Apple iPhone 6s Plus - The phone that wants to be everything
The Apple iPhone 6s Plus is a VERY big phone, in fact it falls into the 'phablet' size, such that it's bigger than a phone but smaller than a tablet, this market has been dominated by the Samsung Galaxy Note range for a number of years, but with two handsets currently available Apple are certainly treating the format seriously.
I've been testing the iPhone 6s Plus which has a number of performance and functional improvements over the standard 6 Plus, namely the faster A9 and M9 processors and Taptic Engine display with 3d Touch screen functionality.
The screen remains at Full HD or 1080 resolution with Apple choosing not to up the resolution of UHD along with it's rival Samsung or even to 4K which can be found in the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium. Instead they stick with the tried and tested 401ppi density 1920 x 1080 display, this actually gives it a performance lead over the higher resolution devices because it doesn't need to paint as many pixels for each frame of video and it's very difficult to tell the difference unless you use these devices in a VR headset such as Google Cardboard where you are looking at the screen millimetres away from your eyes.
The screen is very bright with excellent colour balance, it is coated with anti fingerprint smear coating which works surprisingly well. The case is fashioned from a single block of aluminium and feels very comfortable to hold. My device was 'Space Grey' and although quite heavy to hold compared to my current Samung Galaxy 6 Edge, felt really sturdy and nowhere near as slippery as other devices. The fingerprint login worked flawlessly, although being an Android user, I did miss the 'Back' button.
Software wise, the iPhone is loaded with lots of useful apps, my only criticism is the inclusion of the Apple Watch app which you can't help but assume was included as a 'nag' to buy their wearable. Apps run very quickly and graphics hungry apps are no match for this brute. It's not surprising that everything runs flawlessly due to Apple's strict rules, but it's still amazing to see mobile apps running on a phone but matching the graphics and sound quality of dedicated gaming devices.
The phone comes with a Lightning charger cable, UK plug and Apple Headphones. The sound quality from the external speaker is excellent and the same can be said for the headphones. You will be heavily locked into Apple iTunes and App Store, however I am a subscriber to Google Play Music and was able to run this app along with Google Play Movies that I have purchased over the years, so I didn't feel that these services were completely locked out anymore, you can even download Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to use as web browsers as an alternative to the included Safari browser which I found useful as I was able to share my bookmarks from my Android phone, PC and iMac.
The front and rear facing cameras are excellent as you would expect from an Apple device, the 12mp rear camera (upgraded from 8mp) now supports 'Live Photos', these are photos that contain a short video clip, so they come alive when viewing them in the gallery, this isn't a new idea as it was previous found on HTC devices as 'Zoe', but is a good addition all the same. If you want to shoot video you can now do this in 4K at 30fps with Optical Image Stabilisation. If you want slow motion video, you can shoot at 240fps and 720p resolution.
I freely admit, I love the size of the phone, I previously owned a Galaxy Note 3 which is similar in size and I felt right at home with the enormous display. If you are ready to upgrade your phone and are prepared for a higher price contract that usual, the iPhone 6s Plus is definitely worth looking at.
