The Iphone 6
The Good A bigger, crisp display, improved LTE and Wi-Fi speeds,
better camera autofocus, bumped-up storage capacities to 128GB at the top end,
and NFC Apple Pay mobile wallet features on the horizon.
The Bad In early tests, the iPhone 6's battery doesn't fare any
better than last year's model. Some Android phones fit an even-larger 5-inch
screen into the same size frame. It lacks the optical image stabilization of
the bigger, more expensive 6 Plus.
The Bottom Line The iPhone 6 delivers a bigger screen while remaining easy
to handle, with plenty of features to satisfy everyone -- and the promise of
Apple Pay on the horizon to potentially sweeten the deal even further.
I'm sitting on my sofa. I pull out
my phone to check sports scores. Wait, which phone was it again? I'm starting
to lose track. For a second, I think it's the 6 Plus. Wait, it's the 6.
I've been using the iPhone 6 and the
6 Plus side by side for a week, and I can tell you this: both of Apple's new
iPhones have better, big displays. And both make the iPhone 5S'
screen seem small. But I'm having a hard time picking which one I prefer.
That's pretty frustrating. At least I know this: the iPhone 6 is a lot like the
Plus...minus a few features.
For years, Android phones have
shipped with displays in expansive, 5-inch-ish sizes, but Apple has stubbornly
insisted on the necessity of a small screen for one-handed operation. The iPhone 5S, while powerful, hit a wall in
viewing room: its 4-inch screen was among the smallest on the market, and,
frankly, I found it limiting.
The iPhone 6 (left) and the 6 Plus CNET
No longer. Now, Apple has created
two larger iPhones, one big, the other even bigger: the iPhone 6 sports a
4.7-inch screen, while the iPhone 6 Plus goes full "phablet" with a
5.5-inch display. Both of the new iPhones boast flatter designs, ship with
somewhat faster A8 processors, slightly improved cameras, speedier Wi-Fi and
LTE, better voice quality if you're using voice-over-LTE, and more onboard
storage.
Both 2014 models also incorporate Apple Pay, the new and potentially revolutionary
NFC-powered payment system that turns the phone into a credit card. Apple Pay
could be the biggest feature on these new iPhones if it works as advertised;
stay tuned for more on that when it
The iPhone 5S, the 6, and the 6
Plus. CNET
6,
or 6 Plus?
See, here's the problem: Apple has
added two phones at once for the first time. And they're both pretty similar.
So which one do you pick?
The good news is that the iPhone 6,
which feels great to hold, has nearly all the same features as the 6 Plus. The
iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus both have larger screens than previous iPhones. They
both have new A8 processors. They both have 16, 64, or 128GB of storage. They
both come in three colors: white/silver, white/gold, and space gray, which is
black/darker silver.
The differences between the two
aren't that tremendous, but they're important. The 6 has a 4.7-inch,
1,344x750-pixel display. The 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch, 1,920x1,080-pixel display,
plus optical image stabilization in the camera and the ability to run more apps
in horizontal-landscape mode, with split-screen effects like an iPad. It's also significantly bigger,
and weighs more -- but it does have a longer battery life.
You're not losing much with the 6.
But it's not the absolute top of the line, and maybe that bugs you. If it does,
get the 6 Plus.
For potential buyers of both phones,
here's how it breaks down:
For owners of older iPhones looking
to upgrade, these new iPhones are massive
leaps in screen size. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 will probably be more than enough,
but the 6 Plus may be downright intimidating unless you're looking for a
mini-tablet.
For Android owners who once jumped
ship from iOS and want to come back,
this is the iPhone generation you've been waiting for. It's the best iPhone
since the iPhone 5. Back then, 4G LTE and an improved screen and camera made
the difference. This time, a larger screen, a fast processor, NFC with Apple
Pay (although likely only that), the additional customization features of iOS 8, and
bumped-up storage tiers go a long way to close the feature gap with current top
Android phones.
For iPhone 5S owners or habitual
iPhone upgraders, think of the chief advantages as a
bigger screen and the potential of Apple Pay. The improved processor, camera,
4G LTE and Wi-Fi speeds, and possible battery-life gains are steps up, but not
massive leaps. In other words, if you don't have a strong desire for the larger
screen, you could easily ride your iPhone 5S (running iOS 8) for 12 more
months, and wait for the inevitable iPhone 6S and 6S Plus in 2015.
