Three days with the iPhone 6 Plus
I've now had enough time with the iPhone 6 Plus to really get a feel for the device, so I thought I'd follow up Friday's "quick look" with a more detailed look at what's to like or dislike about the big new iPhone.
Battery Life
The folks at iFixit took apart a 6 Plus immediately after they first started rolling out the doors in Australia on Friday, and they found a massive 2915 mAh battery inside the phone. How big is that? Consider that the iPhone 5s battery has a capacity of 1560 mAh. The 6 Plus battery pack is 86.8 percent larger than the one in the iPhone 5s. So what does that mean for the average user?
Over the weekend, my battery never got below 50 percent. This from a guy who normally sees that ominous red bar on the little battery icon and evening warnings about "You have less than 10% battery left." Does this make me happy? Heck, yeah. Does this mean I'll be able to skip my usual purchase of a Mophie Juice Pack? Yep.
How does this translate to benchmark results? Anandtech showed that the iPhone 6 Plus can get about 13.7 hours of web browsing done on a single charge. The iPhone 5s, on the other hand, maxed out at about 9 hours.
Display
I can't say enough good things about the display. As a nearsighted person who is on the downhill side of his fifties right now, I found that with my earlier iPhones I was constantly pulling my glasses off and putting the phone close to my face so I could actually read what was on the screen. Now it's possible for me to just look at this screen and actually read everything clearly.
Being able to read emails in landscape orientation on the iPhone 6 Plus made me very, very happy. I also found that it's much easier to see what's on the screen in broad daylight; taking pictures with the 6 Plus is a joy... and speaking of that...
Camera
Two things make me very happy about the iPhone 6 Plus camera. First, focusing is incredibly quick. No more waiting on the camera to focus, and when shooting video and doing zooms, the video is almost always in sharp focus. On earlier iPhones, it would drift out of focus frequently so I never really wanted to shoot a lot of video. That's going to change. The other thing? The new time-lapse function. I've used other apps (three of them to be exact) to shoot time-lapse video in the past. I've deleted all three. I kept Hyperlapse just because it's so cool. I haven't really had a chance to test the Optical Image Stabilization in the 6 Plus so I'll just keep quiet about that for now.
I did some side by side shooting on Friday with the 5s and the 6 Plus. Here are some of those images, and I've also uploaded the full-sized originals to a slideshow for inspection.
First, I took two shots of the same flower and then zoomed in to see the details. The iPhone 5s image (always on the left) seemed to have more visible pixelation. The 6s photo showed more saturated color and much more details in the shadows.
Next, under identical conditions from the same spot, the iPhone 6s image (right) was slightly darker overall, once again with much better color saturation. Contrast in the cloud/sky barrier was much improved as well. To my eyes, though, the iPhone 5s photo was a much better representation of actual lighting and colors.
Next was a shot looking towards the sun, with some flowering rabbit brush in the foreground. Once again the iPhone 6 Plus shot (right) was a bit darker and more contrasty in the sky, with more color saturation. Other than that, not too much difference between the overall look of the photos.
Finally, another shot of those beautiful wild shrubs. In this one, the detail in the background seems to be sharper for the iPhone 6 Plus, and once again we see slightly darker tones, more saturation of the colors, and higher contrast in the sky and clouds.
If you wish to look at the photos close up, please feel free to use this slideshow:
For the most part, I think the biggest positive changes in the iPhone 6 Plus for photography are the fast focus and easier-to-view display. I do like the additional saturation, although it can make some photos appear slightly dark to my eyes.
Size
The most frequent question I get from people: "Is it hard to hold a phone that big?" The answer is no. I don't have big hands, yet I found talking on the iPhone 6 Plus to be quite easy. The sound from the ear speaker is much clearer and louder to my ears than on the iPhone 5s, and people I was talking to said that my voice was coming in much louder -- probably due to the length of the phone bringing the microphone closer to my mouth!
I like the reachability mode when using the phone one-handed. A double-tap (not click) on the Home button moves items at the top of the screen down to the middle where they're reachable. This was a brilliant move on Apple's part for the big screen iPhones.
One thing I'm not fond of
The location of the sleep/wake button has moved from the top of the phone to the right side. I find myself still instinctively going to the top of the phone to put it to sleep.
Overall impression after three days
If I had any doubts about how I'd like a larger iPhone, they're totally gone. The size is entirely a positive to me, both in terms of the excellent battery life and the clear and incredibly readable display. The speed of the device in impressive, and the ability to do things on this phone I've never been able to easily do -- like actually edit and publish TUAW posts -- makes it the most useful iPhone I've owned.
Owners of the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus: I'd like to hear your comments and what you think about your new iPhone. Leave your comments below.
