iPhone 6 Plus Review: The First really Well-Designed Big Smartphone

Apple I Phone 6 plus

Apple is launching not one, but two premium smart phones today, and the I phone 6 Plus is the one many possibly were disbelieving even existed just a few short months ago. With a screen size measuring 5.5-inches across the diagonal, it’s well into the field labeled “phablet” on the early sea charts of mariners who’ve braved the Android waters. However, Apple’s version of a Smartphone that strains the inclusion of “phone” in any word telling it might revelation even those dead set against the trend toward ever-bigger mobile screens.

Basics

•     5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 displays, 401 ppi with 1300:1 contrast

•     16, 64 or 128GB storage

•     A8 processor (64-bit)

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  I phone 6 Plus

  8MP insight camera (rear) with 1.5 micron pixels and optical image stabilization, 1.2 megapixel Face Time camera (front)

•     Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi

•     20-band LTE support

•     MSRP: 16GB for $299 on contract/$749 contract free; 64GB for $399 on contract/$849 contract free; 128GB for $499 on contract/$949 contract free

Pros

 
    Larger screen is great for productivity and media consumption
    Battery and camera obviously better than iPhone 6

 

Cons

    Not a one-handed device for most
    Priced above even the usual premium segment

 

Design

The iPhone 6 Plus is accurately an exaggerated version of the iPhone 6 in terms of its physical design, with extent stretched to accommodate its much larger 5.5-inch display. It’s 0.01-inches thicker, just under half-an inch wider, and just under an inch taller than the iPhone 6, and you’ll notice each of those increase in the hand, including the additional thickness, even if it is just a shade of difference. In terms of carrying and holding the device, the additional size makes for a less ‘perfect’ ergonomic quality, something the iPhone 6 absolutely achieves, but there’s still lots to love about the engineering design of the 6 Plus.

Like the iPhone 6, it benefits from rounded edges and smooth surfaces that recall the iPad mini and iPad Air. The curved sides make it easier to page back and forth through content with swipes, and it’s easy to imagine how a design with right angles would’ve resulted in an uncomfortable grip with a device this size. The screen is also the star here, and that 5.5-inch high res beauty is set off by thin side bezels, and top and bottom bezels that appear much smaller since they take up a far smaller entitlement of the overall front surface of the device.

Attention to detail is Apple’s forte, and that’s apparent in the way the volume keys, relocated power button (it’s on the right side now) and lock switch are all machined. Perforations including the speaker holes on the bottom right are similarly well-executed, and overall the sense you get of the iPhone 6 Plus is one of extreme high quality, which is not something that can be said for the rest of the ‘phablet’ field. Apple has managed to make the very first well-designed smartphone of epic scale, regardless of your thoughts on the plus point of the category as a whole.

Performance

The iPhone 6 Plus may be powering a much larger display, and it may need to output content at a higher resolution, but it’s not showing any additional strain vs. the iPhone 6 despite the extra spadework required. The 64-bit A8 process that Apple has designed, which uses a new, smaller and more power-efficient 20nm process, is more than up to the task of serving up animations, swipes, switches and multitasking for the 6 Plus.

If you’re new to the world of iOS and iPhone, you’ll most likely just note that the performance is excellent and move on. But if you’re upgrading from an older device, like perhaps the iPhone 4 or 4S, you’re going to instantly take note of just how speedy everything is with this new processor architecture. The screen sizes are stealing headlines, but the performance of the A8, in graphics-intensive applications and in rendering interface additions, means that you’ll be feeling the effects of Apple’s next-generation processor improvements long after people are used to the bigger displays.

The iPhone 6 Plus, like the iPhone 6, also features faster wireless performance, on both cellular and Wi-Fi connections. The 802.11ac Wi-Fi felt blazingly fast when used on my home network, which is run from a current-generation Airport Extreme that supports the latest Wi-Fi speeds. LTE is now able to handle up to 150 mbps connections, where supported (and with 20 bands supported on a single model number, you’re more likely to find it works with carriers around the world). Apple has also worked with carriers to get LTE roaming working with more international carrier arrangements, and I found that my AT&T testing sim provided a strong Rogers LTE connection here in Canada.


Features

Apple has brought a number of great new features to both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, including Apple Pay, which works as advertised in demos but will launch publicly in October in the U.S., and ‘Focus Pixels’ phase discovery autofocus for faster, better picture taking. But there are a few featues that are specific to the iPhone 6 Plus that make it a device destined to appeal to both power users and everyday customers looking to simplify their life with a single gadget, instead of requiring both a tablet and phone (and even a computer).

Reach ability is the feature Apple created to help users deal with much larger devices, in spite of the size of their hands and digits. The iPhone 6 Plus leans on this especially, as it’s impossible for anyone not in the NBA to reach their thumb across to the top opposite corner. I find it difficult to even reach across the other side of the screen, let alone the corner, when one-handing the device. Reach ability helps reach the stuff that’s in the top row, but it doesn’t bring down the status bar on the Home screen (it does in app), which would be helpful, and it’s still a stretch to reach the relocated opposite corner.

For the majority tasks, I find the iPhone 6 Plus to be a two-handed device – but I also find that I’m absolutely fine with that. The 6 Plus is closer in usage style to an iPad mini, in my experience, albeit one that’s pocket able and capable of full cellular voice communications. Part of the reason that it works so well as a tablet-style gadget is that Apple has introduced special landscape support for both the home screen and some its first-party apps, which really add to my capability to be productive using them.

The apps in question include Mail, Messages and Calendar, and these now offer up overviews in a column on the left, and detail views on the right, much like they do on tablet or desktop devices. In Mail, it lets you quickly scroll through and triage your email without having to constantly swipe back and forth, and in Messages, it lets you keep abreast of the latest goings on in multiple conversations at once. Using these landscape views successfully almost requires two-handed use, but it ends up feeling well worth the trade-off.

Apple has also introduced new optical image stabilization for still pictures to the iPhone 6 Plus, and the effects are very remarkable.