For hard-core Android fans, well, there are Android phones that cost less, have
higher-resolution screens, boast better battery life, have removable SD card
storage, and even removable batteries. You won't find all of these on an iPhone
6, but this is the most attractive iPhone yet. You can't have everything in
Appleland.
|
Apple
iPhone 6
|
Apple
iPhone 6 Plus
|
Samsung
Galaxy S5
|
Motorola
Moto X (2014)
|
|
US
base price (with two-year agreement)
|
$199
|
$299
|
$199
|
$99
|
|
UK
base price (unlocked)
|
£539
|
£619
|
£350
|
£420
|
|
Australia
base price (unlocked)
|
AU$869
|
AU$999
|
AU$900
|
N/A
|
|
Display
size/resolution
|
4.7-inch 1,344x750 IPS (326 ppi)
|
5.5-inch 1,920x1,080 IPS (401 ppi)
|
5.1-inch 1,920x1,080 Super AMOLED
(432 ppi)
|
5.5-inch 1,920x1,080 AMOLED (423
ppi)
|
|
Processor
|
1.39GHz Apple A8 (64-bit)
|
1.38GHz Apple A8 (64-bit)
|
2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
(Krait400)
|
2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
(Krait400)
|
|
RAM
|
1GB
|
1GB
|
2GB
|
2GB
|
|
Internal
storage
|
16GB, 64GB or 128GB
|
16GB, 64GB or 128GB
|
16GB, 32GB
|
16GB, 32GB
|
|
Expandable
storage
|
No
|
No
|
Yes (microSD)
|
No
|
|
Networking
|
802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0
|
802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0
|
802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0
|
802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0
|
|
Operating
system
|
iOS 8
|
iOS 8
|
Android 4.4.2
|
Android 4.4.4
|
|
US
carriers
|
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Verizon
|
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Verizon
|
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Verizon
|
AT&T, Verizon
|
Design
My favorite-feeling 4.7-inch phone,
the one that proved larger screens could be made in compact sizes, was the 2013
Motorola Moto X. Does the iPhone 6 pull off the same feel? It's close, but
different.
The new iPhone design may seem bold
and different, or possibly a little like the HTC One M8's curved metal, but
it's also still very Apple. In fact, it's kind of like the iPod Touch design,
or how the iPads are made. This iPhone is slightly thinner than before, but it
feels much thinner; part of that's the increased screen size, and partly
it's the curved design. Glass from the front folds ever so slightly around the
edges, and the sharp industrial hard edges of the iPhone 5 and 5S are
completely gone.
It also feels a little like the
original iPhone, which had a curved design, too.
The new iPhone feels good to hold
and beautifully solid; the metal back and glass front are smoothed, and
comfortable. But it also has a slight aura of fragility; maybe it's the
extra-slim look, or the massive pane of curved glass on the front. I instantly
wanted to slip it into a case just to be safe.
Also, the slightly protruding camera
lens on the back of the iPhone 6, while similar to the one on the fifth-gen
iPod Touch, made me worry about placing the phone down on rough surfaces,
regardless of the sapphire lens.
The volume buttons, which were
round, raised buttons before, are now elongated like those on the iPod Touch
and iPad. The top-right power/sleep button has shifted to the right, like you
find on some Android phones. It takes some getting used to, but it's easier to
press now that the phone is bigger.
CNET
A round Touch ID home button remains
at the bottom, and works the same as on last year's iPhone 5S: a simple press
unlocks your phone, and it works amazingly well most of the time. This year,
iOS 8 and Apple Pay will allow you to do more with Touch ID, making it an even
more essential feature. But reaching that home button isn't quite as easy with
one hand as it was before.
The 2013 Moto X (left), iPhone 6 (center), Nexus 5 (right).
See what I mean?
If I have one problem with the new
design, it's the bezel around the display. It's still big; bigger than most
Android phones. It means that an iPhone 6 with its 4.7-inch screen is the same
size as some 5-inch screen phones. For instance, the iPhone 6 is about the same
height and width as a Nexus 5, which has a larger 5-inch screen, but larger
than last year's Moto X, which fits the same 4.7-inch display into a more
compact body.
Both the Moto X and Nexus 5 are
thicker, but the iPhone 6's thin design also means a larger, flatter body. The
iPhone 6 measures 5.4 by 2.6 inches, and 0.3 inch thick (138 by 67 by 69 mm).
