iPhone 6 Plus Review

Not too long ago, I concluded that the iPhone 6 was the “perfect iPhone” because it had just about everything an iPhone user ever wanted from having an upgraded screen, improved camera, OS enhancements, etc which made something already great, better. Factor in the larger screen without the sacrifice of one handed use and you have a winner. But what if you wanted more? What if a 4.7-inch display just wasn’t enough for you? And what if you wanted to have the piece of mind of Optical Image Stabilization on your smartphone camera even though the iPhone 6 does a great job at taking photos already? Well, for a $100 more and the sacrifice of some of your pocket’s real estate, this is where the iPhone 6 Plus comes in.

Pretty much the same iPhone, but Bigger

The iPhone 6 Plus is more or less a larger iPhone 6 so the features and design cues are very identical so I am not going to spend that much time on what’s already been covered in my iPhone 6 Review. Instead I am going to focus on the day to day usage of the iPhone 6 Plus and how this knocked out the “perfect iPhone” out of my pocket, and into my wife’s purse.

When looking at the size of the iPhone 6 Plus, it’s dimensions of 6.22” x 3.06” x .28” puts it into the “phablet’ category which directly competes with the larger phones such as the Galaxy Note series. Speaking of the Note, thanks to Samsung the phablet category has really taken off which is the reason for the existence of the iPhone 6 Plus. There is no hiding the fact that this is a large phone and that the size alone could be a turn off for some people. Hell it may not even be practical to own because it might not be comfortable to hold, will need both hands, and will take a lot more space in a pocket.

Transitioning from the iPhone 6 to the 6 Plus was somewhat of a shock because of the difference in size. However, that shock lasted only for a few hours after accepting the size of the phone. People who complain that it’s too big don’t really use it enough to appreciate the screen size. I’ve owned the Galaxy Note 2 and 3 before so it was pretty easy for me, but for long time iPhone users, going from a 4-inch iPhone 5 or 5s to the iPhone 6 may seem good enough for most people and that’s usually going to be the case… until they REALLY try out the iPhone 6 Plus for at least a week, not just sticking it in your pocket and playing with it at the Apple Store.

The iPhone 6 is definitely much more comfortable to hold because of the width, weight, and design of the device and gives a much better one handed experience. When using an iPhone 6 Plus, two hands is a must when texting, Facebook posting, Tweeting, or any type of work but if you are just reading stuff from social media, Flipboard, or books, then using it one handed is not really a problem (I’m 5’8 with medium sized hands) for me.

Most of us carry our phones in our pockets. The iPhone 6 Plus gets the same type of treatment. I believe that it’s not practical if it’s not pocketable so I’ve been carrying this thing in my front and back pockets for about a month already without any problems. Granted that it’s much more obvious to me that it’s there and not as stealthy as the smaller iPhone 6, it’s not as bothersome as most people would think. It just takes time to get used to. On my first few hours of switching over from the iPhone 6, it was somewhat of a challenge putting it in my pockets and taking it out. You have to develop a technique and train yourself to be a little more careful doing so because it’s wider and heavier but then it becomes natural after awhile. Again, trying this in an Apple Store is not enough to make any decisions.

Get a case, seriously

The iPhone 6 Plus, like the smaller iPhone 6 has a solid build made of aluminum with rounded edges. It also inherits the slippery feel and you have to be even more careful in handling this phone because of the larger weight and size. The first hour of using the phone, I almost dropped it a couple of times! This is why I recommend using a case, preferably one of the ones made by Apple or Spigen. I personally use the thin Air Cases from Spigen but the Neo Hybrid or even the leather case from Apple adds better grip to the device. With aluminum build phones like the iPhone or even the HTC One M8, they are also very prone to scratches so if you’re going to roll naked, then make sure you put this in a pocket that doesn’t have coins or keys!

Bigger screen makes the world of difference

You’re not buying this phone because it’s heavier and physically larger. You’re buying this because of the bigger screen. The screen is the sole purpose of why the iPhone 6 Plus exists otherwise you’d just get the iPhone 6 or another smaller mainstream phone. The iPhone 6 Plus has a beautiful, eye-popping 5.5 inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920×1080 at 401-ppi that runs in circles around the smaller iPhone 6’s 4.7-inch  1344×750 326 ppi screen. What does this mean? It means you will see your Netflix or other 1080 movies the way they were meant to be shown at the native resolution, pictures and text will be sharper and easier to read, and you will be able to see more on the screen. There are other phones that outdo the iPhone 6 Plus such as the Note 4 with a 5.7-imch AMOLED screen at a mega 2560 x 1440 resolution with 518 ppi so that is something to consider if you want MORE screen or in the market for an Android device vs iOS. However, when it comes to iPhones, this is the best looking display available and it can hold it’s own against the competition. Viewing the screen outdoors on a sunny day is much more tolerable than on the Note 3 or on my HTC One M8 thanks to the polarized display which also helps look at it from multiple angles.

I had the iPhone 6 for a week, which was a very welcoming upgrade coming from the iPhone 5s and I appreciated the 4.7-inch screen but knowing that a larger iPhone was an option, it wasn’t enough. I work as a director of sales for a telecom company and running reports, working on sales force and view spreadsheets every day on the go every day. I also do freelance journalism on the side so a lot of reading and writing is involved. I was able to perform ALL of these tasks on the iPhone 6 wonderfully, and I tolerated doing these on the smaller iPhone 5 and 5s for the past few years but think about it… if there was a better way to get all of these things done on a bigger screen, why wouldn’t I take it?

