upgrade from 16 to 32.

I guess you can't have the cake and eat it.

So, the iPhone 6 would get a bit more pricey than I had hoped. But, I'm fine with paying plenty of money as long as I get the best phone out there. However, I do feel that Apple has taken plenty of shortcuts with the new iPhone 6, some of which include:

* Protruding camera
* Disgusting antenna bands
* Large bezels all around the phone, making the 4.7" iPhone nearly as large as the 5.1" GS5.
* Not much improved battery life
* No sapphire screen
* No Full-HD display in the iPhone 6
* UI which doesn't really utilize the larger screen of the iPhone 6

What are the odds that Apple will correct some of these points, come the iPhone 6S?

Right now, I can't make my mind up.

or waterproof
or wireless charging
or real two to three day battery life
or that high quality Bluetooth audio thing
or 20MP camera

The Sony Z3 compact has all you listed, and the above, and more, for $600.

I'll look at the 6 in the store when it arrives but I think I'll feel like a Dufus if I waste so much money on an iPhone so that Ive and Cook can laugh at me while sailing on the bay.

 

[brdeveloper]

Pretty arrogant journalist, fi he expects us to know what phones he has used...

Don't know how a small sensor camera with only 8MP will beat other cameras from manufacturers which have more expertise on the area, like Nokia, Sony and Samsung (yes, Samsung has a good reputation on mirrorless cameras).

Now Panasonic announced a mirrorless camera inside an almost smartphone-sized case. Can't understand how reputed review sites can be so biased to ignore the existence of Nokia, Sony, Samsung and the recently announced killer cameraphone from Panasonic.

http://www.gsmarena.com/panasonic_lumix_smart_camera_cm1-6675.php

 

[Jimmy James]

It's bigger, works well. Got it.

 

[itsmemuffins]

Like a disturbance in the force, the Android community cry out in a collective butt hurt...

 

[Padmini]

I think what Engadget and theverge wrote was spot on but the scores are too high. I believe the iPhone 6 should have gotten a 8.5 and the plus should have gotten a 8. The design took a hit from the iPhone 5/5s and the software as of today takes no real advantage of the screen size. Blowing up all the apps (and even text entry boxes) sounds cheap. Developers will have less incentive to make apps take full advantage of the screen resolution and size. And apps designed for the 3.5" display will look like garbage on a 5.5" screen.

Absolutely none of what you just said makes any sense. At all.

 

[crashoverride77]

I'll wait for the 6s+ in 12 months, more RAM, faster CPU, Sapphire glass, better camera...

I rather wait for the 7, better camera, more ram, faster gpu. Actually I rather wait for the 8 because better camera, more ram, faster gpu.
Most useless comment of the day goes too...

 

[danpass]

Nice to see TheVerge getting more publicity