It weighs 4.5 ounces, or 128 grams.
Can that bezel be reduced next time,
perhaps? Sure, the Touch ID home button needs to fit below the screen, but the
extra space on top could have been been shaved down (assuming Jony Ive can live
without a symmetrical design).
Yes, the new iPhone 6 is still
one-hand friendly, and a whole bunch more so than the iPhone 6 Plus. There's
even a sometimes useful but weird software feature called Reachability that
pulls the top half of the display down to midscreen with a light double-tap of
the Home button, for easy thumb access. It's helpful for one-handed use. I just
wish the whole phone was a little less big...or that it could fit a slightly
bigger screen in the same chassis.
CNET
Display:
Improved, but good enough?
The iPhone 6 has an increased
4.7-inch display, a similar screen size as last year's Moto X. It's big for
Apple phones, but still on the smaller side for Android phones, which have
moved, lately, to the 5-inch territory.
iPhones have always had phenomenal
displays, in terms of brightness and color quality both: David Katzmaier here
at CNET has tested the last few, and they've been among the tops in
smartphones.
We haven't done full display testing
on these new iPhones yet -- stay tuned for that -- but the iPhone 6's 4.7-inch
IPS display looks vivid, rich, and as good as that on the iPhone 5 or 5S, just
bigger. But not that much bigger. The display's 1,344x750-pixel resolution is
higher than the iPhone 5/5C/5S' 1,136x640, but it has the same 326ppi pixel
density. It's a good step up, and a big help for nearly anything you'd use your
phone's screen for.
A grid of six-by-four apps now fits
on each page plus the four in the dock below, for 28 total: on the 5's 4-inch
display, it's 24. There are more pixels horizontally and vertically, unlike the
merely vertical lengthening of the iPhone 5. That also means the aspect ratio's
the same, and videos and Web pages scale similarly.
A handy comparison of all iOS screen
sizes: 4S, 5S, 6, 6 Plus, iPad Mini, iPad Air. CNET
There aren't any optimized apps that
take advantage of the extra pixels, other than Apple's core preinstalled apps,
but older apps still scale up and fill the space without black bars. The
results are mixed: the Kindle app and Netflix actually looked great, and text
and video were crisp.
Many games look great, too, even
without updating: Badland, Riptide GP2, Unpossible, and text-based games like
Device 6. Some apps, however, have icons, keyboards and buttons that end up
looking too large in the magnified display size. App updates will likely take
care of this for most situations in the weeks to come, but right now it's not a
perfect transition.
The iPhone 6 Plus has an even more
impressive 1,920x1,080 5.5-inch display and 406 pixels per inch, but it's also
a much larger phone. For my tastes, I'd go with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. My
opinion might change as I slowly accept ever-larger phones. I still think many
people will find this 4.7-inch screen to be perfectly good, and perfectly
functional while still being portable. But in the world of modern smartphones,
the 6's screen resolution is a step below ideal.
It's much better than older iPhones,
though. After a week using the iPhone 6, my iPhone 5S screen looks like the one
on a first-gen iPhone.
Performance:
Faster still
How fast do we need our phones to
be? The potential of last year's crazily-fast-on-paper A7 processor still
hasn't been fully tapped. The new A8 processor on the iPhone 6 isn't quite the
quantum leap the A7 was. It's a 64-bit dual-core processor just like the A7,
but Apple claims a 25 percent boost in speed and 50 percent graphics boost over
last year's iPhone 5S.
In our tests (see the benchmarks
below), we found that the A8, while faster, is a decent bump rather than a
giant vault. Depending on which benchmark test you look at, the new processor
was either above other phones (SunSpider 1.0.2, Linpack) or more in the middle
of the pack (Geekbench 3, 3DMark).
These don't necessarily tell the
whole story, but the A8 isn't a leap over the competition; it's more of a step
forward year-over-year from the A7, while mobile processors keep getting faster
all around. But really, what you want to know is, how do apps feel? The UI and
app-launching speed of the new iPhone is zippy as always.
What will really prove how things
feel are apps optimized for the new display. Those aren't really here yet in
time for this early review, but stay tuned for future impressions with iPhone
6-tweaked games and apps. Also, keep in mind that Apple's new Metal coding tool
for gaming could help iOS games perform even better with the A8 than what these
initial benchmarks suggest.