There are also a few things that Apple has implemented on the larger 6 Plus that’s absent on the iPhone 6 in regards to having a larger display. For instance in landscape mode you can get a split screen view of selecting text or email threads on the left and then viewing the entire message on the right side as shown above.

I did run into a few issues with some apps that currently are not optimized for the larger iPhone screens. Although the issue isn’t as apparent on the iPhone 6, it’s somewhat of a BIGGER issue on the 6 Plus. The fonts, image, and sometimes the entire app itself looks too overblown and some to the point where they are unusable. The power bar, time, keyboard just get way into your face but these issues will continue to remedy over time as developers code their apps to work with the newer iPhones. This is some what similar to what happened when we transitioned from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5.

Regardless of the setbacks of the apps, (not Apple’s fault), I am totally sold on the fact that owning a larger iPhone is much more suited for my uses. Viewing and editing photos, watching videos, viewing reports, spreadsheets, etc all make much more sense on a larger screen.

Awesome camera with Optical Image Stabilization as a perk

Like the iPhone 6, the 6 Plus continues Apple’s 4 year streak of sticking with an 8MP rear facing camera. The camera’s between the two phones are very identical and that’s actually a good thing because the iPhone 6 has one of the best smart phone cameras to date. What’s even better is that with a bigger screen, you have a 5.5-inch view find which is a great help for framing your photo. What you also get with the 6 Plus is Optical Image Stabilization, a feature that is missing on the the iPhone 6. While OIS doesn’t really benefit photos taken in the day light, it improves your photos in low light situations and reduce blur in the dark. Again the iPhone 6 camera is already a great camera as it is, the OIS for the Plus is just a minor added perk in my opinion as photos look very identical on both cameras. OIS isn’t on the front facing camera so it won’t improve your selfies in any way. This year’s iPhone camera’s aren’t too big of a leap from the iPhone 5s but improving something that’s already great is nothing to complain about.

Here are some photos taken with the iPhone 6 Plus (non edited or manipulated)

Long battery life is a better tradeoff for portability

With a bigger phone, you get a bigger battery. The iPhone 6 Plus comes built in with a 2915mAh battery that just dwarf’s the iPhone 6’s 1810mAh and outlasts it by several hours. I am a medium to heavy user dealing with several conference calls (utilizing the speakerphone), viewing reports, sending emails, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and watching at least a 45 minute long TV episode of some sort on Netflix while I work out at the gym. I start my day with the phone unplugged from the charger at 7AM and I usually don’t have to worry about charging the phone for the rest of the day. By 11:30PM, I still have 15-20% battery remaining and that’s on a really busy work day. On the iPhone 6, doing all of the same tasks, my battery would be dead by 8PM or earlier. Carrying a larger phone with a larger battery is much more portable than having an ugly battery case or having to be tethered to a charger or battery pack!

Apple Pay (where available) is easy to use

On the unveiling of the new iPhone’s, Apple showed off it’s NFC capabilities where you can make credit card payments at many retailers using your smartphone. This feature has been around for years with Android but is definitely going mainstream in the US thanks to Apple. With the release of iOS 8.1 for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, all you do is open Passbook, take a photo of your credit card, but in the requested information and you are ready to go. I’ve used Apple Pay so far in Walgreens, MacDonald’s and Whole Foods. What’s great is that you don’t even have to unlock your phone and launch any applications. Just hold your phone of the wireless payment terminal and use Touch ID to authenticate the payment. This works the same with with Google Wallet except Google uses a passcode instead of your fingerprint. All we need now is for more retailers to adopt NFC payments and then we will be heading a bit closer towards the future. What’s unfortunate is that Apple has locked down the NFC features down to just making mobile payments, and not for anything else so far.

Try it for at least a week, there’s no going back to a smaller screen

I’ve had the iPhone 6 for a few weeks and thought it was great. But then after getting over the initial growing pains of transitioning to a larger smart phone, it just made more and more sense for me to use over the smaller iPhone. For those of you who think the iPhone 6 Plus is just too big, give it a shot for a week and you may feel that this will be the right phone for you. The bigger screen, the slightly batter camera and the massive battery life made the 6 Plus made the choice obvious for me over what I considered to be the “perfect iPhone.” You get everything that’s awesome about the iPhone 6 and then a little more minus the portability but I can pocket the phone just fine and it has yet to bend on me.

For those who are in the market for a reliable smartphone with a big screen, the iPhone 6 Plus is a no brainer. If you are looking for a TRUE phablet, then the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is something to consider. Regardless, you can’t really go wrong either way depending on what your needs are but as of now, the iPhone 6 Plus is what I will be carrying in my pocket.

Pros:

• Gorgeous display
• Improved Overall Performance
• Great battery life
• Excellent Camera with Optical Image Stabilization
• Easiest smartphone to use with the largest App Library and support
• Apple Pay’s execution is wonderfully easy

Cons:

• Wasted screen space from large bezel
• Protruding camera rear camera lens ruins uniform design
• iOS 8 has its annoyances
• Can be uncomfortable to use one handed
• Still need more time for apps to be optimized for the larger iPhones, especially the 6 Plus
• Larger size is not for everyone
• NFC is so far limited only to Apple Pay

Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5

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